The Semenya Rule
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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.
I'm a staunch critic as well, but there are biologically a few grey areas where people get mixed genetics. Some people have both sets of genitals for example.
That's different from dying your hair blue and being Owlkin.
Nobody is saying people that are affected like this can't live as a woman, but when they get male genetics that generate T that has to exclude them from competing in womans sporting events.
It has such a huge impact on performance it basically means that you either have to allow all woman to take testosterone to compete (and raise the risk of many cancers, among other health effects) or accept that woman's sport is finished as a category.
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@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.
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Need to track it down and do more reading but a researcher in the US has indicated that the impact of testosterone is being overstated around physical performance. Heard a brief snippet on RS but can't recall her name. I wonder if that is in anyway related to the all the work going on around PED detection and research? Surely that is full of edge cases where you do run into people with (natural) physiology outside the norm.
I agree that it's shit she'll have to take something to alter her levels, given that's her natural state. But also think there is a need to have these conversations - and that it'll only get more relevant and topical.
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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.
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@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).
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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.
From the article above;
"even though intersex births like Semenya’s are extremely rare it’s believed that all three of the medallists in the 2016 Olympic women’s 800 – Caster Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba and Margaret Wambui — are intersex"
I agree that it's interesting that the focus is only on one athlete, which is unfair, but it looks like it's more of a problem than is being widely reported.
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@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.
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@Paekakboyz said in The Semenya Rule:
Need to track it down and do more reading but a researcher in the US has indicated that the impact of testosterone is being overstated around physical performance. Heard a brief snippet on RS but can't recall her name. I wonder if that is in anyway related to the all the work going on around PED detection and research? Surely that is full of edge cases where you do run into people with (natural) physiology outside the norm.
I agree that it's shit she'll have to take something to alter her levels, given that's her natural state. But also think there is a need to have these conversations - and that it'll only get more relevant and topical.
Again, it says in the article above, the science shows that there is no edge case of a woman being about to produce as much testosterone as a male - by at least a factor of ten (can be be as much as 30 times high in men).
The line they have drawn still gives interex athletes a big advantage.
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@Paekakboyz said in The Semenya Rule:
Need to track it down and do more reading but a researcher in the US has indicated that the impact of testosterone is being overstated around physical performance. Heard a brief snippet on RS but can't recall her name. I wonder if that is in anyway related to the all the work going on around PED detection and research? Surely that is full of edge cases where you do run into people with (natural) physiology outside the norm.
I agree that it's shit she'll have to take something to alter her levels, given that's her natural state. But also think there is a need to have these conversations - and that it'll only get more relevant and topical.
I saw that, and that researcher is being dishonest as she has a political agenda to push. For example not once does she mention the word puberty at all. Puberty + testosterone = massive, massive advantage.
Also, if testosterone isn't such a big deal then I guess it should just be removed from the list of banned substances by the WADA and the IOC then. Which of course is ridiculous, it's probably the biggest advantage an athlete can have which is why it's banned.
It's worth reading the quick article I linked to ( @MajorRage too) as it does a good job outlining the issues around testosterone and having the XY chromosome when competing in women's sport.
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@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).
I'm referencing the definition in one of the articles above. But @Kirwan has explained it nicely.
Draw a line, define Woman and Non-Woman. Compete as qualified.
No special category.
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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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