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the latest on gender, T, and the olympics
 

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walter
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 4391
Location: metro-motown-area

4/26/18 7:40 PM

the latest on gender, T, and the olympics

Track’s New Gender Rules Could Exclude Some Female Athletes

"In an effort to address questions about fair play, track and field’s world governing body will publish regulations on Thursday that could force some elite female athletes with naturally elevated testosterone levels to lower the hormone with medication, compete against men in certain Olympic events or effectively give up their international careers."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/sports/caster-semenya.html


Last edited by walter on 5/1/18 9:25 AM; edited 1 time in total

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daddy-o
Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 3307
Location: Springfield

5/1/18 6:46 AM

NPR broadcast a segment on this Monday night. Where's King Solomon?

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Anthony Smith
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 848
Location: Ohio

5/10/18 8:58 AM

Boo Hoo

They are too good (born that way) so it isn't fair (boo hoo boo hoo). I completely disagree with this nonsense. Let the strong and fast survive. I don't want fair, I don't want a level playing field. I want excellence.

Race like a wolf chasing its dinner: Run your prey to ground and tear its throat out.

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Craig
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 591

5/10/18 9:45 AM


quote:
They are too good (born that way) so it isn't fair (boo hoo boo hoo). I completely disagree with this nonsense. Let the strong and fast survive. I don't want fair, I don't want a level playing field. I want excellence.

Race like a wolf chasing its dinner: Run your prey to ground and tear its throat out.


I agree in spirit. But unfortunately it's not that easy. Unless you're saying we should do away with gender divisions in sports as well. "born female? boo hoo. Let the strong and fast survive!" I suspect we'd end up with somewhere around 90% of athletes in the Olympics being cisgender male. Maybe more. That's fair, right?

The gender distinction is (in spirit) primarily due to testosterone affecting male development. To remove gender from the equation, which was the intent of the categories, it could be argued the two categories for competition in any sport is "those with testosterone compete in category 1, those without compete in category 2". As we now know, gender is, or can be, fluid, so this distinction isn't always defined by biological presentation.

It's not that "they are too good (born that way)". It's that they are born with a non-standard biology (trying to politically correct and avoiding saying "non-normal") that blurs the commonly held standards of what male and female is.

There is no simple answer. It's easy to say, "vagina=female" and make the distinction there, but that's also an arbitrary line, just like height could be in basketball. i.e. if you're under 6' tall, you might be an excellent basketball player but you can't compete with people over 6' tall, so let's have two categories in basketball, one for those over 6' and one for under 6'. It's an arbitrary biological distinction, much like being male or female is. Right?

I think this has been debated here before.

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Anthony Smith
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 848
Location: Ohio

5/10/18 10:25 AM

Fair?

Fair doesn't matter.

And (not politically correct) I believe mammalian gender is bianary and should only be defined by vagina/penis paradigm. Any random mutations to this norm are either desirable or undesirable survival characteristics which do not change my bianary weltangshaung.

If you have a vagina and more testesterone maybe you are stronger and faster so yo should win.

And there should be no 6' and under basketball, simply basketball. You either can compete or you can't. Afterall Spud Webb played in the NBA and Barkley played inside at 6'4".

The reality is that level playing field and fairness are not in any way relevant.

Disqualifying the people that are better (or biologically advantaged) at an activity does not make you better or a champion or even worthwhile. It simply weakens the species and brings about mediocrity.

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Craig
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 591

5/10/18 6:01 PM

how about gender affirmation surgery (sex change operation)? or hermaphrodites?

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April
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 6593
Location: Westchester/NYC

5/10/18 7:35 PM

In boxing and in weight lifting, there’re many different weight classes.

So it’s really not that unthinkable to have 6’ under basketball, or 3-sigma from average of T sprints!

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Pino
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 168
Location: Apeldoorn - The Netherlands

5/11/18 1:30 PM

Sports are not fair, they are a demonstration of the differences.

There is one "open" category, often called male pro.
All other categories are an expression of some kind of handicap.
Such handicaps are age, being born without a penis, fat storing genes, and all other genetic discrepancies.

And often these handicapped categories are more interesting and more attractive.

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dan emery
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 6884
Location: Maine

5/11/18 4:26 PM

6' and under basketball?

I played hoop for years and actually I never heard of that.

Though in college I did play against a guy who made the 6' and under All American team, I'd they the best guy I ever played against. A 5'8" white guy who could dunk from a two footed take off. I went out to cover him on the wing of a zone and he went by me so fast I didn't even know what happened.

A better example of a small guy in the NBA is Muggsy Bogues, a great player at 5'3". But he, Webb and Barkley are are out the far extremity of the bell curve as athletes.

But I couldn't disagree with Anthony more. For the vast majority, sports, competitive or not, are for fun and fitness. Competitive sports are more fun if you have are reasonably competitive, so categories or classifications are totally appropriate if they make the event more fun for the participants. And very few will or have any need to train like a Olympian.

I'd say the species is better improved if more people participate in stenuous physical activity, rather than leaving it to some driven elite pursuing "excellence."

I do agree that females with high testosterone or some hermaphrodite characteristics should be allowed to compete as females.

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Andrew Lee
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 85
Location: Anchorage

5/12/18 6:08 AM


quote:

And (not politically correct) I believe mammalian gender is bianary and should only be defined by vagina/penis paradigm. Any random mutations to this norm are either desirable or undesirable survival characteristics which do not change my bianary weltangshaung.





The IAAF has said that Semenya has no womb or ovaries, but she does have internal testes. So she is a hermaphrodite, and really more man than woman. As an aside, she also got married a woman.


In high school track, some boys are running as girls just because they identify as girls. That really screws things up for the girls.

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Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5096
Location: Nashua, NH

5/12/18 9:15 AM

If you go through puberty...

...as male or a hermaphrodite, you should never be allowed to compete as a woman, as at that point you have gained physical advantages that will last the rest of your life. This can be mitigated to some extent by hormone therapy, but some characteristics - height, for example - cannot be changed after the fact. It amounts to "genetic dopiing".

The same is true for male-to-female transgender people. I've seen this at the 'Cross Nationals where one of the Masters classes has been reduced to a joke. The person who wins is taller than me, has a deeper voice and a more obvious beard, but is allowed to compete as a woman. IMO, it's a travesty.

While it's all "warm and fuzzy" to say that everyone should be able to compete in whatever group they identify with, if sports are going to be about fair competition, some people are going to have to be excluded due to gender issues that may not be their fault or choice (that's a whole 'nuther debate). That's just life, which isn't always fair. The high school example is just political correctness run amok and I feel sorry for the true female athletes that are cheated out of the recognition they deserve by this ridiculous practice.

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April
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 6593
Location: Westchester/NYC

5/12/18 10:14 AM


quote:
Sports are not fair, they are a demonstration of the differences.

There is one "open" category, often called male pro.
All other categories are an expression of some kind of handicap.

Such handicaps are age, being born without a penis, fat storing genes, and all other genetic discrepancies.

Not entirely true. Many times, top female athletes who long dominated women races sometimes wish to compete in men's events. But they had been turned down more often than not (Lindsey Von the most recent example) So it's not as "open" as you think.

But deep down, it's true all women sport are a "handicap", like 150lb weightlifting.

Weightlifters routinely sit in a steam room to lose weight so they fit into their weight class. If the category of "women" is defined as "t-deficient handicap" division, Semenya may choose between hormone therapy (the equivalent of sitting in steam room for hours?) to fit in the "low-T division", or compete against men.

But as of now, "women" are not defined as T-deficient. It's defined as a "gender" as though it's a clearly defined term (which it is, having that distinct chromosome). As such, Semenya should be allowed to compete as a women.

Unfortunately, the definition of "female" in Olympics got stuck in the stone age understanding of gender. Modern medicine and our understanding of genes and hormone had long ago pointed out the fault in those thinking. It take a real person to challenge that stone age definition.

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dan emery
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 6884
Location: Maine

5/12/18 4:24 PM

Trump advocates open sports

I just read that in the past Trump offered John McEnroe $1 mil to play one of the Williams sisters. McEnroe turned it down but said he thought he could have won though his daughter didn't think he could beat Serena.

Back to Bobby Riggs vs. Bille Jean King.

Semenya is not the fastest woman ever and slower than the best high school boys.

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Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5096
Location: Nashua, NH

5/13/18 4:52 AM

What's your point?

Is it any wonder that Trump would want to put on some kind of spectacle that would attract media attention? His whole life revolves around that.

What would it prove? That a woman at the peak of her career could beat a man that's well past his...or vice-versa? Other than the money - which they don't need - there's no upside for either of them. The only reason that the Riggs-King thing worked is that he was a sexist braggart and she was an outspoken feminist at a time when that was a roiling conflict here. McInroe and Williams don't fit that model and times have changed pretty dramatically, especially in the sport of tennis.

Your last statement just indicates that Semenya would likely be a mediocre athlete if competing against runners who were genetic/hormonal peers. It highlights the unfairness of hermaphrodites competing against women.

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April
Joined: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 6593
Location: Westchester/NYC

5/13/18 5:43 AM

I think it’s the opposite.

If Semenya isn’t even the fastest women ever, the complaints from the rest of women runners would be baseless.


Last edited by April on 5/13/18 9:13 AM; edited 1 time in total

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dan emery
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 6884
Location: Maine

5/13/18 7:10 AM

Point?

Since when do we need a point to post here? I just thought it was funny that Trump proposed that matchup. Of course it wouldn't prove anything. Though a few years ago it might have been fun to watch as they are all truly great players.

I think that competitively and physically Semenya is more a woman than man, and ought to be able to compete as such. You may disagree.

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Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5096
Location: Nashua, NH

5/13/18 11:28 AM

I absolutely disagree, but we don't have to be disagreeable about it.

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