Down goes Semenya!!!

Concupiscurd wrote:

According to a statistic I saw, Track and Field athletes are 140 times more likely to be intersex than the general population. Doesn't surprise me that many other women will be effected by this ruling.

That's great news. If the numbers are there, then it makes even more sense to create a new intersex (or "other") division. "Binary" has become a new favourite word for people, always asserting that gender in "not binary", so great, time to stop having two divisions. It's really that easy. Male, female and other. If there are enough numbers and categories (and the money and the will), then the "other" category can be further subdivided like they do for the Paralympics.

If you create the third class then you can make hard line delineations for male and female which will be fair because there will always be the catch all category of "other" so that nobody is excluded.

Why can't we just create this third category today? It creates some serious freedom and gets rid of all this insanity. We all know there is an area between, so, why try to push a square peg into a round hole (not a reference to genitalia), just create a third category. Simple.

What if she continues to run in non international 800’s and either breaks the WR or clearly demonstrates that she is number one in the world.

She could and I think will take the WR this year anyway but I think my point is clear.

Taking the roll of “freak “ her earning powers running 2 or 3 or 5 k would be huge.

The matter also raised an interesting question as to what is an international competition?.

I have a feeling that you can have a domestic comp with some foreigners and it is still not deemed international.

How do they check the T levels of other females.

Drug testing would for this would be a challenged.

What will women’s athletics look like after a high profile CAS decision against IAAF when the world will fully know about intersex competitors

No wonder Coe said it was the most challenging problem.

From a gender standpoint, she is free to call herself "she", but sexually speaking, she is an intersex.

But Nick didn't (and still doesn't) have an internal testes that supply extra testosterone. And from what I understand, that sets her apart from other women.

"Getting rid of all divisions" is not the only way. Setting up an intersex category will also do the trick.

Racket wrote:

George213 wrote:

Why? They rightly belong there I suppose.

I think it covers up the bigger issue which in my opinion is the human right to compete in sport at the highest level.

How so?

Sorry if this has already been posted but some of these points are covered by the IAAF Technical Note

"female athletes

with DSDs are able to start demonstrating compliance with this requirement immediately should they

wish to avoid having to stand down from competition once the Regulations come into effect.

Compliance with this requirement will be monitored by random testing, and any demonstrated noncompliance

will trigger a new ‘stand‐down’ period of six months, during which the athlete will not be

able to compete in Restricted Events at International Competitions."

Presumably though it won't be that random and the names that are usually mentioned no doubt are already laying their plans (possibly to wing it for this track season then go away and have a think in the autumn). Given the way the season calendar works sounds doubtful anyone who already knows they have a medical issue is going to start therapy now.

George213 wrote:

Racket wrote:

I think it covers up the bigger issue which in my opinion is the human right to compete in sport at the highest level.

How so?

The area between strictly male and strictly female, roughly speaking, is too undefined. In essence, to what extent does one have to be a woman to compete in the women's heats. Now we can easily exclude individuals who are 100% physically male for this scenario, but then what's the next step? It is a solution, but I believe it is a weaker one than deciding the human rights case.

It is not a medical issue, it has been constructed as a social / sporting issue and one that the athletes involved will end up mocking the IAAF .

Await the big invite meets putting on loads of 2k

races.

The law of unintended consequences of which other posters will think of lots more.

now what are they going to do about the rest of dopers in south africa ....

where were all these speed demons 3-4 years ago before discovered dope ,

or more like certain agents and managers started to hit scene with latest ped's

as in the speed peptide ,IGF-1 lr3 .

Racket wrote:

The area between strictly male and strictly female, roughly speaking, is too undefined. In essence, to what extent does one have to be a woman to compete in the women's heats.

I guess technically, it will now be defined as:

Division A: Anyone with lower than 5ng/dl

Division B: Anyone over 5ng/dl

That would make sense to me since 99% of the population would likely fall into these two categories right off the bat.

If Semenya has an "unfair" advantage against other women because of her high intersex giving her more of a male physiology, then why is it less of an "unfair" advantage against other women to have these women compete against not one Semenya, but an entire male field?

The only way what you said makes sense is to assume that you meant to say that the only way to take away Semenya's "unfair" advantage is by making all women compete in an open division, thus giving all women an "unfair" disadvantage. This is what you call "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." I don't hate Semenya enough, nor other intersex athletes, to make all women suffer the consequences of not being able to compete just so that Semenya will not be able to compete.

Clearly, "the only way" as you put it is not quite correct, either, since there are literally a countably infinite number of ways to try to level the playing field with respect to whatever advantageous traits we consider to be an "unfair" advantages.

So much mental midgetry in this thread.

Ooops, my previous post was in reply to Caster Sewomenya.

A lot of people like to use the Semenya issue to go off on a 'we don't think women should compete in pro sports because they're not as good' tangent.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

And to characterize my speech as malicious is just awesome. It has never yet happened, but I would love for somebody to do just this sort of thing where it would damage my reputation, because I would be tempted to sue for disparagement.

???

You're an f-ing idiot. Get over yourself, dude.

A Semenya bro hug to you wrote:

"No, this is not good as it's not a fair rendering."

-That really cracked me up. Go watch the 3 women winning over and over at the international level and then please tell me again what's "not fair".

Except that is not happening in any other running event... where testosterone is, according to science, just as important.

What if those T-levels hurt them in other events, other sports? Do we find a fix to level the playing field?

I think if you cherry-pick the same 3 women over and over, you'll keep obsessing about the same 3 women over and over.

longjack wrote:

of course anyone with 5 to 20 times more testosterone than average is going to have an incredible advantage.

but elite sports are all about freaks of nature, anomalies.

Look at those t-levels of elite athletes. Let's pick the 100m to keep it simple.

Women sprinters had t-levels of 0.52 (lowest) to 0.99 (highest.

Men sprinters had t-levels of 13.8 to 22.0.

None of those women... not one... had t-levels remotely as high as Semenya. The highest woman in the entire study was 0.99.

We know Castor had t-levels much higher than 10.0 because that's the previous level she was forced to drop down to... and when she dropped down to 10, her times were significantly slower.

To really show the advantage that Castor has over normal women, you'd have to get a sample of these elites to artificially boost their t-levels by 15-20 times and then measure their performance change.

fisky wrote:

longjack wrote:

of course anyone with 5 to 20 times more testosterone than average is going to have an incredible advantage.

but elite sports are all about freaks of nature, anomalies.

Look at those t-levels of elite athletes. Let's pick the 100m to keep it simple.

Women sprinters had t-levels of 0.52 (lowest) to 0.99 (highest.

Men sprinters had t-levels of 13.8 to 22.0.

None of those women... not one... had t-levels remotely as high as Semenya. The highest woman in the entire study was 0.99.

We know Castor had t-levels much higher than 10.0 because that's the previous level she was forced to drop down to... and when she dropped down to 10, her times were significantly slower.

To really show the advantage that Castor has over normal women, you'd have to get a sample of these elites to artificially boost their t-levels by 15-20 times and then measure their performance change.

Or it's probably already been done, and no one with those T-level is among the best.

Just think: 100 meter sprint is a pretty popular event. Worldwide you probably have millions of girls who have run it and countless thousands who run it competitively in school. And the fastest women are ones with normal range.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think you can replicate the natural experiment - clearly being a world-class sprinter means NOT being Semenya. You cannot take the world's best with different genes and different advantages than Semenya or someone with her makeup, and THEN give them extra T, and say that reflects a real person.

This is an outdated way of viewing same sex relationships and is generally regarded as offensive and sexist

What comment / viewpoint exactly is outdated, offensive and sexist here?

Mr and Mrs Semenya, which one should be competing in womens races?:

https://medium.com/@kenniemoyo/pics-caster-semenya-and-wifey-rule-the-sa-sports-awards-red-carpet-4a9e2997dd9e