Nope, she is intersex.
Mokgadi Caster Semenya | IAAF to tell court she should be classified as biologically male
- Thread starter ivaldo
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Her vagina is not producing testosterone. Her testes are.
Oh well. Natural female bodypart doing a job.
Edit: Seems i jumped the gun before reading properly, leaving it in for a laugh.
If you say so. But then that's just you saying so which on this occasion I'll have to ignore.
She has testes producing testosterone.
Ha, I guess that's fair!
Okay, so she's between sexes if I understand it correctly.
She'd be at a disadvantage at the mens game and a advantage at the womens game? (only talking competition)
Surely if it cannot be proven that she has a advantage in the womens game then she should be allowed to compete?
I doubt there will ever be a intersex competition.
It isn't that you aren't right however we may as well just be blunt about it and say she can't compete. Until or unless there are enough athletes that can form an entirely different grouping then she cannot be made to fit into the two we have. There's no fairness about any attempt to make an athlete more equal.
This keeps being said, but what exactly would constitute 'proof she has an advantage'? If you tested a biological female for drugs and they had 5-7x the normal testosterone levels expected, they would be banned on the spot - where's the 'proof' they had an advantage? If you can't see that she is bigger, faster and more aerobically fit than the average female athlete as a result of a lifetime of having naturally high testosterone hormones in her body, then there's no 'proof' good enough.
I've said as such above, I do not believe intersex athletes should ever compete with biological female athletes. I also don't think they should be forced to take hormone suppressants because that can be dangerous. So there should be an intersex division.
This isn't about making it more equal, but there is a reason the sex division exists. Semenya is, in biological terms, not really female. But she identifies as a woman and that's good. In terms of competition though, we use the biological definitition rather than the social one, therefore she does not meet the criteria and shouldn't compete in the female division.
You see to me this part of your argument isn't strong, athletes have advantages over others all the time. Take Jesse Owens as an example, despite Herr Hitler's determination that he was of an inferior 'race' Jesse was very definitely superior in every way athletically over the SuperMensch. One athlete is always superior and not necessarily through training. We only have to look at those most suited to Marathon running to blow your theory out of the water.
Okay then, in that case, do you know how many different divisions exist in the Paralympics? Should we just scrap them all because well... some athletes are just 'superior'?
Not seeing how this is relevant really. Apart from differing weight divisions in some events in athletics there aren't any other divisions. Once you start down this road of saying one type of athlete has an advantage we're in danger of ending up with no competition. The point is that there's always someone better.
What I'm saying though is however unfortunate it was that nobody noticed how different Caster was before achieving the elite standard she shouldn't compete until or unless she has some competition. Not an attempt to level the playing field though chemicals because we don't do that.
I guess we agree on your final point. Caster should not be forced to medicate - but she also shouldn't compete in the female division.
I wonder if she shouldn't take up the Pentathlon or Decathlon, there's some hairy big units in both groups and scoring points is about beating yourself isn't it?
She might be a bit too muscly for that funny enough. You need to be long and athletic there!
Daley Thompson was beefcake, especially with that tache.
She might be a bit too muscly for that funny enough. You need to be long and athletic there!
Caster's case illustrates the problem that we have when we try to distinguish between men and women. While most people fall neatly into a story where genes, internal organs, external genitalia, secondary sexual characteristics, biochemistry, psychology all match - some people don't. Whatever the reason for that divergence, it will affect the rest of their lives, but most of the effects will be personal and relevant only to them.
Which takes us down to the basic problem of why does women's sport exist, and why do the exceptions matter. Summarising: if you go through male puberty you'll get a lot of potential sporting advantages, some of which will be long-lasting; if you go through female puberty, the equivalent changes are designed to prepare the body for pregnancy/childbirth, not for sporting performance. Some DSD athletes will go through none/some changes, as will some other women with illnesses/conditions that occurred in childhood.
There's no easy line to draw, but I suspect that Caster is right in feeling targeted (if not in her own right, then just because there were several intersex athletes in the 800m finals a couple of years back with her). To quote the conclusion of one of the research articles:
Female athletes with high fT levels have a significant competitive advantage over those with low fT in 400 m, 400 m hurdles, 800 m, hammer throw, and pole vault.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/17/1309.full
Whereas the IAAF didn't mention pole vault in their new rule but did add the 1500m.
It fells like the IAAF cheated. They found themselves a convenient chemical test that athletes like Caster will fail and that they can use as a blanket rule covering a multitude of different conditions - including integration of transgender athletes. It feels unfair to Caster, potentially dangerous to athletes' health and a bit of a cop out, particularly as having gone down the "evidence based" track, they've used some very weak evidence and ended up with a somewhat random and unconvincing rule that effects some events and some athletes and not others.
Personally, having been round the debate a few times now, I'm probably closer to the extreme view that elite sport will need to adopt a rule like declaring itself to be for XX genotype women. I take women's elite sport as an aspirational role model for little girls too seriously to have its status thrown into doubt.
Which takes us down to the basic problem of why does women's sport exist, and why do the exceptions matter. Summarising: if you go through male puberty you'll get a lot of potential sporting advantages, some of which will be long-lasting; if you go through female puberty, the equivalent changes are designed to prepare the body for pregnancy/childbirth, not for sporting performance. Some DSD athletes will go through none/some changes, as will some other women with illnesses/conditions that occurred in childhood.
There's no easy line to draw, but I suspect that Caster is right in feeling targeted (if not in her own right, then just because there were several intersex athletes in the 800m finals a couple of years back with her). To quote the conclusion of one of the research articles:
Female athletes with high fT levels have a significant competitive advantage over those with low fT in 400 m, 400 m hurdles, 800 m, hammer throw, and pole vault.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/17/1309.full
Whereas the IAAF didn't mention pole vault in their new rule but did add the 1500m.
It fells like the IAAF cheated. They found themselves a convenient chemical test that athletes like Caster will fail and that they can use as a blanket rule covering a multitude of different conditions - including integration of transgender athletes. It feels unfair to Caster, potentially dangerous to athletes' health and a bit of a cop out, particularly as having gone down the "evidence based" track, they've used some very weak evidence and ended up with a somewhat random and unconvincing rule that effects some events and some athletes and not others.
Personally, having been round the debate a few times now, I'm probably closer to the extreme view that elite sport will need to adopt a rule like declaring itself to be for XX genotype women. I take women's elite sport as an aspirational role model for little girls too seriously to have its status thrown into doubt.
This is basically the only solution, and I think the IAAF has fumbled big time on this issue for ages because they are too scared to declare one way or the other in today's political environment. But that's the only solution.
That may be the appropriate outcome but at the moment we don't know if she is gaining an advantage from having raised testosterone.
I think you need procedures and rules that address actual advantage as opposed to potential advantage. We don't even have good data on the effect of testosterone in intersex athletes. We also should consider the degree of androgen insensitivity that is likely to partially or wholly exist as testosterone can't give an advantage if you are totally insensitive. If you can quantify the advantage, if any, taking in to account the level of testosterone and the degree of androgen insensitivity this might allow the authorities to set a meaningful and fairer standard.
I genuinely don't believe that this is possible, and it introduces a degree of subjectivity to the process that would inevitably mean that people get unfairly affected in either a positive or negative sense.
More importantly, this discussion of testosterone levels is a bit of a red herring. IAAF rules state that the female division is for 46 XX females; and that any 46 XY person (whether androgen insentive or sensitive) needs to do some hormone regulation in order to reduce their testosterone levels. The IAAF framed that rule on purpose because it is impossible to prove in any individual case whether someone 'gained an advantange'. For the same reason we don't have to prove someone 'gained an advantage' if they test positive for external adrogens - they get banned whether they finished first or didn't qualify. We know what testosterone exposure does to the body, and we know what effects those changes can have on athletic performance. Hence why 46 XY people (like Semenya) should not compete with 46 XX people.
I don't agree with asking them to take hormone regulation but that's not what we're talking about.
I think that's what they've had. They've attempted to deal with athletes on a case by case basis. Which meant in Caster's case they subjected her to a series of tests that she described as invasive and humiliating.
The only real tests they ended up with were, "how does she look" (height, weight, muscle and fat ratio - elements that contained a massive racial issue as well as a lot of subjective interpretation about where in a range a line gets drawn) and "how well does she perform". In effect the test became - is she going to win a medal or come fourth, if she was fourth then it wasn't a problem, because if she was fourth then she obviously wasn't that testosterone sensitive.
Those ideas got her banned and then reinstated - with the reinstatement largely driven by the subjective feeling (which I share) that she has been treated as female since birth, and saying otherwise now she was a woman, was just cruel.
Unfortunately for Caster she isn't the only athlete in this category and that's why they're trying to come up with a generic test that can be done relatively early in a career, isn't particularly invasive (compared to drug testing) and sets an objective rule. I suspect they've chosen the wrong rule but I can understand why they chose it. Put simply any rule will be divisive, but some are easier to test and defend in a law court than others.
That is not true at all. You can measure testosterone. You can measure androgen sensitivity. You can then probably work out where on the 0-12% advantage scale someone is and set a level that is allowable to compete. The argument that raised testosterone is automatically a huge advantage is lazy, unscientific and incorrect.
What would be the point of measuring androgen sensitivity? Semenya is almost definitely partially androgen sensitive, otherwise she would be a full 46 XY (male). Which is why the comparison to male athletes is pointless as I said earlier.
There are degrees to androgen insensitivy and they manifest themselves in different ways; Semenya, just by looking at her, you can see that it's only partial. She has very wide shoulders, high amounts of muscle mass, a deep voice etc. In effect she is more a feminised male than a masculanised female. This 0-12% thing is also pointless because there are plenty of males who would struggle to compete with top female athletes, doesn't mean we should now let all men line up with women.
Why do we test people for external androgen intake if testosterone doesn't confer an advantage?
If you are totally androgen insensitive testosterone then testosterone conveys no advantage. Caster looks a bit butch is not evidence.
I don't think the tests for androgen sensitivity are accurate enough to predict real world impact for individuals with PAIS (and they certainly don't allow an individual to be placed on an athletic performance advantage scale or anything that well defined - not for current shortterm testosterone level impact nor for the historic impact of longterm higher testosterone).
Despite the speculation there's been on Caster, we don't actually know the details of her condition or the tests conducted. The thing we do know is that when she was forced to take androgen lowering drugs, her athletics performance was reduced. She hasn't argued a no advantage case - she argued that she has a natural advantage, no different to big feet for a swimmer.
That's a completely fair argument for Caster to make, which is one of the reasons why I think the IAAF will be challenged again, and why the testosterone measure is at best an arbitrary (but easy to test) rule or more likely an attempt to kick the stone down the road until next time eligibility to compete in women's sport gets challenged by a particular competitor or (as with that 800m race) a group of competitors.
People who are born with complete androgen insensitivity are usually very easy to identify because they will be built like 46 XX females externally (with breasts, wider hips and underdeveloped female sexual organs), despite them being 46 XY. Semenya is in no way totally androgen insensitive.
She (and her legal team/doctors) is aware of this and that's why she's not making that argument in court.
I doubt they couldn't be refined or developed even if this is currently true. And there may be many factors that contribute to a final decision. Looking for a simple one test solution as has currently occurred is the problem as it isn't a simple issue. It isn't even a single condition. To make as fair decisions as possible you need good evidence and this is lacking at the moment.
That is irrelevant as it currently doesn't matter, as testosterone is the sole determinant. Caster is one person. What if a totally androgen insensitive person is banned based on testosterone they can't use?
Protecting women's sport is important but treating people fairly and ethically is equally so.
Please do.
Except, it is, testosterone and other male hormones don't need to exist in the body at elevated levels at the time of competition to afford significant athletic advantages.
Most professional athletes who dope, "cycle", cycling means that you go on the gear, make gains, get off the gear, lost some/most of the gains, but most importantly KEEP some of those gains.
We're also ignoring the foundational and structural advantages going through puberty with male hormones/elevated testosterone grants. Now this isn't about any one particular person, this is just a general truth. Your hormones inform how your body develops. If I had transitioned to female at 20 years old, I'd still be 6'4, I'd lose some lean muscle mass, my shoulders delt to delt might go to 22 inches from 24 inches. I'd still have a larger heart pound for pound, larger lungs, pound for pound, denser bones (though they'd become less dense than they were), I'd have larger and more robust insertion points for my muscles, tendons and ligaments. I'd have male bone structure which is proven to be more efficient bio-mechanically for most tasks.
My body would be running on female hormones, but it would be a body built by male hormones, and that itself affords a measurable advantage.
Removing the current testosterone from a trans athlete isn't the whole story. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of men who are as big, if not bigger than I am, and combine some degree of athleticism that I had in my youth. There are dozens of women, maybe a few hundred, who could compete with that combination of size and athleticism. How do you account for that? Are we just going to ignore biology?
Simply put, there is more to the story than maximal output afforded at a specific elevated testosterone level at any given point in time. More test = work harder, more fitness, more confidence, go off the test, lower the test whatever, you still keep some of those gains. That's why doping exists.
Yes but this is naturally produced in her body. She is not doping.
That's why the argument around Caster feels so brutal. She grew up as a girl, she became a woman. For most of human history, there would have been no challenge to that. It's the combination of modern sport and modern science that has brought us here.
I understand why Caster feels targeted, and I'm very dubious of current testosterone level being used as a criteria - particularly for athletes who went through full or partial male puberty. It feels like Caster is being used as a legal (rather than a sporting) test case for all DSD and transgender athletes.
Unfortunately as soon as sport looks for standardised tests (which they must) they have to apply them to real people, who can be more complex than a yes/no test.
At the moment, it looks like the alternative tests are either more exclusionary than testosterone level (chromosome based for example) or they're less relevant to protecting female sporting competition. Current testosterone level is a peculiar compromise though, I don't think it'll survive as a standard.