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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [SallyShortyPnts] [ In reply to ]
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SallyShortyPnts wrote:
tridork wrote:
trail wrote:
tridork wrote:
Really?


The discussion is about women that are living between a traditionally accepted woman's place on the continuum, closer to a man's place on the continuum.

No, the thread is about testosterone levels being measured in womens' sports and how it is going to change sport in the future. In 2011, IAAF determined that the most flagrant example, Caster Semenya, did have significantly higher endogenous testosterone than the established normal female population and had to undergo exogenous hormone replacement (reverse doping, for lack of a better word). Dutee Chand, an Olympic 100 meter hopeful, was able to have this ruling thrown out by the CAS until July of 2017 because men weren't subjected to the same natural testosterone level testing.

I have seen what appears to be at least three examples of what might be naturally high testosterone levels in high-performing Olympic women. My question is what do you think the future brings for hormone testing, given that CAS threw out the previous ruling that did not involve men?

I am not an expert in this domain by any means, but just thinking about it from a philosophy angle and coming back to what Monty said (no one has to compete against the alien division or something like that). I think it would be fair to put an upper limit on T levels for the womens' division. If someone is a physiological outlier such as Castor and tends more in the level of males, then a few women who are physiological outliers gets banned from racing in that net. For the "open division", we should allow all humans including the extreme physiological outliers with high T levels. Now would the WADA blood passport be possibly used to ensure that someone who is "high" is naturally high and not "topping up" to alien levels? I would hope that could be done. But in the Open/male division, all physiological outliers who are naturally that way from birth, should be allowed to race. In essence, Olympic sport is about the 1 in a billion humans gifted to do something better than others....you have to look no further than the men's high jump finals to understand that you need to be gifted certain traits to even be at the table. Olympics are about "gifted humans". But I think we do need a definition of what's the upper limit of what can qualify in the women's division before that human gets asked to compete in "open/male/alien".
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]
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ericmulk wrote:
I like the idea of having testosterone ("T") levels regulated, with supplementation legal to either go up or down where you should be. I've read about numerous guys/girls having their T levels tested but, AFAIK, my T levels have never been tested. Maybe I'm way low and can really get faster with some legal T. I like this idea. :)

Allowing doping "up" pretty much guarantees a majority of competitive athletes will be "supplementing". It is pretty easy to lower T levels with hard training. Pretty much the same as making T legal. I don't like the idea of having to take T as a prerequisite for competitive racing.

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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [SallyShortyPnts] [ In reply to ]
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All I'll say is my 10 year old daughter, who does't know anything about testosterone or anything of the like, asked me during the women's 800m final why there were men running in the race?
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [SallyShortyPnts] [ In reply to ]
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there is any number of issues here and not least of which is this is not related to just levels of testosterone

chromosomes, usually an indicator - xx for women, xy for men have specific conditions attached to them where women can test xy

a female spanish athlete called Martinez Patino had breasts, vagina, internal testes, no ovaries or uterus and males doses of testosterone which was inert - after the years of debate the experts declared her a woman - something she was pretty aware of from the outset

having settled on the fact that they'd determined she was a woman, to avoid this, the IAAF convened a group of international experts to determine the differences between the sexes. The conclusion that group came to was - dont ask us

neither body parts or chromosomes unequivocally differentiate between males and females and in 2011 when asked again a member of that group said they could not come up with any different 20 years on than they had in 2000 when the advice was to stop testing

(this is a paraphrase of the Sports Gene)

I've a good friend who is a rocket scientist endocronologist - one of the most internationally respected world leaders in his field - a very obscure sub-set of intersex conditions - his view is that there is no means of clearly identifying one sex from the other

thats not to say that you can not differentiate - you can put in tests with limits and say above X or without Y an individual is one or the other, but in the real world people do not present like that and even in the womens field of the 800 at Rio, discounting the first 3 across the line, the T levels of the balance of the field will not be identical, so lets say a limit is established which is X and the first 3 are out, a woman comes along who by every single conceivable physiological and genetic test is female but they're 0.1% higher than the limit set for T - are they really out? its a little like trying to level the playing field in sports which require 20/20 vision and someone comes along who has 20/8 and are we really going to suggest that because the average norm is 20/20 that the other individual should have their sight reduced so they do not have an advantage

I think the conclusion of the panel that examined this once before is there is no clear means of differentiating, so don't ask us to tell you how to do it. Thats not to say sports can not come up with some way of doing it, but I suspect in light of the fact that the IAAF and IOC can not find a panel that would support them in the past in seperating genders, so long as that is the case, any female athlete who is penalised for their natural born condition probably has an excellent chance of appealing any decision at CAS

read Epstein - brilliant book
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [ThisIsIt] [ In reply to ]
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ThisIsIt wrote:
All I'll say is my 10 year old daughter, who does't know anything about testosterone or anything of the like, asked me during the women's 800m final why there were men running in the race?
And what did you tell her?

Did you explain that some women have more masculine features and likewise some men have more feminine ones?
That's what it comes down to. Humanity is a spectrum. We usually ignore it, until someone's far enough from the norm to make us feel uncomfortable.

In sports that depend on physical strength or endurance only a small percentage of the population with matching physical traits are in with a chance to be competitive at top level.
But there are an even smaller percentage that have even more obvious and significant advantages, be it due to high testosterone in women or a genetic condition in a man (e.g Robert Forstemann). They're just an extension of the same principle. Some people are better equipped to be competitive than others.
Is it perhaps ironic that many of those at the top of their sports complain about a fellow competitor who is just better equipped than them, suggesting that they have an unfair advantage. Those complaining have themselves an "unfair advantage" over most of the rest of the population.
It's those with a physiological advantage over 99% of the population complaining about someone who has a physiological advantage over 99.99% of the population...(or whatever the figures might actually be.)
Certainly we can say we want to set linits. We can define what a "normal" man or woman is. That's a slippery slope and a moral/ethical minefield. The logical conclusion would surely be that all sports have to be conducted on a genetic handicap system of some sort. Maybe Phelps gets a 5 second penalty because he has a long torso and big hands and feet. Maybe high jumpers get a penalty for being too tall or a bonus for being short. What about Usain Bolt? Did he have no unusual physiological advantages? Was it all just training?
Maybe we do the same in mental competition. Too clever? You get less time or an added element of difficulty.

We don't have to be politically correct or bury our heads in tha sand either. Just acknowledge that people are different. Sports aren't fair and never can be. If we're categorising competitors by sex and age, then as long as nothing's been altered artificially, I think we leave it alone. The remaining problem of course is if there is no unequivical definition of male or female that can be agreed to. There are cases where this is physically ambiguous.
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [Ai_1] [ In reply to ]
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And what did you tell her?

Good post my friend, I would like to hear their answer..
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [tridork] [ In reply to ]
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Tridork, I believe the problem goes farther than not woman enough.
Not woman at all is my understanding. So, imperfectly formed man with no female parts competing as female - is what we have.
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [dogmile] [ In reply to ]
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dogmile wrote:
ericmulk wrote:

I like the idea of having testosterone ("T") levels regulated, with supplementation legal to either go up or down where you should be. I've read about numerous guys/girls having their T levels tested but, AFAIK, my T levels have never been tested. Maybe I'm way low and can really get faster with some legal T. I like this idea. :)


Allowing doping "up" pretty much guarantees a majority of competitive athletes will be "supplementing". It is pretty easy to lower T levels with hard training. Pretty much the same as making T legal. I don't like the idea of having to take T as a prerequisite for competitive racing...

Do you know if our T levels go back up when we rest/taper, hopefully to higher levels than initially??? I've had the feeling intuitively that my T levels have stayed fairly high over the years, but I've never seen any research on this. :)


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [Ai_1] [ In reply to ]
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Ai_1 wrote:
Certainly we can say we want to set linits. We can define what a "normal" man or woman is. That's a slippery slope and a moral/ethical minefield.

Limits don't have to be about defining "normal." They can be about defining the extremes. Semenya has testicles, and no ovaries. You could make a rule, "If you have testicles, you compete with men." There, that solves Semenya. Is that a slippery slope, or ethical minefield? It's an ethical problem in that you might deny women like Semenya the opportunity to compete in the field they think they should. But it's also an ethical minefield letting her compete. You don't avoid ethical issues by doing nothing.
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
Ai_1 wrote:

Certainly we can say we want to set linits. We can define what a "normal" man or woman is. That's a slippery slope and a moral/ethical minefield.


Limits don't have to be about defining "normal." They can be about defining the extremes. Semenya has testicles, and no ovaries. You could make a rule, "If you have testicles, you compete with men." There, that solves Semenya. Is that a slippery slope, or ethical minefield? It's an ethical problem in that you might deny women like Semenya the opportunity to compete in the field they think they should. But it's also an ethical minefield letting her compete. You don't avoid ethical issues by doing nothing.


x2 to that part in bold above. Well said.
Last edited by: devashish_paul: Aug 22, 16 11:59
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
Ai_1 wrote:

Certainly we can say we want to set linits. We can define what a "normal" man or woman is. That's a slippery slope and a moral/ethical minefield.


Limits don't have to be about defining "normal." They can be about defining the extremes. Semenya has testicles, and no ovaries. You could make a rule, "If you have testicles, you compete with men." There, that solves Semenya. Is that a slippery slope, or ethical minefield? It's an ethical problem in that you might deny women like Semenya the opportunity to compete in the field they think they should. But it's also an ethical minefield letting her compete. You don't avoid ethical issues by doing nothing.

Yeah, I think where people get caught up is that eligibility to race doesn't need to be the same as gender identity. You identify as a woman, awesome. You have testicles, xy chromosomes, and no ovaries; sorry not eligible to compete in the women's category.

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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]
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Unless you dug a very deep hole your levels will rebound with normal rest/taper.
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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That's true but when you have sought the counsel of experts and they say collectively "don't ask us" who do we think should make that decision

So in this case IAAF and IOC sought clarity were told to go whistle because even the people that deal with it for a living could not decide where the line is drawn

So, let's say they get a group of independent experts who give them the result they want this time round. I'm sure they might be able to find a group to tell them what they want to hear in exchange for cash. What happens next?

Eliminated athletes or athletes forced to take T suppressants get a lawyer head off to both CAS and every other justice system and argue with the former members of the last expert panel that the lines being drawn are arbitrary and discriminatory because there will be dozens of experts lining up to explain why caster is a woman. She may be at the acceptable or unacceptable bounotaries of what we think of as female but they'll argue she is because of x, y and Z and if she fulfills those criteria you can't prevent her from competing or compelless her to take drugs to suppress her natural levels

This battle is lost unless there becomes a clinical accepted standard for differentiating that is accepted by the courts and I'm not sure it's been tested or that there is at this point
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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the IAAF convened a group of international experts to determine the differences between the sexes. The conclusion that group came to was - dont ask us

. . . .

I've a good friend who is a rocket scientist endocronologist - one of the most internationally respected world leaders in his field - a very obscure sub-set of intersex conditions - his view is that there is no means of clearly identifying one sex from the other

Thankfully for us all, for millennia the human species has been able to figure this out without the aid of experts. A simple natural experience somehow magically works for most people: puberty.

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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Andrewmc wrote:
That's true but when you have sought the counsel of experts and they say collectively "don't ask us" who do we think should make that decision

So in this case IAAF and IOC sought clarity were told to go whistle because even the people that deal with it for a living could not decide where the line is drawn

So, let's say they get a group of independent experts who give them the result they want this time round. I'm sure they might be able to find a group to tell them what they want to hear in exchange for cash. What happens next?

Eliminated athletes or athletes forced to take T suppressants get a lawyer head off to both CAS and every other justice system and argue with the former members of the last expert panel that the lines being drawn are arbitrary and discriminatory because there will be dozens of experts lining up to explain why caster is a woman. She may be at the acceptable or unacceptable bounotaries of what we think of as female but they'll argue she is because of x, y and Z and if she fulfills those criteria you can't prevent her from competing or compelless her to take drugs to suppress her natural levels

This battle is lost unless there becomes a clinical accepted standard for differentiating that is accepted by the courts and I'm not sure it's been tested or that there is at this point

Just a quick thought....don't ask who is or is not a woman. That's a political minefield. Simply define the thresholds that one would need to meet to compete in the "non open" division. So now you have an open division that males traditionally race in. You have a non open division that traditionally what we define as women race in. If you are over some extreme outlier limits then you just don't get to compete in that non open division
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [H-] [ In reply to ]
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Except were not talking about most of us. We'recommend talking about .00001% of the population and as I pointed out earlier. Woman with breaststroke, vaginally - so apparently all the right bits in the right places doesn't realise there is an issue till she has a chromosome test stating she's a man

So perhaps we need something a litthe more sophisticated than a visual assessment of build and hairline and perhaps there are no clear hormonal boundaries

I'might sure if the IAAF and IOC use your argument semanya would not have a leg to stand on in court
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [ThisIsIt] [ In reply to ]
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Having just read "The Sports Gene", I tried to explain the Caster Semenya situation as best as I could to my kids (10 yr old boy, 13 yr old girl) and they seemed to get it at the "science" level. I even paused the DVR to explain it all prior to the race. But while actually watching the race, they were like..."That's a dude".
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
Ai_1 wrote:

Certainly we can say we want to set linits. We can define what a "normal" man or woman is. That's a slippery slope and a moral/ethical minefield.


Limits don't have to be about defining "normal." They can be about defining the extremes. Semenya has testicles, and no ovaries. You could make a rule, "If you have testicles, you compete with men." There, that solves Semenya. Is that a slippery slope, or ethical minefield? It's an ethical problem in that you might deny women like Semenya the opportunity to compete in the field they think they should. But it's also an ethical minefield letting her compete. You don't avoid ethical issues by doing nothing.

Help me out, guess I am real dumb. How is a person with testicles a woman? What is on their birth certificate? I have never heard they do a DNA test at birth to determine sex, I thought you just looked between their legs.


So when is a women a women, and when is a man a man? Wow, I am so confused now.

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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [SallyShortyPnts] [ In reply to ]
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No, the thread is about testosterone levels being measured in womens' sports and how it is going to change sport in the future. In 2011, IAAF determined that the most flagrant example, Caster Semenya, did have significantly higher endogenous testosterone than the established normal female population and had to undergo exogenous hormone replacement (reverse doping, for lack of a better word). Dutee Chand, an Olympic 100 meter hopeful, was able to have this ruling thrown out by the CAS until July of 2017 because men weren't subjected to the same natural testosterone level testing.

I have seen what appears to be at least three examples of what might be naturally high testosterone levels in high-performing Olympic women. My question is what do you think the future brings for hormone testing, given that CAS threw out the previous ruling that did not involve men?[/quote]

Well this sort of opens up the whole field of what is normal and further, how do we determine it?

Back in the day, male/female was seen as a lot more binary, but that is changing for sure. With that taking place, deciding what is normal for both men and women gets a lot greyer. In this discussion, it seems to have switched from who has testes and who doesn't, to what is the acceptable level of testosterone for a person to have, to be male or female.

Is it right that women like Caster Semenya (with no testes as far as I'm aware) have to reverse dope just because of her natural (as far as I'm aware) high testosterone level? Or is this whole situation similar to how Alan Turing (the inventor of the computer, during WWII) was chemically castrated for being gay, at a time when homosexuality was seen as an abnormality and a crime.

Maybe as a society we haven't actually moved on much at all in the last 70 years. One of the big things I've taught my kids is to ask "What happens next?" If we use testosterone levels as the tool for determining gender, we end up with the Semenya's of the world being treated like gays were treated in the past. What happens next? Do we really want that world?

While my suggested "open" racing (men and women race as humans, not separate races for men and women), isn't palatable to many (primarily women as far as I can tell), and I can understand that to a certain degree, but it remains true that determining gender based on testosterone level would become a non-topic. Then, Caster Semenya wouldn't have to undergo the shameful reverse doping that's been imposed.

Rather than focussing on a few "grey area" women, I think the world would be better if we stopped the middle aged men juicing on testosterone so they could win their age group at the local 10k. To me, that is a much bigger problem. It's sign that a lot of men are pitiful examples of the gender.

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"
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [sidelined] [ In reply to ]
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sidelined wrote:
Tridork, I believe the problem goes farther than not woman enough.
Not woman at all is my understanding. So, imperfectly formed man with no female parts competing as female - is what we have.

Where is the line? Man with no testes? Woman with high testosterone? Are you going to be the one to decide? Maybe I should be the judge? Or being sensible, someone else? Putin?. Drawing that line, anywhere, is fraught with difficulty. I don't believe that a hard and fast upper limit for a woman's testosterone level should be the sole decider. But that's just me.

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"
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [h2ofun] [ In reply to ]
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h2ofun wrote:
Help me out, guess I am real dumb. How is a person with testicles a woman? What is on their birth certificate? I have never heard they do a DNA test at birth to determine sex, I thought you just looked between their legs.

She's a hermaphrodite. Though the testing she's undergone remains private (for good reason), reading between the lines I'd speculate that her visually predominant sex organ is a vagina. E.g. either she has no penis, or the vagina dominates and the penis is vestigial. So you might be on point - they might have just looked between the legs -- maybe took a long awkward pause -- then said, "She's a woman."

So they called her a woman and she was raised as one. For fairly good reason.

But she has "hidden" testicles that presumably produce testosterone. A big deal in performance.

Hence my suggestion that you don't need to care about "identity" or "visual characteristics." Just go by testicles. It's a binary difference. There is no "spectrum" where you have to defined some arbitrary line.

That might not cover everything. But, to me, it's a reasonable solution to Semenya. I feel bad for her. It's not her fault - or really anyone's fault. But it seems like the right thing to do, to me.
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [h2ofun] [ In reply to ]
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I thought you just looked between their legs.

If you look between Caster Semenya's legs, you're probably going to find girl parts. I think this is an issue of defining exactly what is women's sport. What is the definition of being a woman? How will this be definition be tested? If someone tests partially female and partially male, what then?
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [tridork] [ In reply to ]
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tridork wrote:
sidelined wrote:
Tridork, I believe the problem goes farther than not woman enough.
Not woman at all is my understanding. So, imperfectly formed man with no female parts competing as female - is what we have.


Where is the line? Man with no testes? Woman with high testosterone? Are you going to be the one to decide? Maybe I should be the judge? Or being sensible, someone else? Putin?. Drawing that line, anywhere, is fraught with difficulty. I don't believe that a hard and fast upper limit for a woman's testosterone level should be the sole decider. But that's just me.


Men with no testes can likely get a TUE for testosterone. It's one of the few WADA exemptions for the hard-core steroids - total loss of ability to make it.

The governing bodies of sport makes and enforces, just like all other rules. E.g. the IOC and others.

It's not just you - it's pretty clear that it'd be difficult to make thresholds for testosterone levels.

Remember to wash out the bowl with warm, soapy water at least once per week for best performance.
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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
h2ofun wrote:

Help me out, guess I am real dumb. How is a person with testicles a woman? What is on their birth certificate? I have never heard they do a DNA test at birth to determine sex, I thought you just looked between their legs.


She's a hermaphrodite. Though the testing she's undergone remains private (for good reason), reading between the lines I'd speculate that her visually predominant sex organ is a vagina. E.g. either she has no penis, or the vagina dominates and the penis is vestigial. So you might be on point - they might have just looked between the legs -- maybe took a long awkward pause -- then said, "She's a woman."

So they called her a woman and she was raised as one. For fairly good reason.

But she has "hidden" testicles that presumably produce testosterone. A big deal in performance.

Hence my suggestion that you don't need to care about "identity" or "visual characteristics." Just go by testicles. It's a binary difference. There is no "spectrum" where you have to defined some arbitrary line.

That might not cover everything. But, to me, it's a reasonable solution to Semenya. I feel bad for her. It's not her fault - or really anyone's fault. But it seems like the right thing to do, to me.

Interesting, sounds like we do not even have all the "facts" to ask some of these questions.

If I step back and think of this, compared to things like Age Groups, weight classes, etc., we really are just playing games. Each person has advantages at birth to do certain things better than others. I am 6'5. Not tall enough to have considered college basketball, but plenty tall to do well in high school. Now, why did I have to play on the "male" team and not be allowed to plan on the "female" team?

I have 2 daughters, and 2 granddaughters. So,

I always smile when I hear females yell but we are not being treated equally. Pay, etc. But, then on the other side they say but in athletics, we cannot have just sport, we have
to break it up into male/female or it is not fair. And now we have this issue going on about what make a person female. Is it parts? Or T level? Or just how one feels in their head?
Wow, all of this makes my mind spin.

I guess I am just surprised more "women" are not trying to defend the split they got away from men by looking between the legs. Now with federal rulings that you can be whatever you want in your head and use any restroom, locker room, etc., how can there be anything relating to anything anymore as to whether one is "male" or "female"? Maybe it is time to step back and ask why are there even different groupings? Just seems like you cannot have things all ways, but we all know how little logic is used in discussions vs emotions.

Interesting times

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Re: Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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But you also have women who have internal testes and produce an elevated level of testosterone as compared to "normal" women, but for some reason their bodies can't use ANY of it. So they get to compete as women even though they have testes? (And then you have Lance Armstrong who only has one...but I digress).

So you end up with this crazy-ass flowchart to determine who is a man and who is a woman when it comes to sport and competition. What it boils down to is that sport is a human-created concept to determine who was the fastest, etc. Then we decided that women should be able to play, too, but only compete amongst themselves. Swell. Again, completely human created concept. But then Mother Nature is like, "What the hell, nobody bothered to ask me. Ima throw a wrench all up in your reindeer games. Whatcha gonna do now?"
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