It actually gets more complicated from there...

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
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This came up in the news today. Caster Semenya is set to challenge the guidelines in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

Semenya always was curious to me as to why she is such a controversy. She is fast, don't get me wrong, but she isn't that much faster than the rest of the female elite field and she has been beaten. . . occasionally :) Correct me if I'm wrong, but she holds one record in the 600m, right? Dibaba has more records than that or then you look at Felix with way more gold medals than Semenya.

These aren't perfect examples, but outside of how Semenya looks, what is really the driving force behind the concern of her T levels? She wins - yes, as do many other women and again, she only has 1 record to her name. Its not like she is out there just yanking records off every women's mantle or something.

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I think this thread highlights that people are ultimately concerned about fairness. Up until fairly recently you just raced as a male or a female and that was it. Maybe there were a few cases where it wasn't so simple but the issue never seemed to garner too much attention.

Now we have quite blurred lines. Cases where biological males simply "identify" as female and insist on competing against biological females. That is arguably unfair to any woman that may miss out on competing or placing as a result.

Perhaps that biological male takes certain hormones in their "transition" process to take on the physical characteristics of a female. They may then see it as unfair that they have to compete against biological men with higher levels of testosterone. However, it is again arguably unfair for them to compete against biological women as they have already developed certain characteristics that will aid their performance which hormone therapies can't undo.

Then there are people with chromosomal differences who don't neatly fit into the biological male/female box.

So if you are the race director what do you do? Piss off anyone who enters that doesn't neatly fit within biological male/female by making them race in the male category? Risk pissing off women by allowing the person to race as a woman and potentially take a place from a biological woman? Make the person race in their own category and risk pissing them off that way?

Don't underestimate the looks, a lot of people will simply look at one of the pictures where she's looking particularly muscular or square-jawed, leap to a conclusion, and move onto the next topic.

And it's also a matter of public record that she's undergone a sex test, the results have been leaked, and she was suspended from competition for a period while it was being looked into. She's far and away the highest profile and most successful athlete for whom there is any actual evidence (not just looking masculine) to believe she may have unusually high T levels. The whole case also got blown up in the press because claims of racism and imperialism were made.

The lack of records doesn't mean anything either way, Mo Farah doesn't have any meaningful world records either (think he holds the indoor 2 mile record which is up there with the 600m!), it's because he wins with his finishing speed rather than setting fast times.

By contrast, Felix and Dibaba look much more traditionally feminine and as far as we know have never had gender tests or shown any unusual results.

The answer!

This. There are a lot of women who are phenotypically 100% female who aren't XX.

This is misleading. For example XX males account for less than 1:20,000 births. If you race director is debating if they should split the field on 5 or 10 year age groups they sure as hell don't need to worry about a 1:20,000 genetic possibility. The XX males are males after all. So they run with the men.

It is that simple.

Glad you've clarified complex biological problems for us on slowtwitch.

You are welcome


Getting back to reality. Yes the issues are complex. But forums like this break down when someone swings in with a 'what about x' (or should that be, what about xx :-)) without suggesting any viable alternative. The thread is derailed from the politics or deliberate gender change impacting competition vs how to accommodate marginal genetic abnormalities.

If you are born XX then you are as they say. Born that way. You have nobody but bad luck to blame for your maldecended testicles, sterility and host of other abnormalities. If you are ambitious enough to take on a triathlon good for you. But don't imagine you can swap into the female class. Have you had to train around the pain of your menstrual cycle all of your adult life. No. Do you enjoy being on the good side of the pay gap in your professional life thanks to the gender on your driving licence? Likely yes.

So play the cards you have been dealt.

If you disagree with the above then please suggest a viable alternative.

You're assuming that people with different genetics have altered phenotypic expression of those genes. They don't always. There are XY's who are 100% phenotypic females. You would never have any idea without a genetic test. What are you proposing we do with those people?

Not having a simple answer to the question is natural when the issue isn't as black and white as many people believe.