Is Noakes campaigning for womens rights? His last point about genetics shows how profound his misunderstanding about genetics is!
The question is does she recieve an unfair advantage due to an abundance of testosterone in her body? They could do this by measuring the amount of this hormone in her
body!
i agree
He's playing the political game so people and the very liberal IAAF and liberal universities keeps him around and relevant.
As far as his words go, its a joke. Everyone knows what Semenya is.
But the fact remains that human organisms have a mix of female and male properties. Semenya is an extreme example, but there are, no doubt, somewhat less pronounced cases.
Many top female athletes are exceptionally masculine - although some of that is due to drugs rather than genetic make up. How do we proceed? Some guidelines need to be spelled out. Do we simply allow athletes to declare themselves male or female?
If a male has breast in-plants,wears make up and considers himself female, should he be allowed to compete in women's events?
Where are the gay rights activists on this?
This is easy. Presence of testosterone producing testes - not allowed to compete vs Women. Logical and non-arbitrary.
orange juice wrote:
This is easy. Presence of testosterone producing testes - not allowed to compete vs Women. Logical and non-arbitrary.
What about ovatestes? You say non-arbitrary but there are lots of different possibilities.
I am sure you know more about just about everything, but especially about medicine and biology, than DR. Tim Noakes. I hope he is able to learn all you have to teach him.
Only allow open competition with no gender segregation. Make Olympic Track and Field a competition just for the fastest humans be they male or female.
Then we will not be wasting our time talking about such ridiculous stories.
Well that was my mate who posted that and he is Doctor in genetics, i am not saying he knows more that Dr Noakes but he knows his stuff on this subject!
Ah, geez, there is no ONE best answer to resolve this sticky issue. The IAAF is expected to announce their finding regarding Semenya at month end and is unlikely to give her the go-ahead to continue w/international comp. Based on what Dr Tim has said in the Times piece, he won't be pleased w/the IAAF's decision.
I have to wonder what the situation would have to be before Dr Tim rule a runner had an unfair advantage. He says he's unhappy Semenya was sent for testing. In part, because, "She is not running as fast as men nor is she running as fast as some other women." Earth to Dr Tim, comparing Semenya to men is disingeneous and she sure as hell is running faster that ALL other women. Plus, her unusually rapid ascension to the top seems aided by something unnatural.
And, he drags poor Mr Bolt into the discussion, '...that Usain Bolt is genetically different." Dr Tim, your point here is so difuse, it's immaterial.
I'm a fan of Dr Tim and his work but on this issue, we disagree.
What a ridiculous comment by Noakes! I wonder if the vast majority of women (99.9 % - perhaps) would want to compete against a mixed-gender individual. Without knowing all the science, it's very clear that something is going on with Semenya. And yes, I do think there is more work to be done to decide when a "woman" is actually a "man". I suspect there have been and are many such individuals on Earth, and many of them are very successful "Female" athletes. Maybe we need 3 categories of competition, said he, with tongue half-in-cheek...
Maybe very low testerone Males and very high testosterone Females could have their own competitions. That would level the playing field for both - I'll bet we see that within our lifetime...
Semenya is 100% male.
Undescended testicles at birth. Poorly trained african doctor removed his penis at birth because of the absence of testes.
Absolutely should not be allowed to compete.
Its not just an unbalanced mix of hormones. Her physical developement was altered by the excessive male hormone, giving her the musculature, hip shoulder ration of a man. Those are decidedly advatntageous charactersitics that men have. "She" has an unfair advantage, because of her devlopment as a male.
Since all humans are eligible to compete in the "open" class, there is no need to prove that Semenya is 100% male or even 51% male to prevent her from entering as a woman. If she is not 100% female, then she does not qualify for the exclusive class for females and therefore must compete in the open class (against the men and hypothetical very fast future woman).
Are we talking about Tinman?
Mr. Obvious wrote:
orange juice wrote:This is easy. Presence of testosterone producing testes - not allowed to compete vs Women. Logical and non-arbitrary.
What about ovatestes? You say non-arbitrary but there are lots of different possibilities.
Well ovatestes sound arbitrary. However, presence of testosterone producing testes = not allowed to compete vs. women, which is what Caster has. If Caster was different, it would be a different case. However, I think it's pretty clear that Caster has a performance advantage due to her Y chromosome (if we believe Testosterone is a performance enhancer, which it is), which means she shouldn't be competing against women, even if she considers herself a woman.
i propose we have a World Eunuch Games, or a Transgender Olympics. Instead of medals the athletes could recieve little gold-plated statues of Kratochvilova.
I say we lop off Alan Webb's "little webber" so he can bring home the gold for the red white and blue.
Mr. Obviouser wrote:
Well ovatestes sound arbitrary. However, presence of testosterone producing testes = not allowed to compete vs. women, which is what Caster has. If Caster was different, it would be a different case. However, I think it's pretty clear that Caster has a performance advantage due to her Y chromosome (if we believe Testosterone is a performance enhancer, which it is), which means she shouldn't be competing against women, even if she considers herself a woman.
Well, you are assuming a lot of facts that are not in evidence. We have no idea of what the actual results of Caster's tests were. As unlikely as it appears, it is possible the tests turned up nothing out of the norm. We just don't know.
You keep coming back to this non-arbitrary desire. Sure, it would be great if the world worked that way. It doesn't, especially with sex and gender. Seven billion people out there, you can find lots of different possibilities all along the spectrum. Just in your stated criteria, the IAAF apparently allows people w/ Androgen Insensitive Syndeome to compete as females. They have (or at least some of them have) testes that produce testosterone, their body just can't use it. The only thing I wish is that IAAF had published criteria for how they make their decisions regarding gender.
So not only am I a sucky male, but I suck because I am genetically partially a woman?
:(