Yeah it seems like to me in sport the essential question isn't one's gender but one's physiology. If you have the physiology of a male, then you probably have an unfair advantage over those with the physiology of a female regardless of gender. Women's records will eventually be largely held by physiological males.

My wife and daughters think this line of reasoning is asinine and illogical; they laughed when I asked them their thoughts. You are effectively arguing that men should be allowed to complete alongside women unchecked. If you test no one, then you ruin sports for the vast majority of women athletes. Your arguments drift between a few fringe cases (as in 1 out of thousands) and hypothetical scenarios that are not based in fact. The actual fringe cases were poorly handled because the issues were new and the individuals and organizations were unprepared. For those few fringe examples (and your personal hypotheticals), you would discard all integrity within competition.

Arguing ethics does not work, because there are two ethical positions: 1) that you are personally uncomfortable with male/female testing; and 2) that it is important to offer athletes as level and fair a field of competition as possible. So, your position devolves into relativism, and you are weighting your personal ethics higher than all other ethics.

Imagine what would happen to sports if the governing bodies felt athletes' rights were violated by blood testing for drugs, and that no athlete should be subjected to that test.

This is a perfect example. You are not 100% sure which gender I am(and this is due to my screen name being somewhat ambiguous, as is my real name; Julian). I am not offended, and will be happy to prove my masculinity if it's needed to protect the integrity of this conversation(assuming we are in a male-only forum or something like that).

What's a "pyhsiological male?"

I would say having the gonads and sex hormone levels of a male, especially if it were a life-long state, would be a good start.

I don't see the ethical issue here. Is it a sensitive issue? Yes. Should it be handled as such? Absolutely. But to imply that female athletes are being subjected to some kind of cruel and unusual punishment by having their testosterone levels measured is taking it too far. In fact, I believe that anyone who opposes some kind of intersex testing is essentially opposing women in sport.

Also, using the term "gender" in this debate is inflammatory and unnecessary. This is about genetic sex and, as a proxy for that, testosterone. I don't care if someone identifies as female or male - or purple or green or whatever. But once you've entered the world of competitive sport, then you submit to the rules that are in place to compete. If you're not up for that, then don't compete. No one is saying intersex athletes can't compete - but they must do so according to the rules and procedures of their chosen sport. Otherwise we should just have the Olympics (or Paralympics, since we've tossed out the rules) open to whatever male/female/doper wants to toe the line that day.

I personally think all athletes - male and female - should be required to do chromosomal analysis and testosterone levels to ensure that "masculine-looking" athletes aren't targeted in any way. There is no need for a physical exam - it's just not necessary nor relevant. The testosterone levels should be reinstated in some capacity - maybe more research needs to be done, but it's ridiculous to assert that testosterone doesn't play a role in performance. Personally, I would agree to this kind of testing any day - better that than a long and worthless career spent trying to outrun/outperform/outdo an athlete who is genetically male.

I'm just amazed that any woman out there would oppose testing for intersex athletes to ensure a level playing field for all. What a sad day in sport it will be when female athletes are no longer relevant.

Sounds reasonable. And not any more invasive to test than a WADA drug test.

Women's 800m WR 1983. No serious testing then, and now that they can't control for T on intersex athletes you'll see a similar physique winning in Rio next month

In this context we use gender and sex interchangeably, I understand that there is a real tangible difference but in this case I think we can safely use them since we all basically know what we are saying.

They are being subjected to a cruel procedure in 'gender testing' because it is not limited to testing testosterone levels, which are already tested by WADA/USADA for doping concerns. Even if we limited the exam (which I have to stress, is not limited to a testosterone test but actually involves a physical exam) we are still using an arbitrary standard for testosterone levels which can be (and were...) successfully argued that a naturally high level of testosterone in a woman does not make them "too male" to compete in a female competition.

If you think that being opposed to 'gender testing' is akin to being against women in sport, I would say that is an obtuse opinion. Think about it for a second, I am going to go out on a limb and say that at some point female athletes undergo a physical. A physical which will include all the normal poking and prodding that one would expect. If, you are afraid that someone transitioned from male to female in total secret and now wants to compete as a female, this can easily be discovered in the most basic of physicals. Hell, we can see the scars through many sports equipment.

If we are going to think up a separate test, which only applies to females, to determine 'gender' (and it is gender, a true 'sex test' would only be a chromosomal analysis which is not what we are talking about, we are talking about genetic females who are being questioned on gender) for competition; it is certainly a possibility that it will be rife with abuse. We already see evidence of this in India and Africa where ideas of gender/sex norms are a lot more strict.

If we were to truly be talking strictly about intersex athletes (and again, we aren't) then whatever gender they obviously identify with (which so far has been 100% female) should be taken at face value. There is no real evidence that intersex athletes pose an unfair advantage over non-intersex athletes and whatever standard we come up with will be a values reflection, not one based on science, and I am incredibly uncomfortable with that.

Concur - as stated in this article: "a man can only become a faster man. A woman can become a man and get faster. They have a double boost. A woman who becomes more male, she's basically not a woman."

http://www.slate.com/.../08/unbreakable.html

I think the sports gene and a long conversation with an endocronologist should be essential before commenting

The problem is that people seem to think that gender / sex is binary when in fact its a continuim and there is a small subset of women who by different measures can be classified in a number of ways and its hardly fair or reasonable for a child who grows up as a female, who outwardly appears female is made to take testosterone inhibitors because she naturally produces more

We've agreed that its ok for cyclists on the bio passport who have abnormally high hemo globin capacities beyond the normal range to be able to compete against competition that is at a natural disadvantage but if a woman produces to much of a single hormone thats somehow different

Its not. The reality is that genetics ia a huge continuum and we have somewhat arbitrarily determined in certain areas what is / is not accaeptable even where the occurrences are completely natural

I never advocated for a physical exam, and in fact, I don't think one will be necessary once we figure out the nuances of sex testing (ie chromosomal analysis, testosterone, and possibly other hormones). A person's genitalia does not affect a person's athletic performance to any real extent. Testosterone levels do. Those barbaric and invasive physical exams are a thing of the past. We are moving past that. Science has moved past that.

We are not using an arbitrary standard for testosterone - currently, we are not using any standard. It's a free for all. I for one am anxious to see Caster Semenya obliterate the 800-meter field. Then maybe we can implement a useful standard based on evidence. Yes, that evidence is still being gathered - but to come right out and say that testosterone does not affect performance is a load of crap. It's just a matter of time before we have evidence that elucidates the role of hyperandrogenism in female athletes. Let's hope it's sooner rather than later.

You keep using the word gender in this context. I never supported gender testing. I choose to make that distinction because it's an incredibly important one. I support transgender athletes just like I support intersex testing. There is a difference.

The reason I am so impassioned is not that I don't want sports to be fair, it is that I have judged the very real possibility of abuse as a result of a policy to be more important/weighty than the somewhat slight possibility an intersex athlete will have an advantage in competition against her competitors. First of all, I am not sure how widespread this problem is, or even it if exists. Secondly, it should be obvious that this policy (written by men) has abuse written all over it and the two examples I can think of were certainly abusive. There is an old adage, 'the ends don't justify the means", if the 'means' is that we are gender testing female athletes then I can think of no end where that is justified.

This is sort of like a long argument I had where I took the position that SNAP recipients in Maine should be allowed to buy a candy bar with SNAP funds because to restrict otherwise would almost promisingly cost more to the state than just letting people have the candy bar. I don't think people should be eating many candy bars, but I really don't think that it is worth much time and effort to stop people from eating a candy bar. In other words, I am OK with the minor risk of fraud/abuse over the higher risk of fraud/abuse in the purported prevention of such.

There is a fallacy (I am forgetting the name) which basically states that in some cases attempting to prevent something will induce the same or similar event to happen. Now that I think of it, I think it is colloquially referred to as 'the self fulfilling prophecy'. At the heart of this argument is that there exists a possibility of fraud/abuse within competition wherein a male, a male who transitioned to female, or a female whose intersex qualities tend more to the masculine, will compete against women and have an unfair advantage. OK, that is fair, however, if the system we put in to prevent this is, of its own design, abusive and fraudulent - we have both not really fixed the original problem but we have created a completely separate one as well. It is additionally vomit inducing because this policy, as it sits now, has only really victimized poor brown/black women and I can't imagine it working out any other way.

Fair, but you do realize that this is, without a doubt, a gender test and not a sex test. A sex test would require no additional exam, you could just analyze blood taken during the normal course of whatever physicals athletes are already doing. The two athletes in question (an Indian and an African) were both 'gender tested' which included physical exams when the answer wasn't 'right' from the chromosomal evidence. In other words they 'looked' like men and they went to look for evidence to support that conclusion. My position is that even if they 'looked' like men, there should be enough medical evidence which would be essentially 'laying around' to solve the issue. Doping is tested, so if a woman wanted to dope herself to a point of being very male that would already be detected. Hormone testing and physical exams are already done to protect the athlete, to make sure that they are healthy enough to compete. The idea that someone might look at someone who looks like a woman, represents herself as female, grew up as female; and then says 'they might not be a woman lets 'test' it' has obvious negative implications that should be resolved by simply saying to that person "shut the hell up and focus on yourself".

It's also hardly fair or reasonable to expect women within X standard deviations of the mean-for-women along your continuum to compete with your outward appearing female who's at the mean-for-men for sex attributes that affect performance.

If we have two overlapping bell curves there should be a line. Even an arbitrary line. No side has a monopoly on "fairness."

(I'm using a 1-dimensional distribution for argument's sake only. Of course it's multivariate in the real world (and then some).)




It is different. The division between weight categories is by weight. The division between age catagories is by age The difference between sex categories is by sex. Within male cycling there is no division by natural hemoglobin levels.

The problem as you point out, is that unlike weight or age, sex doesn't have have clean boundaries. I'd argue you have to manufacture a transparent, explicit boundary. Because sports divisions are based on transparent, explicit rules. Of course picking that boundary will leave some people feeling like the selection of the boundary was "unfair." But I think that might be preferable vs. a wild west non-enforcement of the single most fundamental rule of all women's sports. That undermines the essence of sport.

Edit: Though I'm fully on the board that whatever line is picked be testable in a way that protects athlete's rights as much as is reasonable and takes into account invasiveness, etc.

You are advocating a political position not a scientific position. Gender/sex is most certainly NOT a continuum since the binary division accurately describes about ~99.7% of all people. Only about 1 out 1500-2000 people meet one of the many variants of intersex, and the sliver hardly increases if we throw in transgender. The reality is an extreme bi-modal gap with a shade of gray in between. The Olympics will either remain a binary division of sport between men and women, or it will not survive; especially if there is a concerted attack on women's sport to open it up to people with male levels of testosterone. The attempt to lean over backwards for inclusiveness is in effect a misogynist attack on women.

I wonder how long it will take you to wonder "why is there a dude running in this women's race" when you watch this video. Even her stride is different for the other womens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho3V3itUY68


I'm a woman and about as liberal as they come, but I'm calling complete BS. You seem overly concerned about how they are T levels are exposed, yet you show ZERO concern about the women with way less T who are getting their assed kicked by intersexed "females". This is in no way FAIR to women athletes with normal T levels. Shannon Rowbury spoke out against this nonsense at the Olympic Trials last week, which was long overdue.

There needs to be a standard. If 3mml is the norm, than 6 should be the limit. No limit is patently ridiculous.

Soooo, it's a continuum then? A very narrow one, approaching binary....but not quite. :-)

While the number of athletes that will fall into that small, narrow grey area is very small, it's still reasonable to draw a line down the middle of the grey so that dark grey women compete as men and light grey women compete as women.

Where and how the line gets drawn is the tricky part, as well as testing the grey area athletes to see which side of the line they fall. But it's still worth having the discussion, developing some rules and then applying those rules.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

I guess the next thing the Russians will be doing now that their wide spread doping has been uncovered to win Olympic medals is all the guys get their balls and penises cut off and compete as women.

They've been beaten to it....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...ing-games-women.html

Personally I have no particular issue if men want to become women. But having them compete as women is in my opinion just daft.

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I ride:
Cervelo - P-Series/R3
GT - Sensor Carbon Expert

Supporters - Flo Cycling, Mount Bikes

I did a running race in Canada years ago, the 'Round the Bays' 30km race, held every year since 1 year before 'Boston'. One of the years I did it, a past male winner (or podium) had come back years later as a woman. As they'd aged up quite a bit, the new she didn't win, but it was a 'storm in a teacup' at the time. That was early '90's from memory.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

I wonder how long it will take you to wonder "why is there a dude running in this women's race" when you watch this video. Even her stride is different for the other womens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho3V3itUY68

I haven't followed the CS story since the first big splash a few years back so this video was a total shock. That is simply ridiculous - period. If this is allowed then there is no such thing as "Women's Sports" and all events should be turned into an Open. Had Bruce Jenner changed his mind and become Caitlyn before 1976, should he have been allowed to compete (and win) in ten different Olympic "Women's Events"? "Oh no, Mr. Official, that's not a guy thing. That's just a really large lady part." "Oh. Well, if you say so. Next!"

Simple solution, do away with "male" and "female" categories and have only 1 set of results with everyone competing together.

Yes!!