# IAAF wins control of Caster Semenya's body (kind of). **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 1, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345 "2019-05-01T21:39:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/181 "2019-05-06T05:17:48Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > What a good many seem to be saying is: “An athlete is either XX, or not. If yes, they are eligible to compete in events restricted to females; otherwise, they compete in events that are not restricted.” I could go along with that. In fact, I might go further and say XX could be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. But I’m fine with us drawing an arbitrary line to remove any gray area or doubt, even if it possibly excludes some people whose phenotypes are 100% female. What I’m taking exception to is any implication that nature has not served up any gray area and it’s “just basic biology”. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/182 "2019-05-06T08:49:25Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > In your case, you say you’re aware of intersex so what is the point of what you’re saying? I’m saying exactly what I’ve said. No more and no less. I think you may be trying to read into it more than is there. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/183 "2019-05-06T09:30:33Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > This is the issue when people start talking about race, about identity, about sexuality. There are pervasive societal attitudes that regularly deny black women their womanhood (this has happened to Leslie Jones, it’s happened to Serena Williams, there’s that conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama is a trans woman; which has an extra dose of transphobia and denying trans women their womanhood). She’s a butch lesbian (or at least WLW), she’s married to a woman and generally butch-presenting, and of course there’s a stereotype that somehow butch lesbians are “less female” (see: 'who is the man in the relationship). I don’t think most people are deliberately, consciously targeting these factors when making their judgments, but I do think some societal programming gives a kneejerks that the traits that these groups share are, due to being less normative among the female population, are “less womanly” and therefore less worthy of being celebrated and less worthy of competing among other women in the same arena. There’s a certain bitter irony here - TERFs have been fearmongering for quite some time about how “trans rights activists”\* are going to force anyone who’s a butch lesbian to take hormones and transition… And here we have a butch lesbian being forced onto hormones, and the TERFs are, by and large, very happy about it. \*The scare quotes here is because “trans rights activitsts” as they use it [is a term designed to compare trans people to men’s rights activists](https://twitter.com/BellaRizinti/status/1109026361962844161). It is pretty much a slur when used the way they to and should be treated as such. > [@Jragon](#): > > Because none of these people are at a level where they’d have any chance at competing with world class men. We’re writing them into a place where while they can **technically** compete in the male class, they’re basically soft-banned from sports in any reasonable sense. And we’re talking about Caster Semenya here, not a non-HRT non-intersex trans woman. Her T is high for a woman, but not in “athletic cis male” range. Slight correction: it’s in “athletic cis male” range, but so are most cis women, because [there’s a complete overlap between “athletic cis male range” and “athletic cis woman” range](https://twitter.com/rachelvmckinnon/status/1123759237702795265). This is in measurements with elite athletes. Somehow, men with very low endogenous testosterone can compete. ---
**Author:** ![yendis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ed8c4c/32.png) [@yendis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yendis)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/184 "2019-05-06T12:43:22Z")
I presume that the next major ruling will be the negation of the current women’s 800m world record. Since it is faster than Ms Semenya has ever run and she has an unfair advantage then that record must be suspect. Also if an athlete with naturally \*high \*testosterone must take steps to reduce their level \*down \*to an arbitrary maximum then it logically follows that an athlete with naturally \*low \*levels may dope to get \*up \*to the max. It is only fair after all that everybody operates at the same level. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/185 "2019-05-06T13:05:37Z")
> [@yendis](#): > > I presume that the next major ruling will be the negation of the current women’s 800m world record. Since it is faster than Ms Semenya has ever run and she has an unfair advantage then that record must be suspect. BTW, it’s very suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/186 "2019-05-06T14:00:23Z")
> [@yendis](#): > > I presume that the next major ruling will be the negation of the current women’s 800m world record. Since it is faster than Ms Semenya has ever run and she has an unfair advantage then that record must be suspect… That’s not the reason it is suspect. Pretty much every record of that era is dripping with suspicion due the widespread use of doping by eastern european nations. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/187 "2019-05-06T19:21:53Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Because none of these people are at a level where they’d have any chance at competing with world class men. We’re writing them into a place where while they can **technically** compete in the male class, they’re basically soft-banned from sports in any reasonable sense. And we’re talking about Caster Semenya here, not a non-HRT non-intersex trans woman. Her T is high for a woman, but not in “athletic cis male” range. It is further worth noting, in case anyone wondered, than Semenya would not be seriously competitive were she forced to run against men. Her times are outstanding, but by Olympic standards, they were the times of a world class woman, not a man. Had she run her best race in the men’s side she’d have finished nine seconds behind eighth place. Semenya doesn’t even hold the women’s record in her best event, the 800m. (She has also had success in the 1500m but it’s not her primary focus.) Of course, as others have pointed out, old track records are probably all cheaters, anyway, so who the hell knows about them, but there is one modern time ahead of Semenya. As usual, Budget Player Cadet is worried about “TERFs” doing horrible things. I don’t think Semenya is being treated fairly here, but, again, this has nothing to do with transgender athletes, and the fact people on both sides of that debate are confusing the issue is regrettable. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/188 "2019-05-06T20:37:54Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > As usual, Budget Player Cadet is worried about “TERFs” doing horrible things. I don’t think Semenya is being treated fairly here, but, again, this has nothing to do with transgender athletes, and the fact people on both sides of that debate are confusing the issue is regrettable. Well, if any combination of chromosomes and testosterone is allowable and the authorities are not allowed to specify medical interventions to reduce testosterone to “female” levels then I wonder how one could justify mandating surgery and hormone treatment for trans athletes. My gut feeling is that it is different but I’m not sure on what basis I think that. I don’t think people are confusing or conflating the issues but having read quite a but recently on the pros and cons of both sides I haven’t seen a convincing rationale for allowing Semenya to run un-medicated that doesn’t leave quite a wide door open for transgender athletes to be pulled into the debate. Certainly reading what CAS and the IAAF has written it seems clear to me that they are anticipating more challenges from other cases. Had there been a clear line to draw I reckon they’d have done so but the language used is hedgy and uncertain. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/189 "2019-05-06T22:59:31Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > As usual, Budget Player Cadet is worried about “TERFs” doing horrible things. I don’t think Semenya is being treated fairly here, but, again, this has nothing to do with transgender athletes, and the fact people on both sides of that debate are confusing the issue is regrettable. I mean… the fact that those on the right are insistent upon confusing the issue _makes this a trans rights issue_. The fact that there’s broad overlap between the people insisting that transwomen aren’t really women and the people insisting that Caster Semenya shouldn’t compete as a woman (or rather, that one is pretty much a perfect subset of the other) makes this relevant for trans rights issues. Trans rights are and have long been “the thin edge of the wedge” - the way gender essentialists, evangelicals, and anti-LGBT activists get people to swallow bullshit assumptions about gender and sexuality, which can then be used against the rest of the LGBT spectrum. Once you start defining who is and is not a woman, why should anyone else be surprised when women who don’t fit classical pictures of femininity ([particularly black women](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hannaheko/aint-i-a-woman), because the “classical picture of femininity” is _white as hell_) start getting defined out of the group? The premier right-wing propaganda outlet of the USA is trying to further that goal by publicly misidentifying Caster as trans - you really wanna tell me this has nothing to do with transphobia? This shit is connected, like it or not. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/190 "2019-05-06T23:34:43Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I cannot agree with this at all. > > The trans message that I’ve been hearing for years now is “Trans women are women. Trans men are men.” Or, more generally, “People’s gender is defined in their mind.” This message is the one that is used for the trans restroom issue. They can’t get away with saying that a trans woman’s body is male, and so they should go to the men’s restroom. > > And so it is the exact same logic here. You cannot tell a woman that she is actually a man for the purposes of women’s sports. It isn’t the low testosterone league and the high testosterone league. You don’t see men with low-T competing in “women’s” sports. The classification has always been men and women. > > There are some arguments that maybe this classification system is wrong. That it should be based on testosterone. And if we were discussing a new classification system, that would be a completely different argument. > > However, that is not what happened. The women’s leagues are still the women’s leagues. But now you don’t qualify as a woman if your testosterone levels are too high. They redefined “woman.” > > And that is wrong. They can’t even argue it is necessity because they could have created new classifications. “They” redefined woman? What is the current definition of woman? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2019, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345/191 "2019-05-07T13:37:21Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Once you start defining who is and is not a woman… Everyone does this, it’s why we have the words “men” and “women.” That is how words work. The debate here is over how to do it, not whether it should be done. This is a thread about women’s sports; if “woman” isn’t a definable concept, why would there be women’s sports at all? If you can’t define “woman” sex-segregated sports is pointless and we should just have one event for everything. Then men can have everything again. Is Caster Semenya being mistreated? In my opinion, yeah. I’m not saying the IAAF doesn’t have some kind of a point, but I really do not like where they’re drawing the line, especially given the fact that Semenya has been racing internationally for years and changing the rules now on her just doesn’t seem kosher to me; again, I haven’t read her medical details, but altering rules of competition on an athlete mid-career for something she cannot control just does not seem to me to be in the spirit of sporting fairness. Are people - both right wingers and trans activists, let’s be honest here - conflating this with transgender athletes? Yes indeed, but smart people can still make the distinction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iaaf-wins-control-of-caster-semenyas-body-kind-of/833345.md?page=9)