Did Brittney Griner Turned Down Olympic Basketball Spot Because She Feared Gender Testing?

hmmm. Makes you wonder doesn't it? how can anybod possibly turn down an Olympic spot? Sadly I think it's just a matter of time before Griner is exposed. This will be a huge story when it does. Just like Caster, Griner will have "her" day.

This human (he/she) is exploiting our collegiate system, taking a scholarship away from someone else, probably engaged in scissoring all over campus... It's unnatural, and I think she should have to play against the men or else be kicked out of school and have scholarship revoked. This Olympics spot refusal is basically undeniable proof that the thing is a man.

Moot now that she has broken her wrist...

Britney Griner=Juwanna Mann=Caster Semenya.

How common is fear and ignorance amongst the little boys of letsrun?

What was the result of your gender test?

I just came up with that today and am not the only one with the thought

I think it's more likely that she is behind on school and had to take a ton of summer classes. Academic eligibility is more important in women's basketball because they can't go pro until they finish 4 years of college.

Does anyone know if Acromegaly and the resultant "abnormal" amount of GH will cause you to fail an Oly drug test?

It wouldn't be a stretch to think she has some sort of pituitary abnormality at her height.

A-man - while I agree that many of the posters here are hardly expressing their views in a mature or thoughtful fashion, I thought for some time that this Baylor athlete would not participate in the Olympics and subject herself to the testing regimen.

In this sense I think her coach (Kim Mulkey, who recently did get disciplined for violations in the recruitment of Griner and others) and support people are looking out for her interests far more, than, for example, the athletics union in South Africa did with Caster Semenya, who was compelled to have doubts about her sexuality played out on a world stage. While both Ms. Semenya and Ms. Griner are vulnerable people (and that is unfortunate), I think those around Griner are careful not to throw her to the wolves.

I only have sympathy for someone like Ms. Griner. She is merely different than others. And the NCAA and Baylor (likely wisely for her sake) don't really want to push the issue of her exact gender status, even though you can bet many of the women who compete against Ms. Griner privately complain.

I don't think appropriately raising the issue of gender with Ms. Griner is wrong or reflective of a narrow mind. What I do think is wrong is being disrespectful. Put another way, women's athletics have come a long way and the best thing that has occurred is that some, and I emphasize some, appreciate women's sports on their own merit and refrain from comparing them to men. Griner disrupts this meme, and her dominant play also disrupts the identity which is evolving and slowly attaching to women's sports.

Could have played into it... but she said it was because her mom is sick and needed to spend time with her.

I don't know how sick or if it is a terminal illness, but it is probably legit.

The comments on the linked sites are amusing because they show how blinded some people are by ideology. They want to blame questions about sex testing on "patriarchy" and male oppression, etc., etc.

The fact is that sports are segregated between men and women because if they weren't then almost all of the athletes would be men. If Baylor had a single, unisex basketball team, maybe Griner could make the team but none of the other women on Baylor's current women's team would. Segregation by sex exists to protect those women. Women's sports exclude men because if they didn't there would be hardly any sports opportunities for women.

It's amusing for feminists to complain that rules segregating sports by sex are "patriarchal" and somehow involve men oppressing women, when the opposite is true. Sports are segregated and women's sports exclude men in order to favor women and protect them from competition from men.

rickybobby wrote:

I think it's more likely that she is behind on school and had to take a ton of summer classes. Academic eligibility is more important in women's basketball because they can't go pro until they finish 4 years of college.

Griner could go overseas right now and make a ton more money than playing in the WNBA. You may have to be four years post high school to be in the WNBA but I highly doubt you have to have four years of college to play pro-ball.

Actually, you do not have to play 4 years of college ball to go pro or WNBA. It's age-based, and there's a few players who have let early, like Rutgers' E. Prince. The questions about Griner's gender have often been expressed for years and often crudely on the women's college basketball boards, so it is not a new question. Not sure it's a great answer trying to segregate her even if it was shown that her chromosomes don't quite match what some of us think are normal.

I'd probably still hit it.

It is unfathomable for a young female basketball player to turn down an opportunity to play on the USOT...not even for grades, sick Mom or whatever. Making an Olympic team gives you the ultimate opportunity to showcase your talent, make yourself more marketable for the WNBA and it's a big deal for your school as well and not to mention as an athlete getting the opportunity to play with and against great competition. For a female basketball player, it is a life changing event. There is nothing or no one that can convince me that there isn’t something behind the scenes why Brittney has chosen to not compete.

Btw, from what I heard a year ago from someone who knows her, Brittney is a female in ways we all think of it, but medically I guess it could be something different. With that said, we all need to careful how we discuss this issue, because this has nothing to do with Brittney as a person or anything that she has purposely done wrong.

I always wondered what happened to Greg Oden.

How does one "appropriately" raise the issue of gender? What would make it appropriate in Griner's case?

The IOC did away with gender testing in 1999, but the IOC's medical commission reserved the right to request a gender test on a one-off basis. It's highly unlikely that Griner would be subjected to any such test based on anything that's been offered on this thread so far.

I think that with Semenya the testing came about because of complaints by other women athletes. As I recall, the Italian runner complained to the press that Semenya wasn't a woman.