#hopefully i made sense here sorry if not jhgfds

[menalez]

Genuine (not Bad faith!) question, I'm definitely against trans women competing against women because they have biological advantage, but for the same reason I think people like Caster Semenya and the other disqualified runners (who all have XY chromosomes, male testosterone levels and testicles) should not compete against women also. You seem to think differently so can you say why? And what is to you the fairest way to protect women's competition if it's not testosterone?

sorry it took me some time to answer this,, i wanted to think on it for a bit so that i could word what i want to say clearly. in the case of caster semenya, she does have XY chromosomes and the testes are afaik internal, her external genetalia is female and her testosterone levels are to my knowledge, higher than the average woman but not at the male level either is it not? i tried to look it up and it seems like there's no public information on what her testosterone levels even are so i guess we can't really be sure on that.

for intersex female athletes, their testosterone should be below 5 nmol/L. this is below the average male levels, but higher than the average female levels. caster semenya's levels seem to be above 5 nmol/L, so she's expected to take drugs to alter her natural hormone levels. now this is where it gets really unfair and shows how these rules are harsher on female athletes than on the male athletes competing in female sports (really makes u question WHY this is even the case): for trans women, their testosterone levels have to be below 10 nmol/L. that means, trans women are allowed to have TWICE the amount of testosterone as intersex women like caster semenya. so basically, the rules on non-intersex males who grew up as men and lived as men is far more lenient than the rules are on intersex women. so that's the first reason i treat these two situations differently.

secondly, studies have found that caster semenya's FASTEST TIME is only 2% higher than other female athletes. moreover, the reason women with intersex conditions like caster's, having female genitalia and all, testosterone is not processed by the body in the same way. so its likely her testosterone levels don't even give her much of an advantage, and based on her history, it hasn't! her fastest time isn't even significantly better than other female athletes. it's not like she was once a mediocre male athlete who then went into women's sports and started crushing the competition, she was always professionally in women's sports and has won & lost like everyone else, with her fastest time not even being much higher than other competitors. in fact some of the female athletes who spoke against her had even better times than her and performed even better.

so, caster semenya's best is 2% faster than her competitors.... how about for trans women? well, a study found that trans women retain a 12% advantage over females when it comes to running. this is similar to the difference between male performance and female performance differences, because it was found that testosterone in males & females makes a difference of up to 12%. 2% vs 12%.... 5 nmol/L vs 10 nmol/L..... do you see the issue here? keep in mind, there have always been athletes that are exceptional, with natural (but often mild) biological advantages. the difference between caster semenya and other female athletes falls into the mild biological advantages category, but from what i've listed... the difference between trans women's performance and female performance is pretty significant and pretty different from caster semenya.

as for what the criteria should be and what is the fairest way, i think first of all there should be more studies into this before it's made into policy and i also definitely think that trans women being allowed to have significantly higher testosterone levels than even intersex females in women's sports is unfair considering there's good amount of proof that trans women already have a biological advantage over females in sports. beyond that, i'm not sure how it should be. but i certainly don't think the way they've treated female athletes with naturally higher testosterone (that doesn't even gain them much of an advantage), is fair considering how they've treated male athletes with twice as much testosterone levels.