IAAF wins control of Caster Semenya's body (kind of).

In My Humble Opinion
61

Are there any hard cites for a few things at issue in this case, specifically: what is Ms. Semenya’s level of endogenous testosterone, and how that compares to that of a XX-genotype elite middle distance runner? I don’t know if it was specifically mentioned in the thread already, but the UCI set limits for an acceptable hematocrit in a cyclist, at 50%. Regardless of whether one’s body naturally produced a higher hematocrit or nor, 50 percent was the acceptable maximum for a competitor. The judgment in this latest hearing seems to be in the same spirit as that ruling from cycling.

The part of all of this i found the most worrying was a (hopefully misquoted) statement in a prior ruling that “higher testosterone levels in female athletes have not been shown to give any additional competitive advantage.” Which is so wrong it hurts.

62

…the rule change only applies to the 400m, 800m, and 1500m, which “coincidentally” are the events that Caster participates in. If it was in the same “spirit” as the cycling rules then they would have applied it to all running events. Instead: it appears that the rules were made to specifically target Caster. (You can read what IMHO is the IAAF’s poorly reasoned arguments as to why they selected just those events here) The IAAF previously had a limit of 10nmol/L and Caster was under that limit. The new limit, approved in 2018 is 5nmol/L. This quote from the Guardian article though tips the IAAF’s hand:

That’s how the IAAF views this and has framed this. This is about “protecting women” from…a woman. Shameful.

From wiki:

The court didn’t rule that higher testosterone levels in female athletes have not been shown to give any additional competitive advantage. It said that the IAAF didn’t provide enough evidence to assert that this was true.

63

How does that concentration of test compare to that from other women? Same order of magnitude? Plus or minus 10 percent of that from other women? Something else?

I agree that it looks like she got singled out. Which is unfortunate; it should have applied throughout the track events. Either excess test matters, in which case the limit should apply throughout the track events (I have no idea whether such levels are typical for women competing in field events, specifically the weight events), or it doesn’t matter, so stop harassing Ms. Semenya.

I understand what “evidence wasn’t submitted” means. I also understand that it sounds like a massive cop out on the part of that regulatory body. They couldn’t just look at their evidence for why they banned administration of exogenous testosterone? They required an additional brief on the subject from the moving party?

EDIT: It’s protecting women from having to compete against a person who identifies as a woman, has (given the controversy surrounding the medical examination the Summer Olympics required her to undergo last time, that she completed to their satisfaction) exterior secondary sexual characteristics consistent with a female, yet likely has a medical condition wherein she produces testosterone far in excess of a non-intersex female.

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It’s entirely about her gender and about how gender is defined. We don’t live in a society where there are “Physiological category number 1 sports” and “Physiological category number 2 sports”.

We live in a society where people talk about “men” and “women”, put people in “men” and “women” categories in a variety of circumstances for a variety of reasons (and you’re definitely not someone who ignore these categorizations. A large number of your arguments on this very board rely on your assumption that there are such categories). Which necessarily requires at some point that an objective definition of what is a woman and what is man be used even if this definition only applies in some specific context and a different one is used in another.

Pretending that it is not about gender, just to spare the supposedly delicate feelings of a specific individual (you think what? That she’s unaware that her gender categorization is arbitrary and will faint if it’s mentioned when it’s the center of an argument that makes the headlines?) is plainly denial of reality for the sake of political correctness.

Deciding that some specific categories of people have an inherent right to put themselves into some very specific categories so sacred that even mentioning that their preference is subjective and cannot be aligned with any objective definition of these categories is an heinous action is entirely the invention of a new taboo, requiring to deny reality rather than uttering a blasphemy.

If you have such a problem with the idea that in a society where people are all day long, dozens of time every day, put into binary gender categories, with psychological, social and even legal consequences to this categorization, there will inevitably be at some point a need to define objectively what these categories are, then go all the way and argue that these categories have no objective reality and we should plainly drop them. Some do.

But if you endorse and support the recognition of such binary gender categories, be it as a social or biological reality, you can’t argue that they cannot or shouldn’t be objectively defined. And if you agree that they can be objectively defined, you have to accept that this objective definition won’t necessarily reflect anybody’s subjective opinion.

In other words, in this particular case, as long as we’ll have “men” and “women” sports, we’ll need to decide what is a man and what is a woman. And whatever definition is used will result in some people who think of themselves as women being nevertheless defined as men and the other way around. Either you abolish these categories, or you accept that some people won’t get defined in all circumstances as belonging to the gender they feel they belong to. And this isn’t a crime on par with roasting babies, even if it hurts their feelings. It’s just accepting the fact that society is build around a binary definition of gender despite the existence of some people biologically not fitting in either group. Dancing around reality by pretending it’s not at all about gender and its definition when it’s entirely and solely about gender and its definition is just obfuscation in order not to break a newly invented taboo.

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None of this really addresses what I’ve been saying, and you don’t really seem interested in avoiding saying hateful things, so I guess we’re done.

66

Try to convince me that this is not just an arbitrary taboo, then. Because just asserting “that’s hateful because me and my friends feel this way” doesn’t cut it.

  1. Do you think that people have always the right to be considered in all circumstances as belonging to whatever category they feel they belong to, and that this it is always hateful to not agree to acknowledge this self-categorization? And if not (presumably your answer), what exactly and objectively makes gender categorization an exception?

  2. You use the words “man” and “woman”. What is your definition if these words?

  3. Should there be “men” and “women” sports? Should there be in general any distinction made socially or legally between men and women?

67

(snipping the rest because it really doesn’t appear to have anything at all to do with my point)

I’m saying please try to argue your point without using jerkish language (to put it extremely mildly). It really wouldn’t be that hard – I’ve seen plenty of arguments that Semenya should or should not be allowed to compete in her current status without using such language. That’s not an “arbitrary taboo”, any more than asking someone not to say racist or misogynistic things is.

There are plenty of restrictions in sports that have nothing to do with gender – performance drugs, for example, measured by blood or urine tests. If you want to argue that this sport, or that category, should not allow competitors with a testosterone level above X compete, then feel free, and I won’t say that this is a hateful argument in any way. Just as an example. But that’s not what you’re doing – you’re saying that Semenya isn’t who she says she is… based on (apparently) nothing at all. So you think she’s a liar? Or she’s a mutant? Or what? I don’t get it. And it’s not necessary at all for your position or this discussion.

68

It would be nice if it were a clean binary male / female in nature but it just isn’t.

You say XY makes you male… But there are people with XY who are born with female genitalia and develop breasts, female fat and muscle distribution etc. They seem in every way a perfectly normal female and typically only discover they are XY when they have trouble conceiving.

And on the subject of conceiving: there are examples of people with as much as 90% XY successfully bearing children.

I know they rarely bring up such edge cases on conservative media but they exist and aren’t actually that rare (about 1/50 are intersex)

69

It has everything to do with it. You’re saying that my statement are hateful and extremely jerkish (to put it mildly). You say it’s the equivalent of spouting racist arguments. I contest that, and I’m asking you to show me that it is in fact hateful, rather than being “us American progressives, have recently decided that making this or that statement is hateful because it doesn’t follow our newly invented celebrating diversity rule #2137. You better stop from now on making it or you’re an horrible person because we said so.” Or “A friend of a friend belonging to a minority doesn’t like what you say, so you should shut up or you’re an horrible person.” Or “in order to silence any opposition to our arguments, we need to demonize our opponents. Comrades, make sure to accuse any person disagreeing on any point with the party stance of being racist, homophobe, misogynistic and generally horrible. Throw enough mud and it will eventually stick on the wall, and those who disagree won’t dare anymore to express their opinion”. Or “all my friends and all the blogs I read say so, so you must be an horrible person”.

I could probably have expressed the same thing without ever mentioning her gender, but that would be dancing around the reality of the situation, which is that they’re trying to define who qualifies as a woman in women sports, and any definition they will come up with will exclude some people who would define themselves as women. Avoiding to present things as they are, avoiding any statement that would hint at Semenya stated gender being a subjective preference that can at any moment conflicts with any definition any institution feels the need to come up with for what they feel is a legitimate reason (in this case, allowing 99% of women to have a shot at winning if they compete, even if it’s at the expense of 1% of peculiar individuals who would like to compete to) is simply trying to find a convoluted way to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room.

I’m male and I fit neatly in almost all definition of my gender I could come up with. The overwhelming majority of people do. Semenya doesn’t. She doesn’t cross all the boxes for either gender. As far as I can tell, she has the external appearance of a woman and the chromosomes of a man. She isn’t objectively a woman. She isn’t a man, either. She just biologically doesn’t fit in our binary system. She elected to categorize herself as a woman nevertheless, or she always felt a woman, or whatever. In most circumstances you can just ignore her biological makeup and deal with her as you would with any woman, it’s of no consequence for anybody. But in this situation, some people feel this gives her an unfair advantage and penalizes them. Stating so isn’t being hateful, it’s acknowledging reality. And refusing to mention her gender, or denying that this has anything to do with gender isn’t being a nice person, it’s denying reality rather than breaking the taboo : “thou shall never dispute one’s self-assessed gender or concede that a self-assessed gender might be disputed”.

I don’t think you believe that I hate her. But you think that acknowledging that, regardless of what she’d rather be perceived at, she isn’t biologically female, in any circumstances (not just for instance if I meet her and talk with her) is hateful. Because…well…you failed to tell me why. Because her feelings would be hurt? I can say a bazillion things that would hurt the feelings of millions of people, like say, “religion is bullshit, god is as real as Santa Claus, and believers are deluded people” and it wouldn’t bother you the slightest bit. So, what makes her situation so special that noting what is I think blatantly the truth, that her gender categorization isn’t an objective assessment and that it is at the center of this dispute hateful?

The way I see it you view some statements as taboo, as things that should never be said, regardless of circumstances. You see…“misgendering”? Is that the word? in any context as something peculiarly hateful (for no objective reason that I can discern) to such an extent that it’s better to deny reality than to even hint at the possibility that a person chosen gender could not match the gender determined according to such or such definition. I do not doubt that you feel strongly about it. But I doubt, on the other hand, that you could show that my statements have some uniquely hateful nature making them objectively vastly more wrong that anything else I could say that could possibly offend someone, somewhere. I believe that your feeling about this issue aren’t different from, say, a cultural quirk making people feel, without objective reason, that some behavior is “obviously” terribly wrong and offensive. Your culture in this case being “2019 American progressive” or something like that.
If you’re really so sure that my statements are hateful, if it’s really as obvious as you seem to think that they are, if they’re as bad as you say, you should have no difficulties demonstrating this, showing in what way they’re uniquely wrong and damaging. But I don’t think that you can do that. And obviously, stating “if you can’t see that, then our moral values are so different that it’s not worth discussing” isn’t going to convince me. It’s only going to confirm my belief that you have no real argument to justify your perception, that it’s just the arbitrary cultural taboo I think it is. That you feel that it’s terribly wrong and hateful for no real reason that you can articulate, let alone demonstrate.

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I mean, honestly the whole “intersex” angle barely enters into it from a grand perspective. I know XX, cis women, who have conceived literal children, that have PCOS and have T that tests above the new stated limit. This is all about dicking over an intersex (who didn’t even know she was!) black woman who’s really dominant in her sport.

71

…it really has fuck-all to do with American progressives. It has everything to do with respecting the wishes of the people you are talking about.

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Why would it be a scare quote coincidence? If the data shows that those are the events in which a DSD individual would benefit most, which events are a DSD individual likely to excel in? It could be argued that by restricting the ruling to only those events where a benefit can be shown, they are being as “light touch” as possible.

That quote seems to me to be clearly talking about the reasons for having a different male/female classification in the first place

To which court ruling are you referring here?

And I think the challenge for all of this, which we have all struggled with and that I put to you now, What would your improved ruling be? How do you ensure a level playing field within a restricted class of competition? What do you think qualifies a person for competition within female sport?

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I don’t see it. The sport loves to have incredible superstars who tear up the record books. What would be the IAAF motivation for clipping her wings? How does it benefit them? And playing the race card seems like bullshit to me because of course we know that athletics is famously only interested in white athletes. (Usain Bolt anyone? David Rudisha? Haile Gabrselassie?)

And of course the “intersex” angle has to come into it seeing as the whole purpose of having a restricted “female” classification is based upon the sex of the individual. Where you have an individual on the edges of such a classification you will have this issue.

74

…I outlined why. Read my post.

That quote was in response to a question. The question adds context.

The one referred to by the poster I was responding too.

Why did there need to be a ruling?

Can you name a sport on the planet that actually has a “level playing field?”

Are you suggesting that Caster Semenya is not female?

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Bolt is competing is what is effectively the unrestricted class in athletics, so I don’t think the analogy is apt. The question here is the most appropriate way to define a restricted class.

76

Your post and your links take me to a discussion on how those events were selected. There seems to be a reasoned rationale why with data to back it up. I can be persuaded either way but certainly nothing in there suggests they picked them randomly. They certainly coincide with Semenya’s events but assuming there is evidence for it…how could they not?

I can’t find the question it was asked that prompted that response, can you point me to it?

OK, that quote seems to be the 2015 CAS hearing, not the most recent one by CAS. I suspect that the IAAF must have put forward further evidence and indeed the Guardian article we’ve referred to states…

“The decisive factor for the Cas panel in 2015 was whether testosterone above the 10nmol/L threshold set by the IAAF gave female athletes a competitive advantage over their fellow competitors. However research by the IAAF since then shows that in certain events testosterone does make an enormous difference”

Well that is an interesting question isn’t it? I’m not saying there has to be but in the absence of any guidance of how a restricted class is defined, who gets to compete in that class? anyone?

The nature of human variability means it is an unobtainable goal, just like a completely fair justice system but certainly making the competitions as fair as possible is a laudable thing to strive for. Classifications are defined so as to ensure fairness between those that qualify and the winner can be said to have done so through hard work and talent and not through an advantage given by a characteristic that sets them in a different class. That’s the rationale behind paralympic classifications as well and indeed there are edge cases there as well.

So the question here is whether Semenya qualifies for this particular category.

She is certainly a woman but I don’t know the details of her biological sex as the details have (rightly) not been made public. It is, however, those biological details that are guiding the decisions regarding her classification. Are you suggesting she is definitely female? if so, how do you know and from that what would constitute “not a female” for the purpose of sporting classifications?

You seem to be assuming that I am somehow against Caster Semenya competing in female sport. I’m not. I’m interested (as are the IAAF, CAS and Semenya) in exploring how to address this difficult problem.

I ask you again (and I’ve been happy to directly answer your questions so would appreciate an answer)

What would your improved ruling be?
How do you ensure a level playing field within a restricted class of competition?
What do you think qualifies a person for competition within female sport?

77

But it seems to me that the question of respecting her right to identify as she chooses cannot be equated with the question of whether she qualifies for a restricted class in sport. If that were the case, I think we’d run the risk that the latter might undermine social progress in the former.

In general life, it should be an entirely personal decision whether to identify as a member of some category. And the fact that people are all forced into binary “male” and “female” categories in the vast majority of social situations and bureaucratic processes could be done away with completely without any fundamental problem.

But restricted classes in sports are different, since they are for setting up competition with other members of a class - within a class, anything you gain, someone else loses. For fair competition, there must be consistent objective rules for membership of a restricted class - clearly it can’t be just based on someone wanting to be in that class, or the restriction is meaningless. And any objective criteria will inevitably sometimes conflict with the way people choose to identify. Inevitably, some people who identify socially as women won’t qualify for the sports category “women”; and some who don’t identify with the binary at all may be excluded from high level sports altogether.

I see no easy way around this. The fact that people who are transgender or don’t fit the binary are a small and varied minority makes it difficult to organize competitive high level sports in some non-binary way to accommodate them under any objective rule structure. The social importance of competitive sport - particularly at schools and universities - may be a significant drag on continued social progress toward tolerance and acceptance of transgender people or those who don’t fit the binary.

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I know that but it’s good enough for most cases

Yes. I am aware of issues like Complete Androgen Insensitivity, but for me that’s an example of a disability. And Semenya is clearly not insensitive to androgens.

And those people are chimeras - two people in one body.

This has nothing to do with politics.

79

…I said my post, not my cite.

Its in the link that I cited. I’m not going to do your work for you.

The IAAF has answered your question. I disagree with their answer.

By specifically defining the rules so that it affects only a single person? How does that sound fair?

They do not need to ensure “fairness”. What a load of fucking nonsense. Nobody accused Michael Phelps of not working hard enough and not having talent. Cater Semenya did work hard enough and she does have talent.

What category? You mean talented and hard working?

The bolded is all that I give fuck about in this discussion. As you agree she is a woman, what more is there to discuss?

You can do whatever the fuck you like. I’m not your monkey and I don’t answer your questions on demand.

I’ve answered this question. There is no need for a ruling.

I’ve answered your question. You can’t.

That question is beyond my paygrade. However you agree that Cater Semenya is a woman, and as far as I’m concerned thats all I give a fuck about.

80

…are you suggesting Caster Semenya is not female?