But it is just that simple. How you deal with intersex people - or people who are trans or … - is a separate matter entirely and very much a can of worms.
If Semenya has XX sex chromosomes she is a woman and that should be the end of the matter. If Semenya has XX sex chromosomes he is a man and that should be the end of the matter,
Since American and Australian female shot-putters were taiking steroids, I think it’s fair to assume that the reason a Russion failed a hormone test is for the same reason.
The point is, you can’t both say that it’s as simple as XX or XY and acknowledge there are people with mixed chromosomes, or with other sets like XXY.
It’s inconsistent reasoning even if I (and the scientific community) agreed with you that chromosomes are the single deciding factor and everyone can be unambiguously categorized as belonging to one set or another (which I, and they, don’t agree with).
All you need to say is something like: “OK, it’s not quite as simple as XX or XY, but I think chromosomes are the most important factor, and I think intersex should count as XY for the purpose of competition, and here’s why…”. Then we can have a good debate I hope.
Right now you are just grinding my gears by implying it’s simply a matter of Heads or Tails when it’s indisputable that nature often lands this kind of coin on its edge.
Whatever standard we use, if we use any at all, is going to leave someone just on the outside of the boundary and feeling sore about it. The only alternative is the honor system, and that will inherently be in tension with the push (which I support) to pay professional women athletes closer to what men get (in my favorite sport, tennis, there is full parity at the highest levels). If you pay millions of dollars to the winner of Wimbledon and the French/Australian/U.S. Opens, and they do, you can’t just have an honor system approach or former college men’s players who have fallen on tough financial times will find it too tempting to go after those purses. And then women’s professional athletics is broken, and the money dries up because that’s not what audeinces and sponsors are paying for.
Yes I can. Intersex issues are a separate can of worms.
But what’s the point then of you asserting over and over that either Semenya is XX and female or XY and male?
At this point we (I mean the wider public) don’t know whether she is 100% either of these sets.
So even if I agreed with the assertion that only chromosomes determine physical gender and physiology is irrelevant (NB: I don’t) it’s something of a non sequitur.
I have never said that. Go back and read my posts again. Note especially my use of the word ‘if’.
For example:
If she’s not XY, the ruling that’s being discussed doesn’t apply to her.
When people normally say “Either (s)he’s XX and female or XY and male” it’s because they are ignorant of intersex and really think these are the only two options.
In your case, you say you’re aware of intersex so what is the point of what you’re saying?
Even if I agreed only chromosomes count in determining gender, the two options you mention for genotype are not the only ones.
Essentially you’re saying: “If it moves on land, it’s a car. If it moves on the sea it’s a boat. Hovercraft are a whole other can of worms”.
The first two statements are pointless, even though they include if.
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.”
Yes, although I am not committed to XX being the hard boundary. But it has to be something.
I think it’s worth considering the implications of this carefully.
First of all, a better genetic criterion would be “SRY-negative”, which would exclude rare XX males where the sex-determining SRY gene is translocated from Y to X or an autosome. XX males are rare; SRY-negative males are vanishingly rare. There may be other rare conditions that I haven’t hear of, but for the sake of discussion let’s assume we can account for these and define a class “physical XX*” (defined solely by simple and physically testable genetic criteria) which perfectly matches people to the lower side of the strongly bimodal distribution of hormone levels and physical strength in the population.
The first and most obvious thing to clarify is that a “physical XX*” class would be solely for the narrow purposes of competitive physical sports where physical strength is paramount, and would refer solely to non-mental physical attributes, not gender identity. Gender identity is a mental state, which we know is certainly not defined by genetic parameters. So for the narrow purposes of competitive physical sports, a class defined this way should not be called “female” or “women”, it should be explicitly called something like the “physical XX*” class.
Under such a classification, the largest group of people who would unambiguously be unfairly excluded from participation in competitive physical sports would be trans women (XY karyotype) who have undertaken feminizing hormone therapy; along with rare cases of people who are XY (who may identify as female, male or non-binary) who naturally fall to the lower side of the bimodal distribution of hormone levels and physical attributes through rare physical conditions. Also excluded would be women (such as Semenya, presumably) or non-binary people who are XY and who are on the high side of the bimodal distribution of hormone level & physical abilities - but presumably this is not seen as unfair, it’s the desired objective of such a scheme.
Excluding trans women who have transitioned is obviously the principal objection to such a classification. That’s a lot of people. Somebody pointed out recently that the trans population of the U.S. is larger than the population of Wyoming. I think this would be especially awful for young trans women in high school and college, given how important sports are in our culture.
On the other hand, going through such a revolutionary transition for physical sports classification might have the benefit of educating people that a newly defined class “physical XX*” does not equate to “female”, and possibly increasing awareness of what gender identity really is - perhaps fighting ignorance about trans people and non-binary identities. Contra Quartz above, “basic biology” shows us that karyotype does not determine gender identity. Trans people, a very significant minority, are (for example) XY karyotype and develop with the non-mental physical “male” phenotype, but the mental phenotype of a woman. And what’s actually “common sense” is that it’s your mental phenotype that is your identity, not what’s in your chromosomes or between your legs.
Personally I tend to think the huge negative of excluding transitioned trans women from competitive physical sports outweighs any positive here, but I’d be interested to hear what trans people think about it.
To add: the obvious alternative to a “physical XX*” classification is the way things are tending to be handled now, a classification that is based on hormone levels. The only drawback of the latter is that it’s quantitative rather than qualitative. But the huge advantage is that it doesn’t exclude transitioned trans women - or Semenya, if she chooses to undertake hormone therapy.
But under a hormone-level criterion, the big step that still seems to be missing is that we should prominently relabel this class as something other than “female” or “women”, to emphasize that it’s not the same thing as gender identity, that it’s solely about where physical attributes fall on the bimodal distribution, and it’s solely for the purposes of competitive physical sports. It’s certainly not a determination of whether someone is a woman.
It seems that people like McKinnon do want the classification to be based solely on gender identity, with no physical criteria at all. That just seems unworkable to me, and contrary to the progressive objective of dispelling ignorance about what it means to be a trans person. The intent of the “female” class for physical sports is to recognize the bimodal distribution of purely physical attributes in the population, and to give those in the lower part of that distribution a meaningful separate competition. And the entire point of understanding what it means to be trans is that humans can have a mental phenotype that differs from their non-mental physical phenotype; and, most important, that it’s their mental phenotype that is their identity. It seems perverse in a progressive context to insist that for the narrow purposes of competitive sports that involve only the non-mental physical phenotype, people should still be classified only according to the mental phenotype (gender identity), even when those two things differ.
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.
Yes, obviously we completely agree on this. We have just reach diametrically opposite conclusions about what it implies in the narrow area of competitive sports that principally involve physical strength, including athletics (but not some other sports such as shooting or motor racing).
Well, I think you’re assuming your conclusion here. If by “male” and “female” here you mean gender identity, then I don’t agree. The classification was designed in an era of total ignorance about gender identity, which we now understand is a mental state. The original rationale considered only cis-binary people. And it was clearly motivated by the fact that human physical attributes (hormones and strength) are strongly bimodal. In many sports, cis-binary women would have no chance against cis-binary men, and the restricted “female” class gave cis-binary women meaningful competition by excluding cis-binary men. It didn’t “always” mean anything coherent for non-cis or non-binary people - that’s the moot issue in this debate.
But your terminology conflates female gender identity with female physical characteristics. And by doing so, I think it misrepresents a progressive view of gender identity with a regressive one, and vice versa. A woman certainly can have the physical characteristics of typical cis-binary men. That’s the entire point of what it means to be trans. That’s no reason to tell a trans woman to go to the men’s restroom. But it’s a reasonable issue to consider when considering the narrow question of physical competition.
We now understand the important distinction between being a woman and having the physical characteristics of a typical cis-binary woman. That being so, it’s certainly a possible approach for the narrow purposes of competitive sports to have classes based on purely physical attributes, not on gender identity. I’d argue that it’s the only coherent approach, but that’s open to debate. But I think a denial that it’s a possible approach in purely physical sports is regressive, almost tantamount to a denial of awareness that trans people exist. It makes little sense to acknowledge gender identity as a mental state, yet insist that for the narrow purposes of purely physical sports the classifications can only possibly be tied to gender identity.
And yes - if we are to keep a binary classification for physical sports, I do think it should be recast as “low testosterone” or something other than “female”, to make transparently clear that we understand that we’re talking about superficial physical characteristics, not about whether somebody is a woman.
Here’s the part that’s getting me: why are we protecting women from other women? Why is it worth protecting lower-T women from higher-T women in sports? Presuming women with higher testosterone unambiguously have muscle building advantages that eclipse that of the general distribution of women (and let’s note, their performance is still below that of most high school boys)… so… what?
Like, it’s not like the world class athletes that would be left after culling the high-T women don’t have advantages over other hypothetical women that may want to compete. What about women who grew up malnourished due to no fault of their own? What about women with androgen insensitivity that prevents them from building significant muscle mass? What about women who couldn’t afford sports training, or lived in an area that couldn’t afford good sports programs, who are skilled at sports but can’t afford the equipment and training to become world class? Or any other number of subtle disadvantages, both genetic/hormonal and due to the circumstances of where/how they were raised (that don’t rise to the level of “disability” as celebrated in the paralympics competitions).
This is what the tweet I linked earlier to be flippant was getting at:
At some point, saying “despite in almost all reasonable every day situations you being a woman, we need to protect other women from your advantages” is basically an assertion that those women, for some reason, are more important of having their achievements tested and celebrated than you. Why do we need to prevent some women from being dominant over others?
I’m having trouble seeing any reason than a subtle societal value judgment, that women that fall in some normative range are “normal” and we need to, consciously or not, send the message that straying too far outside that norm whether your own fault or not makes you less worth celebrating, less womanly. It’s celebrating some classes of women’s bodies over others.
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.
Do you really have trouble seeing the obvious motivation for the “female” class in physical sports? The distribution of physical strength in the population is strongly bimodal. Without a separate class, those who fall in the lower part of the bimodal distribution would have no chance whatsoever in many sports.
I find it perverse that you and others seem to be misrepresenting a progressive view of sexuality as a regressive one. If we recognize that gender identity is a mental state, then why is it a problem for the narrow purpose of sports competition that tests the physical capabilities of our bodies to group people into classes according to physical criteria, rather than mental? People with female gender identity come in all physical shapes and sizes - and (XY) trans women who choose not to undertake hormone therapy will fall into the upper part of the bimodal distribution of hormone levels and physical strength, along with cis-binary men. Why is it a problem to let these women compete with their physical peers?
As I’ve said, I do think sports classification should be recast to make clear that it’s about superficial physical characteristics, not about your identity as a man or woman. But given that, what about this makes such women “less worth celebrating, less womanly” - unless you have a prejudice that competing with men who have similar physique makes them less womanly?
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.
Sure, but I think any coherent approach to this surely has to consider all cases and the overall picture. If we keep this binary structure in competitive sports, any demarcation criterion is going to be unfair to some people. If Semenya remains in the sport without hormone therapy, is that fair to the women that have effectively been relegated to racing for second place for a generation? If you think Semanya’s participation is fair, why not allow a non-HRT trans woman to compete? Where would you draw the line?
I think it’s easy to criticize any proposal. What do you advocate as the least-bad solution overall?
Indeed - it’s around triple the 95th percentile for XX women.