Gotcha, thanks. I think I was just framing it in a slightly different way. There is a potential issue, but it’s been solved, so bringing it up now is no longer a genuine debate.
I suppose another possibility is that underlying all of this is some sort of addiction to hatred; hate is the drug and the TERFiness just happens to be the delivery method.
Actually, what he meant was that he liked watching the sport when he could imagine hitting on the players.
And what I meant was that the guy was a boorish jackwagon who I’m better off not knowing.
But I would say that external genitalia is probably the thing we care the least about. From the sports point of view, who cares if someone has ambiguous genitalia, we don’t need to see that.
So the tests that would be more appropriate to do are largely going to be analogous to drug testing. But again IANA doctor.
I didn’t say testosterone per se, I said testosterone during puberty. Someone who goes through puberty with the ~30x increase in testosterone that is typical for boys will have the skeleton, skeletal muscle and proportionately lower body fat that typifies male sexual dimorphism in humans. It makes far less difference what their testosterone level is later in life.
But I am confused as to what your position is. You seemed to be implying earlier that you don’t think that everybody who identifies as female should be able to join women’s events…so you’re agreeing that there is an advantage for people who developed initially with male traits, right? So why are you apparently questioning that here?
The fact that that’s true is extremely offensive to women, yes. Given the fact that it’s true, recognizing that fact and pointing it out is the opposite of offensive; it’s the first step towards getting an offensive situation fixed.
Interesting… How did either group compare to the typical testosterone levels of men and women in the general population? Do athletes typically have similar T levels to non-athletes?
OK, so how do we test for that? Give everyone testosterone tests at age 13, to be put on file in case they ever become world-class athletes? Or actually, tests every year from 10 to 16, because not everyone goes through puberty at the same age? We’re going to need a lot more lab techs.
Who was talking about testing? I had made this statement:
and then the point was put to me that the advantage of testosterone is not proven, so I reiterated that I was talking about development through puberty.
I have made no claim about what can or can’t be tested, instead I have said it should be up to sporting organizations and doctors to decide.
Yikes. The original phrasing of this was fine. You were hypothesizing that some rich people may think this is the reason they exist, or the reason they want it to exist.
But this wording made me think you were stating it as fact, and I was all fired up ready to go into at least the basic history of women’s sports. (That part of my brain fires before the part that goes back and checks.)
But to put it simply: the opposite is true.
When women’s sports were first taking off, it was thought that too much competition and training made for masculine looking, sterile* women who would be profoundly unattractive. But, over time women were reluctantly allowed to play in more “feminine” sports. It was largely women fighting for their rights that led to women’s sports.
Feminine beauty standards have changed, and athletic women are more regularly recognized as attractive. But the underlying idea of some looking “too masculine” persists, and has been woven in with this transphobic thing.
These people are the ideological descendants of the men who were against women’s sports.
*Literally. They thought it harmed their uterus and would make them infertile.
Considering the difference in women’s and men’s uniforms, it seems to me unlikely that anybody who’s paying attention isn’t aware of it.
I presume the women competing in those sports despite that difference in uniforms have other reasons for doing so, however; and that at least some of the audience watches for those other reasons.
Right. (A certain segment of) straight men approve of women’s sports because it means attractive women showing off their bodies, and so that segment of men, when they see women who they don’t find attractive competing in women’s sports, say “No, foul! That’s not the sort of person who’s supposed to be competing in women’s sports!”.
Here’s an anecdote. When I was in high school, a couple of friends of mine and I would sometimes hang out in a classroom during lunch time (instead of the cafeteria) and watch TV. The teacher in charge of that room didn’t mind and let us do it. We got into the habit at one point of watching women’s beach volleyball.
Now, my friends were quite openly interested in the women. We were teen boys after all. Secretly though, I was enjoying the actual game more than the women. Don’t get me wrong, I’m straight and I appreciate a scantily-clad woman bouncing around as much as the next guy. But I had played and enjoyed beach volleyball games on my Nintendo years earlier which were a gateway into an interest in the sport (both male and female).
I went along with them to fit in but secretly I was just excited by the sport itself.
My point is that there is absolutely a portion of the male population that enjoys watching female sports due to the women being attractive, more than the sport itself, and I’ve had first-hand experience with that.
It’s also the reason why “lingerie league” football exists (though it was rebranded at one point).
Good thing they’re not aware of hammer throw or shot put. I think they’d lose their minds.
There has been a press conference. It was an Olympic-scale mess.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2024/08/05/umar-kremlev-olympic-boxing/
Yikes. I’ve seen Trump press conferences that were better organized and more professional.
Wowza. From D_G’s link:
But OMG you guys: 
I wouldn’t have guessed this previously, but it now seems to me distinctly plausible that Umar Kremlev simply doesn’t understand the difference between having an above-average testosterone level and having a Y chromosome. 
My other current entirely-unverified speculations on this whole shitshow:
- Still possible but looking more suspect: The claim that Imane Khelif and/or Lin Yu-ting did actually obtain disqualifying results in 2023 from some kind of legitimate gender-eligibility test which knocked them out of the 2023 championships, consistently with officially established rules (but which does not necessarily preclude their being eligible, as indeed they evidently are, to compete in the current Olympics).
- Still possible but looking WAY more suspect: The claim that Khelif and/or Lin has a Y chromosome, along with some kind of XY DSD (which likewise would not in itself disqualify them from Olympic competition).
(Apropos of which, this previously linked article about Lin reports a suggested explanation, which for all I know may be no more than sheer speculation, of her failing the 2023 eligibility test due to hormonal irregularities caused by menstrual-cycle-regulating medications. If Lin does in fact have a menstrual cycle, then AFAIK that would at the very least drastically limit the chances of her having been born with some kind of XY DSD.) - Still seems pretty CT, but not as far-fetched as I originally thought: The hypothesis that Khelif and/or Lin actually had no disqualifying gender-eligibility test results last year at all (and indeed, they both seem to have been competing for years without any such disqualification prior to the 2023 event), but were deliberately targeted or scapegoated by the IBA in some way for some kind of corrupt reason.
Alternately, he doesn’t care, because the whole thing is a lie made up ad hoc because she beat a Russian, and he’s used to the “Whatever I say is true and you peasants have no right to question me” approach that works in the Russian media.
As I said, the extent to which that possibility at present seems really-not-completely-absurd is kinda shocking.
But I am still baffled about the presumptive rationale. I mean, other boxers beat Russian competitors all the time. Why pick on Khelif, and Lin, specifically? Is it because they’re both short-haired and fairly flat-chested and could be described with some stereotypes about being “mannish”-looking? I.e., that makes them plausible targets?
Couldn’t lots of other female boxers be targeted in the same way as too “muscular” and “masculine”? I do notice that a greater number of them seem to wear their hair long, and honestly that’s starting to look like a smart move, with the way these athletes are getting gender-policed all over the place. Disgraceful that it should be necessary, though.
I’d say you’ve hit the nail on the head. Russia has become quite savvy about taking advantage of maga culture war bullshit, so they likely saw that they could accuse them of being men and the Rowlings and Musks and Tates of the world would do the heavy lifting for them.
I don’t think it was mentioned in the first article, but at one point in the interview Kremlev called the president of the IOC a sodomite.
Do any sports have separate governing bodies for female events? It’s disgusting watching these men lord over women’s competition.