Linsey Sharp – sour grapes or not? ( Olympics & hyperandrogenism content )

That’s not a great example mrhoppy, because you can ride with >50% hematocrit if you have medical evidence to prove that is natural for you.

No such limit now. Replaced by biological passport.

Tom B – firstly in response to your comment about why I posted the explanation about AIS if it was mentioned in that article that I criticized……

Several people in this thread have based their argument on Caster Semenya being a ‘man’ because they apparently know that she has internal testes and XY chromosomes. We don’t actually know if she does have those characteristics, but even if she did, they would suggest androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which the individual has high levels of testosterone but their body doesn’t respond to them. The article mentions AIS but didn’t mention the XY chromosome or internal testes.

Thus, a woman with AIS is clearly NOT A MAN, despite being XY and having internal testes- and shouldn’t be excluded from women’s athletics. (I have no idea if Caster has AIS, but this thread is not only about her).

Mr blobby- if you read your article carefully, the author does not state as fact that Caster took therapy to suppress her testosterone, it is his opinion. From your post above, you seem to have interpreted it as fact, and that is one reason why I don’t like the article. It is largely based on opinion, sprinkled with some science, and written in a long and convoluted style.

And back to Tom B- I appreciate that my argument may not be clear, being spread across multiple comments, but also because what I’m arguing for is not viewed as fair. And that is the crux of my argument: you can’t make sport ‘fair’ with a totally level playing field, because there are too many variables, e.g.
– Many athletes have natural characteristics that place them at an advantage to the rest of us, including the obvious examples of Bolt and Phelps. No one has yet given me a good reason as to why Caster Semenya cannot be treated the same way.
– Athletes from countries that invest a lot of money in sport are at an advantage, from having better facilities, nutrition, coaching.
– There is a mental component to success in sport- e.g. there’s the ‘home’ advantage.

So, intersex women are inclined to have an athletic advantage, but not as great an advantage as a man has over a woman. I think it’s more fair (less unfair?) to respect the rights of intersex women to compete in sports as women, than the rights of women with lower testosterone (but who may have other, different advantages anyway) to win medals. The argument that sport ‘chose its categories and must stick to them’ is weak.

In a nutshell: it’s impossible to make sports 100% fair, but I think the focus of sport should be about humans at their peak of fitness and skill doing amazing things. Less about how many medals you win, and imposing arbitrary definitions of women and men, when there is in fact a blurred line between the sexes.

And finally- back to that article. I felt that the woman being interviewed was not necessarily in a position to give an unbiased opinion. She was transgender and taking hormone treatment, with which she noticed a loss of speed. I love doing sports and I would be really hacked off at losing speed, how much more so would an elite athlete be? She may have mixed feelings about this, including harbouring jealousy that she’s had to sacrifice her loss of speed in order to achieve what she wants to with her body, while intersex women don’t. This is again, why I don’t like the article- there’s too much opinion and room for bias.

How do you decide who is an intersex woman and who is an intersex man? Or are all intersex people somehow female by default?

You’ll be glad to know that I’m going to shut up as I’m off out mountain biking now – to use what nature gave me 😉

I guess the simple answer to that is that there’s no such thing as an “intersex man” or “intersex woman”, there are individuals who are intersex, and that definition covers a large range of different physical, hormonal and chromosomal variations.
Individuals who are intersex may choose to identify themselves as male or female. In terms of sport, the governing bodies have to set their own rules for what constitutes male or female for the purposes of competition.

It’s obviously a very complex subject without any simple answers.

Not surprised to see that you once again avoided the question, you don’t agree with the ‘arbitrary rules’ set out defining male and female but fail to explain what you think the rules should be.

I’m open to the idea that there may be a more scientific measurement than testosterone levels to define male and female. But I think there has to be a measurement and the argument that setting it at testosterone levels would be unfair to Caster as she’s worked very hard just isn’t very scientific.

Several of us have, but you’re apparently ignoring it because it doesn’t fit in with your beliefs.

In a nutshell: it’s impossible to make sports 100% fair, but I think the focus of sport should be about humans at their peak of fitness and skill doing amazing things. Less about how many medals you win, and imposing arbitrary definitions of women and men, when there is in fact a blurred line between the sexes.

Great. Where do I sign up to compete as a woman? I’m sure I could do amazing things competing as one and you’d presumably be happy with that.

And finally- back to that article. I felt that the woman being interviewed was not necessarily in a position to give an unbiased opinion.

I presume you missed the fact she is one of the (if not the) leading authority on this issue, and is accepted as such by people who’ve spent far more time on this than we have. As for bias – by extension your argument there means that no women is unbiased, and only men can provide unbiased opinions 😉

Everybody has their bias but if Joanna Harper was really bias against high T athletes then I don’t think she would be saying that if creates rules based on testosterone levels, then these rules need to include special considerations for people with resistance to androgens.

The fact that the challenge of IAAFs rules was successful shows that international human rights has progressed and I think it is great that human rights are being taken seriously. On the other hand I wonder if the arbitration was able to accurately consider the ramifications of the ruling, there is no precedent so to a certain extent one cannot be sure one way or the other on what the impact of the ruling is without observing it’s effect over time.

So what will the future hold? Some possibilities:

1. IFAA manages to close the hole for high T intersex athletes soon – we never find out what the long term impact to competitiveness would have been.

2. Female competition remains open for high T intersex athletes, sectors of the sport start becoming dominated by high T competitors. Creates huge controversy, eventually pressure mounts up and the rules get changed.

3. Female competition remains open for high T intersex athletes, doesn’t cause any problems. When people look back at the 2016 Olympic games they wonder what all the fuss was about.

4. People move away from elitist female sport entirely, realise that putting in all that effort just chasing gold medals was a bit silly anyway, female professional athletes make their money from TV, modelling, sponsorship, and exhibition events. Aerobics competitions of the 1980’s return with a vengence with Ultimate Aerobics Queen competition of 2021 making history by knocking The World’s Got Talent off top spot for viewers and telephone voting figures.

I think Scenario 1 is most likely, and if it does happen then it makes everything else a moot point.
If 1 doesn’t occur then I have a feeling that 2 rather than 3 would end up taking place – but TBH this is just a gut feeling without having seen any facts and figures on the numbers of people involved etc.

@ebygom: what do you mean, I’ve “yet again dodged the question”? The OP asked for our gut feelings and I think I’ve made my gut feelings clear! It’s not as simple as settting an arbitrary testosterone level. As I’ve already said, I feel it would be less unfair to allow women like Caster Semenya to compete than to either ban them, or make them compete as men (or take hormone treatment). If you’re such an expert, you tell me what the definition of a woman should be.

You’ve said you don’t agree with the testosterone limit but haven’t proposed an alternative. You think the limit is unfair but cannot say what would be fair

I think the testosterone limit is perfectly adequate for determining who is female for the purposes of sport in cases where someone’s sex does not fall neatly into the typical boxes of male/female.

Since there are elite male athletes with low testosterone – a level that overlaps the levels of women, should we let them compete as women if that’s apparently the most reliable arbiter of both performance and sex?

@aracer: obviously, your argument didn’t convince me, just as mine hasn’t convinced you.

The woman interviewed in that article described women’s athletics as “the premier sport of the games”, which is biased for a start! More seriously though, she uses emotive language like “I fear that much of the anticipation for the upcoming Rio olympics will be overshadowed by the specter of intersex athletes dominating some events….”.

She admits herself that people like Caster are extremely rare, so all this should be a non-issue.

Just seen your response Vicky….had a bit of a lost weekend sorry ha! (Joys of being a musician at bank holidays!)

Thanks for your response anyway…..certainly clarifies your viewpoint….can’t say I either agree or disagree tbh….it’s just such a complex issue.

I agree that A. It’s not just about Semenya (I’ve purposely not named her at all) and B. That we down know whether or not she has AIS etc……as someone else has already suggested though, the fact that she is running 5 seconds quicker now that she doesn’t have to lower her T levels would be an indicator that she certainly does benefit from having raised T levels?

From the fact that this is only one race across so many different events at the olympics, if other competitors in her class feel disadvantaged, they’ll just have to train for a different event etc.

I do feel that perhaps Linsey Sharp’s comments were a result of probing from the media, and really having put 4 years’ work in to come 6th you might be looking for a scapegoat too, clearly the winner isn’t the problem if you’re 6th!

With so many comments about relatively strong, physically capable women being “manish” and so many women I’ve met being frightened to take up sport seriously due to this perception, I don’t think intersex competitors are the problem.

From the fact that this is only one race across so many different events at the olympics, if other competitors in her class feel disadvantaged, they’ll just have to train for a different event etc.

I do feel that perhaps Linsey Sharp’s comments were a result of probing from the media, and really having put 4 years’ work in to come 6th you might be looking for a scapegoat too, clearly the winner isn’t the problem if you’re 6th!

It isn’t as simple as this though, it is implied that the 800m silver medalist and possibly the bronze medalist and other finalists also a got performance boost from the suspension of the testosterone limit rules. The rule suspension may have already impacted other events too.

This also leads on to the effect genetic doping will have in the future. The fact a few people born now with a natural, and arguably unfair, advantage (in sport) is nothing compared to what’s to come from countries who have the state resources, lack of ethics and desperation to be seen as world leaders in certain sports to implement genetic doping programmes.