Caster Semenya Loses Appeal

Someone call the waaaahmbulance!

Burden shifting wrote:

Oh well, those in favor of no science won this round, as Coe states he will implement the rule for 1500m running.

Expect another roynd before the CAS.

The science merely puts figures to what is obvious. Male physiology is unbeatable in female sport. It is not as if we are trying to see the dark side of the moon here.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Vancomycin wrote:

We answered this 6 pages ago. What is biologically male?

The whole point of the IAAF ruling was set the metrics for "what is the division between men and women in sport?"

If it were as easy as you think it is, we wouldn't be here. Why can people not get this?!?!?

LRC is bad for my health.

The division between male and female is almost always very clear-cut - except with a few transgender individuals or the tiny minority of those who are DSD. Their male biological characteristics, that are reflected in mucher higher than female levels of testosterone, require that in fairness to their fellow competitors they can now only compete as females on the same basis as non-DSD women, by reducing their levels of testosterone. That isn't so hard to get, either.

By this logic, so that everything is "fair", let's establish a set testosterone level and if you're lower than that value you should be allowed to take testosterone. So everyone's on the equal playing field, yes? Let's forget about nature and just juice up or juice down athletes so everyone's equal.

Your intuition about what is "obvious" is not a sufficient basis fir a standard. This is just guaranteeing another round at CAS and a likely loss for the IAAF.

If this is so obvious it really should be trivial fir the IAAF to submit convincing evidence.

Burden shifting wrote:

Your intuition about what is "obvious" is not a sufficient basis fir a standard. This is just guaranteeing another round at CAS and a likely loss for the IAAF.

If this is so obvious it really should be trivial fir the IAAF to submit convincing evidence.

Courts require evidence. Even for things that are quite obvious. That is because the dispute is over contending rights. So the IAAF has to find independent authority to tell us the sun will rise each day. Let us not confuse science with legal argument. Yes, there is likely to be a challenge - because the argument is more political than "scientific".

You want it to be as obvious as the sun rise but it's simply not. Yes the average male is physiologically different and has higher athletic performance than the average female. But elite sport never deals with average people; this is why things are not "quite obvious." If everyone is a huge outlier you have to be very precise where you draw the line. This is why the IAAF needs solid evidence for their chosen T limits. Sorry everything can't be as simple as you wish it were, buddy.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Courts require evidence. Even for things that are quite obvious. That is because the dispute is over contending rights. So the IAAF has to find independent authority to tell us the sun will rise each day. Let us not confuse science with legal argument. Yes, there is likely to be a challenge - because the argument is more political than "scientific".

FinnJ wrote:

I can see that. But sport is all about advantages. Some genetic combinations are better suited for some sports than others. So why is this unfair? As long as she is medically identified as a female she shouldn’t be restricted based on her genetics. Based on that logic people with high natural hemoglobin shouldn’t be allowed to compete either. So what is your logical answer?

Ofcourse it is unfair, but tell that to the short dude wishing to become a professional basketball player

The advantages aren't comparable. Allen Iverson was 6' 0" and he's a Hall of Famer. Even a few men of below average height have played in the NBA. Spud Webb, Muggsy Bogues, etc. No woman (barring intersex conditions with high and usable testosterone levels, as with Semenya) will ever be good enough to play on a tournament-qualifying D1 team in basketball, never mind the NBA.

That's the point here. The advantage of intersex conditions like Semenya's over the normal female range, even the athletically excellent female range, is so great that despite their rarity, women's sport would become utterly dominated at the top by people with those conditions. Then you might as well just call it what it would be, which is high-T intersex sport.

letherrun wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

The division between male and female is almost always very clear-cut - except with a few transgender individuals or the tiny minority of those who are DSD. Their male biological characteristics, that are reflected in mucher higher than female levels of testosterone, require that in fairness to their fellow competitors they can now only compete as females on the same basis as non-DSD women, by reducing their levels of testosterone. That isn't so hard to get, either.

By this logic, so that everything is "fair", let's establish a set testosterone level and if you're lower than that value you should be allowed to take testosterone. So everyone's on the equal playing field, yes? Let's forget about nature and just juice up or juice down athletes so everyone's equal.

That is what the IAAF proposal has done for certain women's events; it has set a permissible level of testosterone. That is a kind of gender-specific level playing-field. Those above it are required to reduce their levels while those below it may, in theory, be able to raise theirs, provided they are within the limit. But the limit has been set at a level where it is not believed to confer an advantage in their competition, so there would be little point in raising an athlete's level within the band of normal, because they would not stand to gain over their fellow-competitors.

They should do it for men, too, then. Also with VO2Max. It's not fair that some are born with a bigger engine (VO2Max) than others. They're freaks. They should need to wear training masks to limit their oxygen flow in order to compete.

The difference between the average male and the average female does not disappear in elite sport. It is typically reflected in the 10-12% average difference between male and female records at that level.

Of course there will be outliers in male and female sport in terms of their abilities relative to their peers, but Semenya is an outlier because she possesses features that only males could bring to female sport, by virtue of her having testes - which of course give her male levels of testosterone. Without the issue of her "identifying" as female, it is arguable she should equally be competing in a male category, by virtue of her sharing those aspects of male physiology that all males possess.

To be male is an advantage in virtually all sports and certainly all track and field events. That is unarguable. The IAAF proposal should, in my view, apply across the board for DSD competitors, but it has not been so applied because the research was restricted in its available subjects. That is a limitation of methodology, not of reasoning.

You miss the point perfectly. Male advantage in female sport is unfair advantage. Male advantage in male sport is not.

She may have lost the IAAF appeal, but she will never lose her sex appeal. That is here to stay, yessiree

Armstronglivs wrote:

male levels of testosterone. Without the issue of her "identifying" as female, it is arguable she should equally be competing in a male category, by virtue of her sharing those aspects of male physiology that all males possess.

We haven't proved the T levels correlate well enough with performance to set a cutoff that is defensible. The IAAF basically went in search of data to ban Semenya and published that.

The bulk of the arguments here are the gut feeling that T levels should help with performance.

I'm a firm believer that you need hard evidence before you start restricting people. Furthermore, the fact that that IAAF has totally botched this whole process BECAUSE evidence is so hard to gather has put Semenya thru hell.

Would I like to see some easy 'test' for 'maleness,' sure, but I think that's going to be extremely difficult to come up with. Until then we are just operating on hunches, which is intellectually inappropriate.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Really? Nobody can do any better?

I advocated for this outcome, I predicted this outcome, and I applaud this outcome. The arguments and reasoning used by the IAAF and CAS are those that I have always made.

Once again, I was “right”, which some of you can’t stand.

You also can’t stand that my opinions and expressions differ from your own, because you are thin-skinned and intolerant.

You also can’t stand that I see through what you are trying to do, that I reveal that you have your own agendas, and that I don’t let you turn this into something it’s not, because you are not accustomed to opposition and hearing the word “no”.

What do you mollycoddled people do when you run into something really serious in life?

Ohhhh, I see. This isnt really about some crusade for fair competition as you mentioned a few pages back (which is pretty pathetic in the first place. Good job keyboard warrior, you won fair competition for all women now with a few witty posts!) This is about you having the superior opinion and intellect and being RIGHT. We will all bow down to you now and praise you for being right before everybody else. Smarter than the IAAF and CAS combined.

Let me go ahead and label this as opposition. How does it feel to hear the word “no.”

That sucks balls!

I think the degree to which you feel bad for Semenya is on a spectrum. I feel bad that the world knows way too much about her genitals and that must be humiliating.

At the same time, if she's continuing to fight these rulings and accuse the CAS of doing the only sensible thing they can to restore fair competition, shes certainly not helping.

And its not "hateful" to discuss the situation about her with a skeptiv attitudw

The bulk of the arguments here are the gut feeling that T levels should help with performance.

YA THINK?!

Yup all those roided up guys hitting 7 nmol/L of T!! Totally the same!

Every Steroid User wrote:

The bulk of the arguments here are the gut feeling that T levels should help with performance.

YA THINK?!

NoticerOfHypocrites wrote:

Sprintgeezer wrote: I go beyond the IAAF in that I believe that if someone developed as a male, they should not be allowed to compete against women regardless of their T level—and correspondingly, that anybody who developed as a female should be able to compete against women if they have a typically female T value.

Somebody get this guy outta here please

As fast as possible! He is taking unfair advantage by resorting ruthlessly to reason and evidence. We can have no idea what depraved performance enhancements he may turn to next.