Can the BroJos stop using XX / XY as descriptors in the women's 800m races?

When you're dealing with a field that already enriches for extreme outliers/edge cases you can't just make rules based on" "well probably this or that would've been the case ... like most of the time?" You need to have very specific and well defensible guidelines. The IAAF is trying to lays those out in the fairest way possible. Currently, chromosomal status has no impact eligibility. So it's inane - bordering on intentionally disingenuous - to continuously label competitors like that. Furthermore you can be XY and be entirely phenotypically female; so, the BroJos are just speculating based on "appearance." Which is uh....

Just Another LRC Idiot wrote:

If a girl does not have menstruation by late teens, wouldn't she suspect something could be wrong with her body? Wouldn't people around her send her for a medical exam? At least that's the case in developed countries. So I doubt how "many" people go through life as women without knowing they have XY chromosome.

In cases like Semenya (5-ARD), the chances of not knowing about their DSD are even lower than the cases of AIS, since they don't develop secondary sex characteristics during puberty.

When chromosome test was eliminated, people were probably thinking about athletes with AIS, who did not have any obvious athletic advantage . But they should have been more careful about setting a clear guideline on the eligibility.

Not even a real scientist wrote:

I’m barely starting a nursing program and the IAAF are morons for determining that the difference between an XX and XY person is testosterone levels. There’s also bone length, bone density, heart and lung size, hip width (narrower on males), and let’s not forget reproductive organs womb, uterus, etc. and other hormones related to child development in the womb. And also mammary glands and hormones to stimulate milk production.

Let’s not forget 10s of thousands of years of evolution related to males being hunters and women bring gatherers and child rearers.

The testosterone limit ruling was idiotic and now they are paying for their idiocy. So are all real female athletes.

XX category and open category. That’s what we need.

That was the system the IAAF used until the 1980s, when it ran aground over the case of Maria José Martinez-Patiño, who was a 46,XY athlete with AIS (androgen insensitivity syndrome).

She had no competitive advantage from her Y chromosome, and looked like a "normal" woman.

Significantly, she later became a scientist and contributed to the research behind the IAAF's 2011 rules on hyperandrogenism. in sport. So that's nice that you're learning interesting things in nursing school, but maybe there are highly-trained scientists with PhDs who know a little more than you do.

Basing rulings on mere T levels won't be enough. Sooner or later an XY will come along who will still crush all XX competition on equivalent hormone levels, simply based on past development.

"Furthermore you can be XY and be entirely phenotypically female"

So much bandying around of terms to make a purely spurious point about gender - and wrong. XY individuals will not be "phenotypically female" because the lack of development in the gonads means they do not develop secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. These individuals also occur at an incidence of about 1 in 20000. Sex and gender for the greater norm are not redefined because there are occasional "freaks", who also certainly won't feature in elite sport.

Cool! A lot lot lot fewer people than 1/20000 end up elite athletes. Every Olympic athlete is a "freak" in some way. Chromosomes are not the discriminator we use for male/female classes. I don't really know what your point is here. You seem to have some "feeling" about how things "should" be and no facts to back it up. Come back when you can contribute.

Armstronglivs wrote:

These individuals also occur at an incidence of about 1 in 20000. Sex and gender for the greater norm are not redefined because there are occasional "freaks", who also certainly won't feature in elite sport.

Vancomycin wrote:

Cool! A lot lot lot fewer people than 1/20000 end up elite athletes. Every Olympic athlete is a "freak" in some way. Chromosomes are not the discriminator we use for male/female classes. I don't really know what your point is here. You seem to have some "feeling" about how things "should" be and no facts to back it up. Come back when you can contribute.

Armstronglivs wrote:

These individuals also occur at an incidence of about 1 in 20000. Sex and gender for the greater norm are not redefined because there are occasional "freaks", who also certainly won't feature in elite sport.

You seem to be unaware that you are defined by your chromosomes - as I am by mine. And so are elite athletes. In fact, we are only a few chromosomes different from chimpanzees, although in your case I can believe the differential may well be smaller.

You also confuse freakish talent - which is what elites have - with merely being a physiological aberration of a kind that rarely possesses that kind of talent - because being physically under-developed typically goes with that kind of aberration.

You're welcome.

Armstronglivs wrote: XY individuals will not be "phenotypically female" because the lack of development in the gonads means they do not develop secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. These individuals also occur at an incidence of about 1 in 20000. Sex and gender for the greater norm are not redefined because there are occasional "freaks", who also certainly won't feature in elite sport.

Eight athletes failed failed the chromosome test at Atlanta Olympics, and seven of them had AIS. That's 7 out of 3,387 or about 1 in 480. This is a much higher ratio than 1 in 20,000 in general population. Ever since, many athletes with AIS have probably competed as women, and you don't know about most of them. Why? Because they have female phenotype. like this Brazilian volleyball player.

Google "Dunning-Kruger effect." You're correct, chimpanzees have 1 extra pair of chromosomes (48 vs 48 total, 96% count similarity), but share 99% coding sequence similarity. So it appears the differences between our species are driven by underlying genes NOT karyotype (...duh). Yes this is an asinine comparison from a scientific point of view, but it's hilarious that you effectively proved my point. AIS athletes have competed as women, mentioned many times in this thread, and you've had no issue with that. So lets ditch the chromosome nonsense and use the same metrics as the IAAF. I'd love for one of the BroJos to chime in here. Why the XX label?

Armstronglivs wrote:

You seem to be unaware that you are defined by your chromosomes - as I am by mine. And so are elite athletes. In fact, we are only a few chromosomes different from chimpanzees, although in your case I can believe the differential may well be smaller.

You also confuse freakish talent - which is what elites have - with merely being a physiological aberration of a kind that rarely possesses that kind of talent - because being physically under-developed typically goes with that kind of aberration.

You're welcome.

The problem with the way LRC distinguishes between XX and XY is that while we know Semenya is XY, we don’t actually know that all of the current women in the 800 are XX.

It’s entirely possible that one or more women currently competing in the 800 are XY with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. It’s possible, for example, that Ajee Wilson is XY with CAIS like Maria Jose Martinez-Patino. We just don’t know, and the IAAF stopped chromosome testing in the 1990s.

The bottom line is that the OP is correct because LRC doesn’t know that the remaining women are XX and those women and the IAAF probably don’t know either because they haven’t tested for it. They are now using a hormone based test for testosterone levels.

Occam’s electric razor wrote:

The problem with the way LRC distinguishes between XX and XY is that while we know Semenya is XY, we don’t actually know that all of the current women in the 800 are XX.

It’s entirely possible that one or more women currently competing in the 800 are XY with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. It’s possible, for example, that Ajee Wilson is XY with CAIS like Maria Jose Martinez-Patino. We just don’t know, and the IAAF stopped chromosome testing in the 1990s.

The bottom line is that the OP is correct because LRC doesn’t know that the remaining women are XX and those women and the IAAF probably don’t know either because they haven’t tested for it. They are now using a hormone based test for testosterone levels.

Why doesn't IAAF use a combination of both T-Level and chromosomal testing for determining eligibility in "women's" (running/track) events?

As with all these threads, I will check out after this post. People just refuse to read. Two reasons: 1) As stated ad infinitum, chromosomes are not 100% predictive of gender. The IAAF previously ran into too many cases of AIS. There are people that are 100% phenotypically female (they "look" completely feminine, since that seems to be determining factor for many posters on these boards) but have a Y chromosome. 2) Needlessly invasive to test, primarily due to reason 1. Unsurprisingly the BroJos remain silent. It seems they know their little gimmick is intentionally disingenuous/inflammatory, but it panders to a vocal subset of this site's clientele. Oh well....

Ernest wrote:

Why doesn't IAAF use a combination of both T-Level and chromosomal testing for determining eligibility in "women's" (running/track) events?

GBohannon wrote:

okay then....... wrote:

Stop using biological facts that offend my views!

Can you read? The OP is not offended. He is (correctly) pointing out that the XX/XY distinction is irrelevant to an athlete’s eligibility and that it would make more sense to highlight the distinction that the rules actually apply to.

I agree with the Brojos and am glad that Semenya will be unable to compete given her current testosterone levels. That doesn’t invalidate the OP’s point though.

Yea, these guys are right. The IAAF never said a male can't compete with females. They said the level of testosterone is the deciding factor.

Just Another LRC Idiot wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote: XY individuals will not be "phenotypically female" because the lack of development in the gonads means they do not develop secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. These individuals also occur at an incidence of about 1 in 20000. Sex and gender for the greater norm are not redefined because there are occasional "freaks", who also certainly won't feature in elite sport.

Eight athletes failed failed the chromosome test at Atlanta Olympics, and seven of them had AIS. That's 7 out of 3,387 or about 1 in 480. This is a much higher ratio than 1 in 20,000 in general population. Ever since, many athletes with AIS have probably competed as women, and you don't know about most of them. Why? Because they have female phenotype. like this Brazilian volleyball player.

https://www.instagram.com/erikacoimbra/?hl=en

If the chromosome test was used at Atlanta it shows that chromosomes are the appropriate measure for the authorities - if not for you. The proportion amongst athletes (weight lifters?) doesn't change the general ratio for the general population, although DSD athletes are estimated to be 140 times more likely to be found in elite and competitive sport than in the general population. However, as the IAAF maintains, the key issue in female sports is advantage, of which higher or male levels of testosterone is a defining measure.

You're a little hard on yourself to describe yourself as an example of Dunning-Kruger, but if the cap fits I won't argue.

You have no idea how many AIS athletes compete as women but as the Syndrome doesn't allow for higher levels of testosterone - which is the key area of advantage in women's sport - then, really, who cares? Only a few pseudo-intellectuals such as yourself, who think that the existence of a tiny minority of chromosomal outliers changes the reality that defines most men and women.

Not even a real scientist wrote:

I’m barely starting a nursing program and the IAAF are morons for determining that the difference between an XX and XY person is testosterone levels. There’s also bone length, bone density, heart and lung size, hip width (narrower on males), and let’s not forget reproductive organs womb, uterus, etc. and other hormones related to child development in the womb. And also mammary glands and hormones to stimulate milk production.

Let’s not forget 10s of thousands of years of evolution related to males being hunters and women bring gatherers and child rearers.

The testosterone limit ruling was idiotic and now they are paying for their idiocy. So are all real female athletes.

XX category and open category. That’s what we need.

So right. All we need is a re-categorization to level the playing field.

You get it! Yes exactly! Wow! If testosterone is the key, as you and the IAAF claim. Then chromosomes do not matter - you just test for T. If your favorite woman athlete right now pick, maybe someone like Coburn or Flanagan, was found to be XY - AIS, would you say she should be barred from women's competition? Honest question, I'm curious?

Armstronglivs wrote:

You have no idea how many AIS athletes compete as women but as the Syndrome doesn't allow for higher levels of testosterone - which is the key area of advantage in women's sport - then, really, who cares? Only a few pseudo-intellectuals such as yourself, who think that the existence of a tiny minority of chromosomal outliers changes the reality that defines most men and women.

PHD scientists don’t make medical recommendations based upon outlying data (1 in 20,000).

DSD XY athletes have much more advantages over XX than just testosterone levels.

To level the playing field , XY DSD athletes should have to also shorten their limbs, widen their hips, lower their bone density, strap on rubber breasts, lower their blood volume, shrink their heart and lungs and take pills causing nausea for a week each month.

IAAF scientists are morons and have caused this problem for only addressing testosterone levels.

I really hope most PhD scientists make no medical recommendations at all, I'll leave it to MDs. I'll ask the same question. If your favorite woman athlete was found to be XY with complete androgen insensitivity - pick anyone you like - Would you recommend they are banned from competing with women?

Not even a nurse yet wrote:

PHD scientists don’t make medical recommendations based upon outlying data (1 in 20,000).

DSD XY athletes have much more advantages over XX than just testosterone levels.

To level the playing field , XY DSD athletes should have to also shorten their limbs, widen their hips, lower their bone density, strap on rubber breasts, lower their blood volume, shrink their heart and lungs and take pills causing nausea for a week each month.

IAAF scientists are morons and have caused this problem for only addressing testosterone levels.

100% scientific:

Do you have a Y chromosome?

If yes, then you’re in the “Has a Y” division. If no, then you’re in the “No Y” division.

There is nothing else to discuss with this approach.