Forum menu
Any regulation needs to apply as clearly and as fairly as it can to as wide a group as possible. If a small number of athletes fall outside that then that is regretful, but "the needs of the many..." etc
Having said that, I'm glad it's not my call
It's taken me a while to get to an opinion on this. Here goes:-
Sport is good
Competitive sport is good as it gives a 'purpose' to doing sport and when done well is entertaining/inspiring to watch.
In many sports people with male traits have have a natural advantage over females and would dominate (aside - I checked my local town athletics club records - in every event apart from Flo Jo's rather dubious 100m record the male club record is better than the women's world record).
But we still want women to be able compete and win stuff so we'll have an open event and a women's event.
Science tells us that not having a todger is not of itself a definition of being a women.
Let the scientists give us a set of criteria and everyone who meets them gets to enter the women's event. This may also include those born male who have now transitioned and are deemed to have had too much of an advantage in their early development.
Everyone else still gets to play and compete in sport but enters the open event.
@turnerguy That would destroy grassroots sport. agree with Nickc.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”!
Agree
A handful of the Scottish ultra marathons now include a 'Non-binary' category that runners can choose to enter.
Change is possible.
The issue is that women’s sport needs a definition of “female”,
Just circumvent the whole issue and instead of categorizing people by gender/sex (which is impossible to define to everyone's satisfaction), categorize them but their chromosomal make-up. in many cases that will align perfectly with existing athletes categories.
People who don't fit with one of the two main chromosomal make-ups compete in the XY category.
At grass roots level there would rarely be any need to test.
Anyone who thinks that's not the best option is free to suggest an alternative - but I bet they can't!
I don't get it - she is a female, right? (serious question)
Any regulation needs to apply as clearly and as fairly as it can to as wide a group as possible. If a small number of athletes fall outside that then that is regretful, but “the needs of the many…” etc
That's the sort of reasoning that kept people with disabilities out of sport for years. I don't think anyone would suggest dismantling Paralympic sport and just requiring athletes with disabilities to compete in open categories. I think we should start from a position of inclusion for all in sport.
People who don’t fit with one of the two main chromosomal make-ups compete in the XY category.
At grass roots level there would rarely be any need to test.
Anyone who thinks that’s not the best option is free to suggest an alternative – but I bet they can’t!
How would you determine chromosomal makeup at grassroots level without testing everyone?
Anyway, you can be chromosomally 'female', but physiologically and hormonally 'male', so that proposal doesn't advance us from the current situation. Intersex conditions cover a wide array of different combinations of chromosomal and physiological characteristics, so I don't think there is a simple way of answering this question.
I don’t get it – she is a female, right? (serious question)
That's the crux of things really, how you define female will determine the answer to that question.
I don't think details of her physiology are in the public domain, for obv reasons, but it is widely assumed she has an intersex condition with hyperandrogenism - male levels of hormones such as testosterone. Whatever the details are, she can win an Olympic final at training pace. When levels were monitored and capped for a time (before being overturned by legal challenge from another athlete) she could not compete.
Hence the intractable debate - we're not talking about someone right at one end of the normal distribution, like all gifted pro athletes are, it's another distribution entirely.
I don’t get it – she is a female, right?
Yes, I believe that under the current regulations of her sport, Semenya is female. She also considers herself female, and is legally female.
The IAAF are imposing additional rules for female athletes which force her to medically lower her natural testosterone levels, and she is contesting this regulation.
Anyway, you can be chromosomally ‘female’, but physiologically and hormonally ‘male’, so that proposal doesn’t advance us from the current situation. Intersex conditions cover a wide array of different combinations of chromosomal and physiological characteristics, so I don’t think there is a simple way of answering this question.
As I said you're not using chromosomes to determine gender/sex your categories *are* chromosomal. As I said in the bit of my post which you snipped:
Just circumvent the whole issue and instead of categorizing people by gender/sex (which is impossible to define to everyone’s satisfaction), categorize them but their chromosomal make-up.
If you're naturally physiologically and hormonally stronger than everyone else in the XX category congratulations, you're gonna clean up!
How would you determine chromosomal makeup at grassroots level without testing everyone?
People self identify according to what they think they probably are. If there's doubt and it causing problems you'd need to check. Just like (say) drugs in grassroot sport. Nobody is ever tested, but they could be if there were doubt and someone cared.
I don’t get it – she is a female, right? (serious question)
Believe any classification you like - but she was born without a womb or ovaries, and has internal testicles (producing 4x more testosterone than average women).
Those are all the facts I need to form a pretty solid conclusion.
Hermaphrodite is the scientific conclusion following her initial testing. I totally agree that this subject is one of the hugest grey areas, but I can't support Caster competing in a traditionally binary sport, with all the accolades that would come with success in that sport, when she is half way to Linfords lunchbox.
My thinking would be if she's a woman, and I've no reason to particularly doubt that, it's fair game, you are going to get freaks of nature, they just happen.
The concept of transgender men wanting to compete in womens sports and generally live life fully as a woman is mental if you ask me, and fairly unreasonable for them to expect as much. All power to them, they can self identify as what they like, but there are limits I'd think.
Non event if common sense is applied.
Birth is everything. It is physical excellence that makes some athletes better than others. That can be bloody long legs, a skinny body or big lungs. It can even be a brain that copes with stress or one that has will were to train. Some people are lucky some are not. The world is a tough place. Live with it.
I see an issue where artificial use of drug. hormones or what ever can change things but with modern tech surely we can find a persons natural levels, even if it means time out of competition.
Any imbecilic complications such as being born with a willy but not wanting it are irrelevant. Tough luck. Do your own thing if you wish but don't expect the world to make room for every little variation from standard. If its natural, its fine. If not, its not. Why make life complicated? The more loop holes the more scope there is for either argument or rule breaking.
Did it happen or am I believing the tabloids but was there an athlete looking at amputation to gain some benefit in normal competition? Vague notion that's all.
If van athlete is a genuine 50/50 then they should compete in sports that don't have classes decided by sex. Try clay pigeon shooting. Again tough. At worst they should be placed in the worst case scenario IE if mens races are tougher, run as man.
If van athlete is a genuine 50/50 then they should compete in sports that don’t have classes decided by sex. Try clay pigeon shooting. Again tough. At worst they should be placed in the worst case scenario IE if mens races are tougher, run as man.
So if a person who is classed as female has an intersex condition that doesn't give them a performance advantage, you would ban them from their preferred sport or make them compete against men?
If you think about it for a few seconds, you realise that elite sport doesn’t have anything to with eugenics.
Eugenics is a movement that is aimed at improving the genetic composition of the human race.
Elite level sport celebrates the achievements of atheletes whose prowess at that level (relative to the rest of us) is solely down to their genetic advantage. In that celebration is the idealisation of the perfect human form.
I think they look rather alike.
Eugenics is a movement that is aimed at improving the genetic composition of the human race...
You didn't include the rather important part of the definition,
...by excluding (through a variety of morally criticized means) certain genetic groups judged to be less desirable and promoting other genetic groups judged to be superior.
Celebrating the achievements of elite sport does not involve removing the "genetically inferior" from the population, and conflating the two things is just muddle headed. In fact, I would argue that elite Paralympic sport actually celebrates the achievement of people who would have been murdered by eugenecists in Nazi Germany.
Celebrating the achievements of elite sport does not involve removing the “genetically inferior” from the population, and conflating the two things is just muddle headed. In fact, I would argue that elite Paralympic sport actually celebrates the achievement of people who would have been murdered by eugenecists in Nazi Germany.
I think you’re being overly polite there, but I totally agree with this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47301007
Interesting semi related article about Navratilova being sacked off by an american LBGT sports advocacy group for her remarks about transgender athletes.
I thought this line was interesting
"This is not the first time we have approached Martina on this topic. In late December, she made deeply troubling comments across her social media channels about the ability for trans athletes to compete in sport. We reached out directly offering to be a resource as she sought further education, and we never heard back."
I guess in the murky world of news/fake news that's a comment grasping to be considered the definitive truth in a rather binary manner in a topic area that seems be all about the grey. Does anyone have the right to consider their view on the subject to be unequivocally correct yet?
Based on what I've seen people who have transitioned from female to male after puberty have a physical advantage, which is unfair in sports such as running, cycling etc. Nobody gets hurt, but what about contact sports such as boxing?