The Semenya Rule
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@Kirwan said in The Semenya Rule:
@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
@booboo said in The Semenya Rule:
@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
@jegga fair, but where do you draw the line?
Well the IAAF have drawn a line.
Woman this side, Open that side.
The line is still massively in favour of those with high naturally occurring testosterone.
What does open mean?
Creating a special category for her is in my view one of the nastiest things I have ever heard (in sport).
It means not a woman. So in order to retain womans events (which we definitely want to do) they have defined specific limits of what a woman is.
Everyone else (men, intersex with testes, etc) are free to compete in the open category. Nothing nasty about it.
I find it more distasteful that woman who work their lives training to be the best they can be have to compete with men, and have all that effort be for nothing.
Oh ok open for all, not open woman. Not as nasty as I thought.
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@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
Fair enough, can see how you form your view.
Me, however, as a staunch critic of gender politics, I have to be consistent. In my view You are either physically a bloke or a woman. She’s a woman so I think it’s fine to let her race.
She's a woman with the chromosones of a man. For a lot of us, that makes her a man biologically. Indeed that would be how I start a definition of male.
Whether we and she considers herself to be male socially is a very different question.
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@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
That seems a bit extreme given that she’s never set a world record over any distance. Podiums aren’t exactly crawling with ppl with this condition otherwise there would be more articles about other athletes.
Drugs to reduce testosterone still seems a bit doping to me.
I wonder where her times would rank her as a male.
The world and Olympic records were set in 1983 and 1980 by Eastern Bloc athletes who were most probably drugged to the eyeballs.
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So, can a women fail the test if she is born with all the female bits and pieces (and doesn't have internal nuts etc)? Many years ago I remember reading a female athlete's account of going through sex testing and the fear she felt at the possibility of the test telling her she is not female enough. Be pretty devastating I would think.
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@Crazy-Horse said in The Semenya Rule:
So, can a women fail the test if she is born with all the female bits and pieces (and doesn't have internal nuts etc)? Many years ago I remember reading a female athlete's account of going through sex testing and the fear she felt at the possibility of the test telling her she is not female enough. Be pretty devastating I would think.
No, the limit of 5 nmol/L is still way higher than the average top female athlete. From what I understand it's not really possible for women to get above 1.5 nmol/L. Even with this limit in place intersex people still have a significant advantage.
Edit - this is from the article I linked earlier:
To say that an XY human can’t compete in the women’s category of professional sports unless they lower their testosterone below 5 nmol/L — a figure that is still 7.5 times the value of the average woman competing at the 2011 and 2013 track and field World Championships and a figure that not a single healthy woman born with XX chromosomes, ovaries, and producing estrogen at puberty can reach — isn’t a huge human rights travesty. It’s a protection of women’s sports. -
@Rancid-Schnitzel said in The Semenya Rule:
@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
That seems a bit extreme given that she’s never set a world record over any distance. Podiums aren’t exactly crawling with ppl with this condition otherwise there would be more articles about other athletes.
Drugs to reduce testosterone still seems a bit doping to me.
I wonder where her times would rank her as a male.
The world and Olympic records were set in 1983 and 1980 by Eastern Bloc athletes who were most probably drugged to the eyeballs.
Probably? They estimate ~9000 athletes were systematically drugged in Eastern Germany. Giving anabolic steroids to kids as young as 12 such as Heidi Krieger who ended up having a sex change.
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@antipodean if only she shaved her armpits, we'd never have known...
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@antipodean said in The Semenya Rule:
@Rancid-Schnitzel said in The Semenya Rule:
@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
That seems a bit extreme given that she’s never set a world record over any distance. Podiums aren’t exactly crawling with ppl with this condition otherwise there would be more articles about other athletes.
Drugs to reduce testosterone still seems a bit doping to me.
I wonder where her times would rank her as a male.
The world and Olympic records were set in 1983 and 1980 by Eastern Bloc athletes who were most probably drugged to the eyeballs.
Probably? They estimate ~9000 athletes were systematically drugged in Eastern Germany. Giving anabolic steroids to kids as young as 12 such as Heidi Krieger who ended up having a sex change.
OK, almost certainly. So that explains why Semenya can't break the world records, not because there were other genetically gifted female athletes who were naturally faster.
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@Crazy-Horse said in The Semenya Rule:
So, can a women fail the test if she is born with all the female bits and pieces (and doesn't have internal nuts etc)? Many years ago I remember reading a female athlete's account of going through sex testing and the fear she felt at the possibility of the test telling her she is not female enough. Be pretty devastating I would think.
From reading the various articles linked in this thread the Testosterone level mandated by the IAAF is still far in excess of normal binary females.
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@jegga said in The Semenya Rule:
If there are other women with very similar biology competing does anyone have any theories as to why Semenya is the only one that’s getting all the attention?
Racism?
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@jegga maybe because she's winning and beating the other DSD athletes?
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@booboo said in The Semenya Rule:
@jegga said in The Semenya Rule:
If there are other women with very similar biology competing does anyone have any theories as to why Semenya is the only one that’s getting all the attention?
Racism?
Goes without saying. Apart from that though?
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@jegga said in The Semenya Rule:
If there are other women with very similar biology competing does anyone have any theories as to why Semenya is the only one that’s getting all the attention?
If she’s the only one winning doesn’t that show that it’s not really important ... ?
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@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
@jegga said in The Semenya Rule:
If there are other women with very similar biology competing does anyone have any theories as to why Semenya is the only one that’s getting all the attention?
If she’s the only one winning doesn’t that show that it’s not really important ... ?
This has flow on effects. The girls running against transgender athletes at the lower levels would argue that’s its important.
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@Kirwan said in The Semenya Rule:
@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
@jegga said in The Semenya Rule:
If there are other women with very similar biology competing does anyone have any theories as to why Semenya is the only one that’s getting all the attention?
If she’s the only one winning doesn’t that show that it’s not really important ... ?
This has flow on effects. The girls running against transgender athletes at the lower levels would argue that’s its important.
Different argument. She ain’t transgender
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@jegga said in The Semenya Rule:
If there are other women with very similar biology competing does anyone have any theories as to why Semenya is the only one that’s getting all the attention?
Just thinking waaay back to schoolboy biology now but iirc a woman with the XY chromosone doesn't necessarily have Semenya like testosterone. There are different levels and perhaps Semenya has more advantanced male characteristics than the others? Either that or it's racism.
Edit: This might help. There are two main types:
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/09/brief-history-intersex-athletes-sport/
AIS people have a mutation which prevents testosterone (T) from being absorbed by the body; hence there will be plenty of T in the blood, but virtually none in other cells. Those with AIS usually look like any other woman from the outside. Since there is no T uptake in the body, any athletic advantage they might have over other women is very small
Those born with 5-ARD have a mutation which prevents the creation of dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, in the body. DHT is a powerful androgen which triggers the formation of male genitalia. Thus, 5-ARD babies are often assigned female gender. Unlike AIS people, however, those with 5-ARD are affected by the T in their system and become much more masculine at puberty. This can give them a very large athletic advantage over other women.
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@No-Quarter I did read the article. It’s s fairly one sided piece which I’m sure will influence many. I’m not strong enough in this subject to say it’s 100 pct wrong or right.
I just take the view that every single athlete has their own advantages and disadvantages. And Semenyas advantage isn’t strong enough thst when it’s combined with 35 years of sports science research, it can overcome a doping programme.
It’s a good discussion to have tho, and I’m not going to criticize others for holding the opposite view.
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@MajorRage said in The Semenya Rule:
@No-Quarter I did read the article. It’s s fairly one sided piece which I’m sure will influence many. I’m not strong enough in this subject to say it’s 100 pct wrong or right.
I just take the view that every single athlete has their own advantages and disadvantages. And Semenyas advantage isn’t strong enough thst when it’s combined with 35 years of sports science research, it can overcome a doping programme.
It’s a good discussion to have tho, and I’m not going to criticize others for holding the opposite view.
So because she can't beat insane records set by drugged athletes nearly 40 years ago, her advantage isn't that great? Have you seen pictures of the women who set those records? They're freaks of scientific manipulation.
