Is it time to revisit the issue of testosterone for men and women in athletics?

Triathlon Forum
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With Caster Semenya’s dominance in the Olympic 800 meter run and Dutee Chand’s appearance in the 100 meters, this is now a problem that is supposed to be adjudicated in 2017. I also have my woman’s intuition about Katie Ledeckie’s hairline that suspiciously looked more like my Father’s than mine. In all three cases, it is clear that these women were born this way, leaving nothing as of now, that has to be “fixed”.

However, Dutee Chand was responsible for Caster Semenya being able to return to top form after insufficient evidence was presented that endogenous testosterone was deemed a significant performance enhancer. This, I find patently laughable and Semenya’s medal appears to prove my point. With elite-level athletics always selecting for performance, without some type of intervention, will women athletes mostly be represented by intersex individuals?

The reason Dutee Chand won her case with the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) is that men were not tested for upper levels of testosterone, while women were. Why not establish upper and lower limits for testosterone in both genders, X1-X10 for women and Y275-Y1075 for men? Then, if you are out of range on the low side, then exogenous testosterone brings you up to your competition The opposite, of course, would be used, as it was for Caster Semenya from 2011-2015.

What say you, Slowtwitch?

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Because a woman has a high hairline that looks like your dad’s does not mean she has higher than average levels of testosterone. What it does mean is due to genetic factors she has a high hairline. There may be doping issues with women at the Olympics but to start your post with that comment about Ledecky is irresponsible.

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No, I don’t think it’s a good idea to introduce widespread “testosterone normalization” to tackle an issue caused by a tiny percent of the population.

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I’m NOT saying that anyone mentioned doped;I said the OPPOSITE; that they were all BORN THAT WAY.

Please read what I wrote again. The thesis of this thread is to discuss hyperandrogenism and how to deal with it, NOT DOPING.

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What say you, Slowtwitch?

At the very least, all individuals with the same number of testes that I possess should be required to either race in the men’s race or relinquish said testes or not race.

Hugh

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There may be doping issues with women at the Olympics but to start your post with that comment about Ledecky is irresponsible.

LOL. Did you read the OP or just a sentence?

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I’m NOT saying that anyone mentioned doped;I said the OPPOSITE; that they were all BORN THAT WAY.

Please read what I wrote again. The thesis of this thread is to discuss hyperandrogegism and how to deal with it, NOT DOPING.

“I also have my woman’s intuition about Katie Ledeckie’s hairline that suspiciously looked more like my Father’s than mine”

Im not sure a high hairline like Ledeckie has had since she was young necessarily indicates a higher level of testosterone. Plenty of women just have higher hairlines.

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according to the dictionary a female is: “of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes.”

therefore someone who has testes and no ovaries should not be racing with other females (as defined by the dictionary)
.

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Im not sure a high hairline like Ledeckie has had since she was young necessarily indicates a higher level of testosterone. Plenty of women just have higher hairlines.

OF course it is genetics that gave her that high hairline, but it could also be an indicator that she also got a high dose of T in her genes too. It may not be the smoking gun, but you can look at some women(who don’t dope) and see a lot of details that would add up to getting more man gene hormones than most other women. Very high muscle definition, facial hair, and kicking the shit out of everyone in the world in your sport are also indicators… (-;

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I’m going to assume the level of naturally occurring testosterone in women follows a normal distribution similar to the distribution of many other genetic factors (e.g. % of fast twitch muscle fibres).

Do you want to exclude individuals, male or female, who happen to fall in the tails of the genetic lottery?

Testosterone isn’t the only genetic factor that affects performance.

Following that logic we’ll need to set height limits for basketball players.

Life isn’t always fair.

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Testosterone isn’t the only genetic factor that affects performance.

Following that logic we’ll need to set height limits for basketball players.

Life isn’t always fair.

I agree, you race with what you were born with, within the guidelines and rules of sport. If you got shortchanged on T, HGH, EPO, and superior strength and agility, hopefully you got computer skills, or are a really nice person. Sport is there to tell us what is possible by the undoped human body, and which people fit that profile who also rise to the top. They are our yardsticks, even though most of us only come up to a foot or two compared to us. We like, need, want to know these things…

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In April 2011, the International Association of Athletics Federations announced it was adopting rules and regulations governing the eligibility of females with hyperandrogenism, effectively meaning there was an upper limit for women’s testosterone levels with anyone above it required to take hormones to lower them to more “normal” levels to compete. This, I would argue, is “reverse doping”.

This ruling was deemed discriminatory because men’s endogenous testosterone was not also tested. I am only guessing, but if the ruling next year goes back into place that women will again be tested for endogenous testosterone, then men will also be tested.

That will be a thorny ruling that opens up a can of worms for both men and women because men can use the same argument that women have to their advantage.

The other problem is that without a ruling, countries that wish to “harvest gold” would do so by testing for hyperandrogenous females as the most promising athletes. Unless, of course, testosterone levels make no appreciable difference in sports performance :wink:

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I think it would be interesting to see competitions with mmol/kg rankings or something similar. It would be a bit like spec racing series in automobile racing.

The argument about a tiny percent of the population is not quite an excuse for dismissing biological androgeny when they are a dominant subset of the female category, and can possibly (likely) become a larger subset in high level competitions as they get selectively recruited into high level training programs. Everyone wants to win right?

I also don’t think we should be judgmental of these athletes, as some may not be aware of or have any ability to control their natural biology, nor should I or anyone expect them to. I just think that women should be able to look at the elite benchmarks and be able to have some reference for female potential that is not the result of statistically “male-like” testosterone levels.

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This ruling was deemed discriminatory because men’s endogenous testosterone was not also tested//

I don’t think you are understanding the whole picture here Sally. There is a reasonable reason to test women and have an upper limit, but not the men. You may think it is discriminatory but it is not. You see the women that might fall into the category of basically having the same physiology as men are at an advantage. There is not group above men for them to have an advantage over. So the buck kind of stops with us on human performance, and guys with the highest levels will of course have an advantage over other guys. No alien category above men as of yet, so really not discriminatory at all.

Now I have not really though about the situation you have brought up enough to tell you my real opinion on it. SHould there me female limits, or a point where you are basically a man?(physiologically speaking of course) My gut reaction is no, if you were born a woman in every other way except for your hormones, you are still a woman, and should compete as one.

But is there a person that is in-between, a missing link so to speak? I don’t know, maybe, and if so then perhaps there should be some limits. Sounds like that is what is being proposed?

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this is not flame bait!

Racism is bad. I think most of us agree on that.

Is sexism bad too?

I remember back in 1972, even here in New Zealand we were bombarded with the talk of the ERA (equal rights amendment) in the US. I remember asking my mother what it was all about. In simple terms she explained that it was so men and women would be treated the same. As a boy, I’d sorta assumed that was the case anyway.

I was small for my age, and got picked on a lot at school. Guys would beat me up. I’d wait to get them back and get them with surprise attacks so to speak. I’d retaliate against boys. I also had run-ins with girls so I’d do the same with them. They’d treat me badly so I’d beat them up when I could. I treated boys and girls the same. In hindsight, I’ve been for equal treatment of girls/women as long as I can remember.

As I got older, I learned that beating people up, even in retaliation, isn’t a great idea, as it just perpetuates the problem. Just look at the middle east. When’s that all going to stop?

Getting back to women, why do we accept that with alleged equal rights for men and women, that women get a separate set of events. Surely women that are similarly in favour of equal treatment for woman, would be queueing up behind me saying that women’s events should be abolished. For some reason, I can’t see the line forming.

yes, I know that generally, men are faster, stronger, whatever, but surely those people that have fought so hard for equal rights would continue the battle to abolish women’s events? Or do they just want to cherry pick the advantages of equality that they want?

If women would compete with men, they’d be able to stop worrying about competing against manly women so to speak.

Since the above won’t ever happen, I’d suggest that upper limits be set for women & men and people have to pass the test to race. (and I won’t even get started on men supplementing T. It’s just wrong, and old guys just need to get a clue and figure out they’re getting old. It’s life.)

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This ruling was deemed discriminatory because men’s endogenous testosterone was not also tested//

**I don’t think you are understanding the whole picture here Sally. **

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling is what I was quoting. In other words, it’s *their opinion, *not mine. CAS gave IAAF until July of 2017 to figure this thing out.

I am postulating that if a female-specific endogenous testosterone level goes back into place again, with exogenous hormone use to modulate it, then it will logically follow that male-specific levels must be enforced as well. We’ll see…and I anticipate that this ruling will have broad ramifications across the athletic spectrum, as a beginning and not as an end.

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and can possibly (likely) become a larger subset in high level competitions as they get selectively recruited into high level training programs. Everyone wants to win right?

I’m not sure about possiby/likely. We have a decent history now of women in elite athletics, mostly with little-to-no regulation of the definition of “woman.” And there’s scant evidence of growing inter-sex “infiltration” into the elite ranks. Or even growing participation at the lower ranks. Most people probably couldn’t name one example other than maybe Semenya. Not that physical appearance alone is a reliable sign - reliable either as a positive or a negative. Is the worry that Semenya’s mainstream publicity will “inspire” women with some typically male physiology to make elite competition a goal? Possibly, but somehow I doubt this is like the eve of some new era of women’s athletics.

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Getting back to women, why do we accept that with alleged equal rights for men and women, that women get a separate set of events. Surely women that are similarly in favour of equal treatment for woman, would be queueing up behind me saying that women’s events should be abolished. For some reason, I can’t see the line forming.

No, “equal rights” for women in athletics doesn’t mean abolishing women-only competition and requiring women to compete with men. It could, arguably, mean providing women the option of competing with men should they choose to, e.g. Michelle Wie. Otherwise the “right” is giving women the same opportunity to compete against each other that men do. A right that was largely denied to many women until the last 100 years or so.

And, no, you haven’t cleverly discovered some hypocrisy in feminism. There. We’re done with that. Back to the “inter-sex” discussion.

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Getting back to women, why do we accept that with alleged equal rights for men and women, that women get a separate set of events. Surely women that are similarly in favour of equal treatment for woman, would be queueing up behind me saying that women’s events should be abolished. For some reason, I can’t see the line forming.

No, “equal rights” for women in athletics doesn’t mean abolishing women-only competition and requiring women to compete with them. It could, arguably, mean providing women the option of competing with men should they choose to, e.g. Michelle Wie. Otherwise the “right” is giving women the same opportunity to compete against each other that men do. A right that was largely denied to many women until the last 100 years or so.

And, no, you haven’t cleverly discovered some hypocrisy in feminism. There. We’re done with that. Back to the “inter-sex” discussion.

No, No & Done. On your say so? Phhhttt

This is a place for discussion. So discuss. As in, give me some points to support your side of the argument. I gave some points and you took your bat and ball and went home, not wanting to play. Really?

How do we decide how competition should be had? Race is out, although I did have a humourous discussion with a friend, where we could give smaller medals to white guys in running races. First white guy gets gold medal, but it’s smaller than the winners gold medal. However, (rightfully), we don’t split things by race. We DO split things by gender. Why? I find that interesting, particularly since gender is becoming much more recognized as a continuum, rather than a binary thing. Still, it’s apparently OK to separated competitors by gender, even in light of gender issue questioning/bending by some women. Women have their own division, then complain that some women aren’t woman enough?

Should we have age groups at the Olympics? weight classes in running like in boxing and such? Eye colour? Hair colour?

What differences in humans should we select, to distinguish, for separate classification? Hell, I run pretty fast for a fat guy, but since I’m not boxing, I don’t get a weight class? Sounds unfair to me.

And why limit it to human divisions? There’s horses at the Olympics afterall. They don’t get a medal and they do virtually all the work? How insane is that? I was at a resort and there was crab racing. It was pretty fun to watch (after a few cocktails). Maybe that should be in the Olympics next time? But how do you test T levels in a female racing crab? You’re right, it’s all too hard.

BTW, men race against everyone, all comers, not just men (except that all women that I know of so far, elect to compete against other women, instead of racing equally in the human race (pun intended)

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Really?

Yes, really. I’m game for intellectually honest discussion. You’re acting the part of a freshman philosophy major after the 12th bong hit.