It's also unfair that XY individuals benefit from increased height and limb length, even if they subsequently lower their testosterone levels, which this decision doesn't address.
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Who could have thought that it would take the national newspaper of record five tries to present an honest and fact-based reporting of the actual regulation proposed by the IAAF and at the same time accurately report on the gender-status of the complainant.
Maybe don't bury the lead next time.
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"Track and Field Tries to Understand New Rules for Intersex Athletes"
So, now Semenya is already not a woman athlete?
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No one has the right to be an elite athlete. No one has the right to be the best athlete in their class.
46-XY persons with DSD are an incredibly small population. Unfortunately, those of them who identify as women have found that they are better than most women athletes in sprinting events. Clearly there is a problem.
I personally believe that something objective should be used to define those who compete in men's or women's races, such as chromosomes: XY = men; XX = women. However, this testosterone based ruling seems like a decently-thought out rule. Essentially, if you'd like to compete as a woman, you can't use your male genetics to your advantage.
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It is important to realize that this ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the case of Caster Semenya sets a precedent that is also likely to impact trans-male-to-female athletes.
This decision opens the door to further suits by women athletes with “normal range” levels of testosterone and XX chromosomes to prevent what they believe is unfair competition from women with elevated levels of testosterone and/or XY chromosomes.
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Finally some of the salient facts about the IAAF regs that Caster Semenya unsuccessfully challenged. The media's & public's insistence on falsely portraying this case has been maddening.
But still, I wish the NYT had linked to the letter the IAAF sent yesterday to the World Medical Association - & the world. That letter explained that the regs Semenya contested do NOT say "all women with high testosterone" must lower their T levels in order to compete as females, as has been widely reported. Rather, the IAAF regs require that T levels be reduced to levels approaching (but still above) the levels normally found in biological females ONLY by athletes wanting to compete in some events who have ID documents that say they are "legally female or intersex" AND who also have ALL FOUR of the following:
Male XY sex chromosomes, not female XX chromosomes;
Functioning testes & no ovaries;
Circulating testosterone in the male range, not the (much lower) female range;
Functional androgen receptors that enable their bodies to make use of their high T in a way that advantages them in sport over XX women without testes.
https://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/iaaf-letter-wma
Those who say Semenya is being unfairly targeted for being a black African should google Erik(a) Schinegger, the white women's World Cup ski champ from Austria forced to quit sports on the eve of the 1968 Olympics, where Schinegger was a shoe-in for multiple gold medals, when found to have the same DSD as Semenya.
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This mistreatment of Castor Semenya is inherently racist and sexist. Her color aka race and gender and ethnicity and national origin are being held against her.
It is also scientifically stupid from the perspective of biological science.
As pointed out by Trevor Noah on " The Daily Show" every great athlete has certain natural advantages. Semenya has naturally high testosterone. As long as she is not doping aka unnaturally enhancing by biochemical means there is no basis for any complaint.
Adolf Hitler could not abide nor accept Jesse Owens or Joe Louis assault on the myth of Aryan supremacy
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@Blackmamba There have been instances of white female athletes in a similar situation - a difference commenter mentioned skier Erik(a) Schinegger. And slightly different but recall tennis player Renee Richards.
Trevor Noah's piece was disappointingly facile.
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@MV
There are only two naturally procreative biological DNA genetic human race genders. XX and XY marks the meaningful divide.
While there are multiple natural expressions of gender identity. Gender identity is determined thrice in the womb. Fertilization, brain development and genitalia/gonad origin. Mostly gender identity always match. But not always. That is not a choice. Nor is it unnatural.
You clearly either don't know nor understand biological science.
Renee Richards and Caitlyn Jenner are XY period for sports purposes. Trevor Noah's piece was scientifically insightful and wise.
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Finally, a sensible ruling. May this wave of sensibility extend beyond sports to other contentious areas such a prisons, shelters, etc.!
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It has been long known that there is not a clear demarkation of gender in not only humans but in some other species as well. We are all a mixture of maleness and femaleness. We were all female initially in the womb. That is why men have nipples and some even functioning wombs. That said, every culture I'm aware of is structured for the two gender roles. We are only recently accepting people who either physically and/or psychologically may not fit our definitions of their gender- definitions which are more cultural than biological.
I support girls and women's sports, have nieces and daughters of friends who compete and I also have transgender friends who are athletes and the question of how to be fair to both has been a dilemma for me for years now. I'm glad I don't have to make that call.
I think your coverage of this controversy has been fair and balanced so far as I've read and I look forward to some of your columnists taking a crack at it. The concept of fairness comes from sports (certainly not from life or love) and as we extend freedom, equality and acceptance to more of our human family we will need to be patient and pray that our judges are wise.
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Thank you for this article, which introduces facts, based on scientific testing, rather than so many articles out there that are based solely on the supposed horror of discriminating against a few athletes in pursuit of true fairness for competitors who have worked their entire lives to be among the best of the best in their respective races. It is a fact that Ms. Semenya benefits from the additional testosterone she produces as a result of her Y chromosone. To allow her to compete against all other women is the definition of unfair. Put another way, any woman who is discovered to have intentionally taken testosterone would be disqualified for "juicing". That Ms. Semenya has more natural testosterone is equally unfair to the other competitors. I applaud this decision.
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The IAAF has reportedly now added the clarification that these biological males are welcome to compete in the men’s events, where they in fact fit biologically, if they wish to avoid taking testosterone diminishing medications.
This at least mutes somewhat the medical risk and anti-doping arguments against drugging these individuals - the ends justify the means - in the face of the ongoing massive world wide effort to combat the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs to advance athletic performance, of which a centerpiece is eliminating athletes’ use of exogenous testosterone.
The simple answer though is that since these sports events are officially segregated by biological gender, if rigorously so applied, no medicating or doping is required, and whatever the athlete possesses as physical benefits for a specific athletic event, that is the reason many athletic events requiring differing characteristics are contested.
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This article inaccurately states that Semenya has a "rare chromosomal makeup". They are XY and they have at least one testes, and no uterus and no ovary. When they were born, that they had no external genitalia that were clearly male, so they were raised as a female. Clearly, the testosterone receptors in Semenya are functional, if they were not - there would be no
external androgenizing effect. What this article leaves out is that since Semenya has a Y chromosome, they actually express genes (DNA) that XX individuals do not.
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@Irene Cantu As the article says, Semenya identifies as a woman, so it's alright to refer to her using female pronouns.
The fact that you awkwardly avoid doing so suggests that you might be bringing bad faith to the debate over if she should compete with women or not.
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@Kirby P No need to suggest bad faith. Irene Cantu may simply be trying to avoid offending anyone by who might be offended by referring to a person with an XY chromosome as “her” or “she”, or who might be offended by using the wrong gender designator, of which there are quite a few these days.
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After dozens of comments from readers that criticized earlier NYT stories or op-eds for not including critically relevant details about the biology of the affected athletes, it's refreshing to see some of those details included here. But parts of this story are still misleading. It's not true that the CAS ruling "[focuses] only on athletes with a rare chromosomal makeup." The chromosomal makeup of CS and other affected runners is 46 XY, which characterizes about half of the humans on the planet. What's unusual about CS and other affected runners is a rare physiological condition (possibly with an underlying rare genetic basis) that causes these individuals to develop some male characteristics (especially the formation of testes, the secretion of high levels of testosterone, and the development at puberty of typically male physiological and athletic capabilities), but not all of the typical male characteristics (especially the formation of ambiguous morphology of the external genitalia). A reader can piece together these details from the article as a whole, but the lede is still not clear about the underlying biological basis for this controversy. I appreciate that Gina Kolata is trying to do better here. Keep going!
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Seems to me that champion male athletes all have significant genetic advantages of some form or another, seems discriminatory to penalize female athletes for the same thing just because the abnormality occurs on a sex chromosome.
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That's a great photo!
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@areader I thought so as well. It says more than any argument can.
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An article with actual information, compared with prior articles in the Times that left me puzzled.
I'd like to know how Semenya's times compare with men's.
An alternative is to do away with male and female contests and have tiers.
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@Audaz FYI CS times would not be competitive at the top level of male high school runners. She is intersex, not male. FYI Serena Williams was thrashed in friendly game w 200th seeded male tennis circuit player. No judgement implied by all this other than sports on tv is entertainment and the various gendered/weight class/wheelchair divisions all exist for a reason.
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@Audaz The time posted by CS in the 800 at Doha is ranked slower than about 1600 times that have been posted by male athletes running the 800 in the first five months of 2019. See:
https://www.iaaf.org/records/toplists/middle-long/800-metres/outdoor/men/senior/2019?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true.
Her times are in the range of times for male athletes but not competitive with elite male 800 specialists. Her times are well outside the typical range of female athletes who are 46 XX.
This seems like the sad part of the whole story: CS has trained hard and devoted her adult life to sport; and as the focus of a lot of awful media attention she seems to have comported herself admirably. But she is not even close to competitive as a male; and can only compete if allowed unfairly to enter competitions for females, where she and several others with the same 46 XY DSD conditions are currently dominant in several events. So although I think the CAS decision is correct, it's a very sad outcome for CS: she literally can't win.
But that's true for almost everyone on the planet because the vast majority of us are not elite athletes, and I guess the CAS ruling just emphasizes that this is the case for CS as well: she's not an elite male athlete.
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There examples in androgen insensitivity syndrome (testicular feminization) where the external appearance of the person may be female (or partially masculinized; e.g. enlarged clitoris), the genotype is XY (i.e., male), but the internal sex organs are testes, not ovaries. Those testes should be removed because they will become malignant (cancerous) due the increased temperature of the body, compared to testes in the scrotal sac. This "intersex" could produce the "female" athletes in the present situation. The high testosterone levels in Semenya are either of testicular origin, or from the adrenals (adrenogenital syndrome). In either case, its pathological, and failure to correct the condition will eventually have long-term health consequences.
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Great example here of objective, fact-based reporting. And a welcome corrective for the misinformation in recent opinion pieces peddled by those with political agendas.
The court's ruling is based on established science; its scope was appropriately narrow; and it bent over backwards to assure fairness to all affected stakeholders.
I say, "bring this court to Washington, D.C.!"
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How is it discriminatory to say that only those with XX chromosomes are welcome to compete in one race, while everyone is welcome to compete in another?
We use the shorthand "men's" and "women's" for these 2 races, but it's only shorthand.
The point is, unless there's an objective standard reasonably related to athletic capacity, the "women's" race is not competitive. No one wants to watch that, and it would be the end of women's sports.
Everyone should have the right to compete in some class, but no one has the right to dictate eligibility standards for the classes.
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