#is there an acceptable testosterone level that all female athletes have to be at or under?

[iphigeniastrangeworth]

has anyone considered testing all the male athletes to make sure their testosterone levels aren't too high or is this just something we do to the female athletes. out of curiosity.

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

while i agree the other anon wasn’t particularly eloquent, they are right. AFAB, in its original definition from intersex terminology, means assigned female at birth OFTEN INCORRECTLY due to ambiguous genitalia. this happens to males more often than females because most intersex genitalia fall inbetween full penis and full vulva, and many (not all) intersex males end up being born with genitalia that appear to skew towards the female end. this doesn’t correlate 1:1 with intersex females simply because an underdeveloped vulva still looks like a vulva. to answer your question, the ones who are AMAB are still overwhelmingly male. the doctors are not purposely scheming and declaring a male baby a female baby because they see a male and decide to shake things up: they see a female baby because of the ambiguous genitalia they see. it’s a mistake, not a conspiracy.

in the cases of Caster Semenya, and likely Imane Khelif, most intersex males in sports are essentially fully male but with internal gonads due to their condition, which makes their genitalia just appear as a vulva at birth. that’s why they’re raised as female. and it’s common knowledge that it’s easy to mistake the sex of prepubescent children outside of straight up looking at their genitalia because the sexual dimorphic traits that we can see from a distance don’t begin to really show until after puberty. this same thing happened to a swiss skiier in 1966, Erik(a) Schinegger, who accepted the reality of his male sex and even tried to return the medal he won to the woman he beat in the Womens Downhill Run Ski World Championship. Caster Semenya has fathered children and has every single sexually dimorphic trait as perisex men, the ONLY difference is that he was born with ambiguous genitalia that got labelled as female at birth.

i think you have your heart in the right place, but listening to what’s actually being argued in regards to Imane and intersex males (especially those with confirmed 5ar2d) is crucial. it’s very likely, if not guaranteed, he’s male and knows it. multiple boxing organizations have now come out to say he is. they cannot release private medical information (only Imane can, and he knows that if he’s asked to prove his sex and refute the claims it’ll show that he is in fact male) but they can say he did not pass a test that determines if XX chromosomes are present in the dna of the athletes, which by process of elimination means he does have XY.

i say all this in factual matter by the way. i have empathy for intersex males who grew up fully believing they are female until they underwent puberty, especially in Imane’s case where his home country is extremely misogynistic and anti-LGBT. however, it’s still completely unfair to the perisex female athletes who have to compete against males who are AWARE of their male sex, and are far more at risk of injury or death due to the nature of boxing. personally, i choose to put the safety of women over the hurt feelings of men who are just being told they can’t compete with women. no they didn’t ask to be born that way, but neither did perisex women.

the ioc is also complicit in muddying the waters of this situation too. they were the ones who let Laurel Hubbard compete, they are the ones who refuse to do sex testing to ensure fairness and instead go off of editable documents, and they are the ones insistent on making feminists look evil by intentionally conflating intersex men with intersex women. even women with pcos and hyperandrogenism do not have HALF the levels of natural testosterone as the LOWEST LIMIT of testosterone of males, including intersex males. the ioc allows intersex males to compete in the womens catsgory with higher levels of testosterone than women who are banned by DOPING WITH TESTOSTERONE. literally, trans men who take T are not allowed even if they still have lower testosterone than intersex males. this is why we’re frustrated with the ioc and with the situation with Imane.

I see. I'm not too proud to admit that I can be wrong. My honest answer to this whole situation is that I do not know enough about it. I did not know all of this. Thank you for sharing. I'm interested to know what others have to say in favor/opposition to this.

[dosesofcommonsense]

When it comes to athletic prowess, there is no competition between men and women at the same levels. Don’t get me wrong. The world’s fastest man and the world’s fastest women are skilled athletes, yet there’s no comparison between the man and the woman.

Usain Bolt - Fastest man

100m dash

9.58 seconds

Florence Griffith-Joyner - Fastest woman

100m dash

10.49

A second doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a wide gap to track athletes.

My high school varsity girls basketball team scrimmages the sophomore boys basketball team, because the junior varsity and varsity boys basketball teams have a greater advantage; in other words, it’s not a fair field of play.

Who’s been living under a rock and hasn’t heard about the Thomas vs Gaines women’s swimming matches. Thomas, who was 200th-ish on the men’s league suddenly wanted to be a girl and is allowed to swim against biological females. He’s taller, more muscular, has a greater wing span, and more testosterone than every female in the pool. There was no competition.

After ALL of that, the woke Olympics decided to put biological males with biological females in events, like boxing. Seriously. WTF!

This is WICKED BAD. The Olympics are targeting women and encouraging men to brutalize women in the name of their puppet masters (Satan - see opening ceremonies) who are pulling the strings. This is abuse for public spectacle and sport. THIS IS WRONG.

*Woke doesn’t want to define what a woman is. Why? If we’re all the same, then this is “ok and acceptable”.

**There’s beauty in the differences between men and women. We compliment each other. Traditional family values in a MF heterosexual marriage is designed with purpose. Tearing God’s concept apart and removing gender (playing gender politics) creates this system where men and women are “equal” in word but also creates a world where evil men can brutalize women and it’s deemed ok. THIS IS EVIL.

THIS MUST END.

[kiefbowl]

It's because you're very clearly repeating the highest-volume talking points even though they are objectively wrong ('The anxiety over natural testosterone levels in otherwise biological female athletes...') This isn't about females with high testosterone, it is about males with normal testosterone. There is no overlap. Both women with high T and genetic males with complete androgen insensitivity are overrepresented in women's sports, but few people think this is unfair to the point of warranting exclusion. However, unambiguous males like those with 5-ARD must have a blanket ban on entering the female category or it will no longer exist in any meaningful way.

Bro, I've been ignoring asks for days about this now but this one takes the cake. how are you going to take something I wrote completely out of context about intersex athletes, in a sentence where I specify female intersex athletes, and then say I'm just wrong and I'm talking about "unambiguous males." Is this bait?? or are you just being pigheaded on purpose idk.

I know I wrote a lot of connecting ideas in the first ask and didn't really make a big effort of when I was distinguishing between all of them, but actually I get to decide what it is my words mean in the thing I wrote. I wrote that I was disappointed that "online feminists" jumped to conclusions about Imane Khelif with little to no evidence and I don't understand the anxiety over intersex athletes as the connection between them and trans gender athletes is tenuous, which I specifically connected to natural testosterone in otherwise female athletes. Please don't volunteer yourself to be my thesis adviser in my inbox again, and if it isn't clear by how annoyed and snarky I'm trying to write this, you might just have to accept that I'm not open to debate on this even if you have the best retort ever. I don't care, even if I'm one thousand percent wrong. Even if that makes me a class traitor or whatever hyperbolic nonsense. I would rather learn hell is real and I'm going there forever in five minutes then talk with people about this who refuse to believe I might actually just think differently about them on this topic rather than "I just don't have my facts straight", even though I have given oobh planty of examples in my time here that this isn't me simply being flippant about men competing in women's sports in every use case.

okie doke, peace & love

[khaleesiofalicante]

Hi! Absolutely loved the last chapter of LDV!

I just wanted to ask for a few recommendations, mostly about trans people in sports competitions and events like the Olympics

You see, where I'm from, it's still a pretty "controversial" debate. People think trans people shouldn't be in sports because "they got an unfair place" let it be an advantage or disadvantage.

I know most of the people that say that, don't really care about trans people, they only care about excluding them.

But others are ignorant. Myself included. And I'd like to educate myself more about it, about the rights of trans people and how they are constantly discriminated (it can also be in other places, not only sports. God knows people like to turn a blind eye on that too) because I'll like to point out the discrimination and unfairness of all this, but I don't have enough knowledge to give a solid argument

Even with my friends, they agree with those people sometimes. And I know they don't do it out of cruelty rather than ignorance, but I would like to call them out and make them see the reality, not just what transphobic and misogynistic people tell them

Sooo, do you perhaps have some research or books about it? Anything is welcome! I've been wanting to ask this for so long, but I don't know why I just never got around to do it.

Thanks <3

Oh, I’m so glad you asked about this. The reason why I include these topics and information in my fics is to make people think and to encourage more conversations like this! Good on you for wanting to know more! 

The first thing is that each country (and its governing sports body) has its own regulations about including trans people in sports. But two common things across most countries are - a) it primarily affects trans women. They are the ones who are scrutinized and subjected to examinations and then banned from the sport. b) the main ‘test’ used to eliminate trans woman from sports (mainly athletics) is their testosterone level. Each country (and even the Olympics committee responsible for this) has a bar/standard for the acceptable testesterone level for female athletes for various sports and if you have more than this, you can’t compete in it. 

Now while the above might sound fair to many, the things to consider here are that 1) the limit they’ve set is concerningly low. This means that some cis women (like those who have PCOS or any other hormonal condition) might even be cut off because of this strategy to eliminate trans women from various sports. 

Some countries/states on the other hand, like certain states in America (As we’ll see in LDV) outright ban trans people from participating in certain sports. This includes Idaho, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama etc. At least 20 of them, if I’m not wrong. It’s the same in my country. In many countries too. 

You are so right to point out that a lot of people would actually prefer trans women out of sports because they think trans women take up spaces that are meant for (cis) women. But if you really think about this, this whole “trans women are trying to take your place” argument was created to distract us from the real barrier to women’s sports - which is the patriarchy (this is a whole other topic and I can rant all day). But pitting cis women against trans women for the sake of ‘fairness’ is truly awful, but we do see it happen a lot - mostly out of ignorance, not malice. 

I did however bring intersex into the conversation - because the experience of intersex athletes are so different from that of trans athletes. Some intersex people don’t even know they are intersex, and then they suddenly find out about it when they are put in situations like this where their participation in a sport is banned/eliminated because of their testosterone level. The people who are usually targeted are masculine-looking and extremely well-performing athletes in women’s sports. If you fall into this category, then you might be asked to do a testosterone test (just because!) and then you might be eliminated from the sport. 

But wait. It gets worse. We’ve had actual cases where intersex athletes have had forced surgeries performed on them under the guise of allowing them to perform in the sporting event. Can you believe this is an actual thing that is happening and people aren’t talking about it? Some famous case studies you can read/watch about is Caster Semanya (which is very recent and literally ongoing). 

I didn’t know much about this either (I learned about it in my sexuality class) and decided to include it in LDV because it seemed so fitting. But I’m glad you want to know more. 

Here are some quick resources. I’m sharing both reading and watchable materials depending on your learning preference. 

VIDEOS:

A great!!! video about understanding trans people in sports - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fb48tivB-0

Intersex people and their olympic experiences - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rAHqh9OghY AND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWP6OuifFOw

READING MATERIALS: 

A good introductory article that has some research too

A case study about intersex people and the olympics

https://www.katrinakarkazis.com/testosterone-an-unauthorized-biography (Definitely read Katrina’s work!)

I hope this is helpful. Keep looking for answers and ask good questions! 

[bi-kisses]

“Imagine thinking that "bone density" of a twelve year old boy vs girl is going to be significantly different enough for an unfair sporting advantage,”

It… literally is. The difference between male and female bones isn’t slight and 12 year olds are actually right at the point where that difference becomes even more pronounced. Beyond having much stronger bones, natal males also have more muscle mass (which HRT can only reduce by up to 5%), larger hearts, larger lungs, and more efficient oxygen transport during exercise—All of these are pretty relevant to athletic performance.

This transwomen-in-women’s-sports hill that so many of you are willing to die on is beyond unscientific and it comes across as both deluded and incredibly selfish to anyone with a functional understanding of sexual dimorphism. Women losing the right to relatively fair competition is not acceptable collateral for making trans people feel more affirmed.

I know exactly who is sending this and dude I'm embarrassed for you because you're so obsessed with this bullshit. Like it's children playing sports. For fuck's sake can YOU choose another hill to die on? Am I the one actually digging through blogs to cry about the slightly denser hip bones of prepubescent boys and how it's unfair to let them play soccer with the girls? I post on this blog, like, every other day. Usually just to reblog something I thought was interesting. I am of the opinion that sports as a whole shouldn't be such a big fucking deal and YOU deciding to read more into that isn't my problem.

Don't tell me, a woman, how you, a man who loves to shit on trans people, how women are "losing the right to (relatively*) fair competition". You had to add that little caveat because it's already a well known fact that sports aren't actually "fair" at all, hence the banning of (mostly black) women who have more testosterone than others through no fault of their own. Christ.

But forget all that! Since I genuinely wanted to learn more on the subject, mostly out of spite for you specifically, I decided to do some digging. Here are the actual facts about muscle mass and bone density between the sexes, as well as the effects of HRT.

Here's a quote from a Canadian study on bone density, which I hope you find particularly interesting: (source)

There was no gender difference in TB BMC until age 14 or in TB BMD until age 16, when male values were significantly greater. Females had significantly greater LS BMC at ages 12 and 13, but by age 17 the male values were significantly greater.

It's not a "boys strong girls weak" situation, actually, because bodies are complicated and full of moving bits. Girls have stronger spines in their preteens (on average) whereas boys have tougher hips. This shifts and changes. At age 12, specifically, it's not AT ALL significant enough to impact playing at a preteen-capacity sporting event, especially a team-based one. You think having one kid with slightly stronger bones on one of the teams is ruining the playing field??? K

In some countries, the disparities are different between sexes, and there's a growing issue with girls entering puberty far earlier than boys (probably microplastics, who knows). To try and paint it as this black-and-white "boys play with boys, girls play with girls" as if that actually makes things significantly fairer when I, a girl who stood a good half foot taller than my male classmates at age twelve and did martial arts since I was able to walk, was considered weaker competition than the two-heart-transplants boy who was at serious risk of death if someone came to school with a cough? No one ACTUALLY gives a single flying fuck about these sports being balanced.

Alright, muscle mass time.

Here's a Danish study (source) that actually bothered to distinguish between levels and variations in physical activity. And, unsurprisingly, from ages 10-12 there aren't significant differences muscle-wise between girls and boys who engage in the same sports.

For the specifics, check table 3 and the averages it gives for each sex, especially with the standard deviation being much higher than the difference between those averages.

That was all well and good, and again, you WILL find significant differences between different cultures because bones and muscles are heavily reliant on what you eat, your genetics BESIDES sex, and the activities you're participating in. So to reiterate, why is sex the thing we're using as a mark of "fairness" given the variables that ACTUALLY make a notable difference at these younger ages?

I think I've made my stance pretty fucking clear at this point, which is "this whole idea that sex is the arbiter of balanced competition is stupid". But we're not done with the original ask, which also claims that HRT can only reduce muscle mass by up to 5%.

God, okay, so this one was fucking annoying to look into because it's not as simple as a flat muscle-mass-change-percentage. There are different muscle groups that are affected differently by hormones and whatnot, but I couldn't find any evidence that it was a maximum of 5% change?? Here's a review of the last twenty years of studies in the area of trans women undergoing HRT (source). If you're trying to find a conclusive range of possible change in muscle mass, you're going to come up short, because that's not what people are studying here.

Let me explain a few things. The average reported change in muscle mass after about a year of HRT was ~3-6%. There's no accounting for how much of an actual change that was in relation to their lifestyles, because trans women don't actually tend to be professional athletes. These are just girlies who go about their lives.

What am I getting at here? Well, let's say, sure, that average muscle mass decrease was 5% ish. That's from that individual's initial muscle mass to their current. The difference between cis men and trans women, however, could be anywhere from 6% to 20%. The data you're comparing actually matters and the variables at play matter, too. Trans women who hadn't undergone ANY HRT still tended to have ~10% less muscle mass than cis men!

There are a lot of theories surrounding what makes someone trans to begin with, and several studies have confirmed androgen insensitivity to be prevalent in trans women, so you can imagine how that would change their physical development. Just food for thought.

I kinda rambled and got pissy here but honestly I'm so sick of the nitpicking bullshit because no one pretending to give a shit about trans women in sports actually cares about the numbers or the balance or whatever have you, they just obsess over this idea that "failed men" are stealing from "poor, weak women", which I shouldn't have to explain is a stupid and sexist position.

In conclusion: professional-level sports aren't fucking fair no matter how strictly sexed they are, this whole argument is meaningless because transphobic assholes don't actually care about any of these talking points, and general exercise is good for you.

[papirouge]

2022(?): radfem defend Kiwifarm, a Website known to be a nest of racists, islamophobe and antisemitic a#sholes (respectively calling them nigger, sand niggers and "glowies") closing down after a TRA activists campaigned for its closure, in the name of "freedom of speech".

2023: radfem stand with Israel, shill for the #metoounlessyourajew campaign while both dismissing the rape victims on the Palestinians side and acting like the reasons (the left) "doesn't care" about Israel women is because they're antisemitic and misogynist (and probably not because Israel was already granted a MASSIVE support from the "international community" that Palestinians struggle to get and that only people of the world thrived to provide. "not caring for the already catered victim" was translated as "not caring " & "antisemitism ". I wonder why radfem weren't shouting #alllivesmatters in 2017 at that point.... (Maybe one day I'll make an essay about how whitefem are terrified of Black women turning on them bc they know we are the only leverage saving them from being labeled as a "white woman's right movement" they know we have the power to "culturally" destroy this movement)

2024 : Kiwifarm (who's back from the dead) moids shit on radfem they accuse of ruining the website (after allegedly after they flocked over as to support them against that TRA censorship) and blame on them the transsexualist movement (LMAO)

2024 : radfem, who for years swore up and down they were NOT white supremacist, aligned with the left and divested from male attention, start to make statements about how White men are actually the "more humane" type of men

2024: radfem defend JK Rowling terminally online ass getting shit (again) on xitter for saying shit about transpeople. Oh and also Taylor Swift - for whatever reason. We never see them show such much zeal to defend Palestinians women who've already been carpet bombed for months at that time.

2024: radfem dunk down on Imane Khelif, an Algerian GNC athlete literally rehashing crooked far right news outlets fake news talking point. Act like higher levels of testosterone make someone a man after swearing up and up down for YEARS what made up female were our sexual organs (hopefully they accept men with lower testosterone levels are women then ☺️). Rehash the "Imane is a man/has WXY chromosome" which only source is a butthurt Russia boxing federation top exec that pulled it out of his ass bc imane beat their champion + grasping at straw posting screenshot of "twitter expert" - that don't have access to Imane genetic record, because this document doesn't exist - as evidence..

Keep in mind those feminists literally took the words of a MAN to dogpile & call "man" what could possibly be a woman victim a genetic disorder (some argue it's Swyer syndrome) presenting female genetic organs while having Y chromosome.

Radfem were the one pretending to approach with respect the discourse or intersexuality and being oh so much more educated than everyone else about it, but look at them going full on Alzheimer about it and dedicated to prove Imane is a MAN and not a complex configuration of genetics making her GNC.

Radfem were also those bragging about acknowledging woman for having feminine organ regardless of her behavior or looks - and there they are, screaming with the conservatives gender enforcing wolves saying Imane couldn't be a woman BECAUSE she didn't look like one

The way radfem constantly proved throughout the last few years they became the monster they swore up and down they'll never become ("we'll never ally with conservatives" "we'll never support white supremacists" "we'll always support GNC women" "we'll never consider news from right/conservatives aligning outlets) needs to be clinically studied.

Such irony has to be kept on the record.

RIP to all the non white/radfem who stood against that fringe of the moment, but unfortunately that's what you've become to the eyes of people foreign to your movement. Especially people of color. I'll personally never take radfemistan seriously ever again. Most likely when they weaponize the fate of Middle East women abused by Islamic culture when you've proven again and again actually had no issue letting them be brutalized and killed by White supremacist culture and Zionism. No words about the men signing up bombs that will shred their flesh apart, or making merch bragging about killed pregnant Palestinian women, calling them mothers of "the next terrorist generation. We all know you hate children. Especially when they're brown & poor. Elon Musk would be proud of you. Useful idiots. All of you.

Go back reading Dworking and delude yourself thinking you're gonna save women. In the real world you've exposed yourself to be nothing more than the armed hand of White supremacy. Shame on all of you.

[2024skin]

The fact that a member of the board said "they could not commit to calling khelif 'biologically male'" strongly implies that khelif was identified as intersex, not just as a typical xy male. Klinefelter syndrome produces people with varying sex attributes; caster semenya is an intersex athlete who has female genitalia externally, but discovered she had KS when a health check up she got as an Adult revealed that she has testicles that never descended and do Not produce the testosterone output of descended testes.

I've seen on your blog that you think women who produce too much testosterone should not be allowed to be Olympic athletes because they have an unnatural and unfair advantage over over women, despite the fact that numerous disorders specific to females can cause women to have higher than average testosterone levels.

However, I personally think that the phenotypic characteristics of a person's anatomy says more about their sex than their genetics. If a person is born with a vagina, they are going to be oppressed bc of what the vagina represents in a patriarchal society, regardless of what genetics say. Algeria is not trans friendly. Imane Khelif's parents, by all public accounts, raised her as a woman and tried to prevent her from joining boxing because it was "too masculine" for someone like her. Based on all the public information about her, it seems extremely unlikely that her parents, her primary schools, and her female boxing and football teams all spent extended time with Imane and Never noticed descended cock and balls.

Based on all the public info available, imane khelif is Most Likely an intersex person with female anatomy, who has spent her whole life dealing with misogyny and the other burdens of being female. She is also the latest in a line of black women to have her womanhood acknowledged by other black people but called into question by white people who deem it Impossible that a black woman could out perform her white counterparts without lying and cheating. She may also be the second viral case of a black, intersex Olympic athlete having their private health information involuntary broadcast to the world because no one could accept that a black woman can be the top of her field without trying to discredit her.

I will advise you like I have done to others to read menalez's tag about caster semenya, the last intersex athlete to get virally scrutinized like Imane Khelif has been. Menalez breaks down Semenya's scores, using sources, in comparison with other male and female athletes in her caliber. These posts were honestly a big reason why I began reading into klinefelter syndrome, why I believe that having it doesn't mean that the affected person will always anatomically function like a man, and why I believe that the testosterone boost Semenya receives from being intersex is not comparable to the testosterone boost a female athlete gets from doping or that a male athlete gets from functioning testicals. I believe my views on Semenya translate to my views on Khelif because Khelif does Not have the power that actual XY trans boxers have against cis women. Khelif has lost nine of forty matches in her career, and she has never seriously injured a woman the way certain TIM boxers have. How is she really comparable to a man in any way besides Allegedly sharing a chromosome with them?

[pashterlengkap]

Runner Caster Semenya rejects “intersex” label & forced medical interventions

Cis lesbian South African runner Caster Semenya has said that she does not identify as intersex. “That identity doesn’t fit me; it doesn’t fit my soul,” the two-time Olympic gold medalist writes in a powerful New York Times essay, adapted from her upcoming memoir, The Race to be Myself. “I know I look like a man. I know I sound like a man and maybe even walk like a man and dress like one, too. But I’m not a man; I’m a woman. I’m a different kind of woman, I know, but I’m still a woman.” Related: Olympian Caster Semenya wins appeal against testosterone limits The cisgender South African Olympic gold medal-winning runner has been battling World Athletics’ discriminatory rules for years. In the piece, the runner — who was assigned female at birth, raised as a girl, and has never identified as anything other than female — details her years-long fight to be allowed to compete against other female athletes in elite track and field events, including the Olympics, after it was revealed in 2009 that she was born with differences in sex development (DSD). Get the Daily Brief The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you: Subscribe to our Newsletter Semenya describes being forced to undergo medical testing when she was just 18 due to speculation about her sex and gender that arose from fellow athletes, sports officials, the media, and fans ahead of the 2009 Berlin World Championships. She only learned about the results of those tests when they were leaked to the media that same year. “I learned that I had XY chromosomes, rather than the typically female XX pairing, and high levels of testosterone, produced by undescended testicles I didn’t know I had,” she writes. “In order to continue racing as a woman, I was told, I needed to have surgery to remove them.” Semenya writes that she refused to have surgery. “I was healthy, I loved my body, and it had made me a champion. Why must I go and mutilate it to conform to someone else’s rules?” Instead, she writes, she opted to take medication to artificially lower her body’s natural testosterone levels in order to meet the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF, now World Athletics) requirements for female athletes, despite potentially dangerous side effects. She says she began to feel sick almost as soon as she started taking the medication. At the same time, she endured continual scrutiny. “I’d been called a hermaphrodite. I had to walk back out into the world with this thing hanging around my neck. I wasn’t oblivious to the stares and whispers from other runners,” she writes. “I wasn’t going to take on an identity that did not fit my soul because some doctors had taken my blood and images of my organs. I was not a hermaphrodite or anything other than a woman.” After learning in 2015 that Indian runner Dutee Chand had won her challenge against the IAAF’s requirement that she artificially lower her own testosterone levels, Semenya says she stopped taking the medication. She went on to compete in the 2016 Olympics and the 2017 IAAF World Championships. In 2018, the IAAF announced new regulations that prevented Semenya from competing against other women in her events. (World Athletics expanded and made the rules stricter this year.) “To me, its restrictions aren’t about leveling the playing field; they are about getting certain types of women off the field completely,” she writes. She blasts the IAAF’s hypocrisy in celebrating white male athletes like Michael Phelps for their natural physical advantages, and for accepting bribes from Russian athletes who had used performance-enhancing drugs, all while forcing her to alter her own body. As writer Precious Adesina noted in her profile of Semenya for The Cut, a 2020 Human Rights Watch report found that female athletes from Africa and Asia have disproportionately been subjected to “sex testing,” “gender verification,” or “femininity testing.” “It was people like Chand and me… http://dlvr.it/SxvGlw

[rosiewitchescottage]

Narcissists, Frauds, and Enablers: Trans Men and Women's Sports | Riley ...

These are the sorts of things that we NEED to be able to discuss.

The fact that there are distinct biological differences between male men and female woman has been known for a long time.

It’s why we got single sex spaces (Men should have their single sex spaces too. Simply because men have to be able to do what comes naturally to them, when they’re together. Without thinking that a woman might get hurt or offended.)

And it’s why women’s sports became its own category. Listen to Riley here. There’s no question that athletes like herself are in any way ‘inferior’ to their male colleagues. They are simply biologically different.

She tells us about Lea Thomas coming onto the scene. How looking into her performances as her previous persona of Will Thomas, showed that she as he was not top of the game, as she was now.

Quite clearly, taking oestrogen wasn’t doing much to lessen Lea’s biological male strength and speed. She as ‘Will Thomas’ was no champion, when competing against male men. But as Lea, competing against some of the best female swimmers in the US. She was wiping the board.

How is this fair? To the women, whose training regime Riley talks about, and it sounds intense! Competing against fellow female women, they have a chance of winning, depending on how they perform. Against male, 6′4 Lea, they have little to no chance.

And Lea herself?  What incentive is there for her to work hard, to push herself? She can get into the water with female women and wipe the bard easily. Where’s the challenge?

Absolutely trans athletes should have the opportunity to compete. No question about it.

But it looks like there needs to be a lot more research into how much injected oestrogen or testosterone affects the performances levels of male or female athletes, compared with their female or male counterparts.

It needs to be fair to everyone. NOT just for this minority of trans athletes.

Surely there are other categories that could be tried out, to see what works best, all round?

Unisex categories - Some people don’t believe that a trans woman performs any differently to a female woman, or a trans man to a male man. So, if they want to compete against the opposite sex. Then why not let them do so? If they choose.

Let female women/male men who only want to compete against female women/male men do so.

Trans categories - Maybe there wouldn’t be enough trans athletes to do this. But it’s just a thought.

If Lea Thomas had to push herself to compete against another male trans woman, how would she do then?  My guess is that she’d have to work a lot harder. And wouldn’t that be better for her, in the long run?

No need to tell me that trans rights are human rights. If you’re a human being then you should have human rights, simple as.

But we can’t pretend that biological reality isn’t what it is.

I’ll treat a trans woman as a woman. (Unless she’s made little to no effort to look and behave like a woman. In those cases, why should I make any effort?)

Being a woman is more than just feeling, thinking and saying that you are.

(You can be a feminine or androgynous man. There’s nothing wrong with being either.)

Woman/Man, these are solid, objective categories, as old as the human race. Society and nurturing play their part in shaping them, certainly. But biological sex is a major component., that can’t just be thrust aside.

 If you’re biologically male, and no amount of surgery or meds will make you biologically female, then there needs to be a solid, objective reason why I should  call you and treat you as a fellow woman.

(And I will. Biological reality doesn’t preclude being trans. From what I’ve heard, it’s the whole darn basis!)

And there are many, many of you who do so. That’s one of the sad things going on here. Your acceptance to just live as yourselves is suffering, because of these frankly deranged ideologues who have pushed this out of reasonable proportion.

[communisms-pr-manager]

Hi. I absolutely have to respond to this because I find your standpoint fascinating.

the issue is still there, because forcing trans athletes to compete with their sex is essentially banning them for sport if they wish to medically transition. goodbye chances of making it into competitive mens sport if youre actively suppressing testosterone as a trans woman. cool? cool.

No one is forcing anyone to do sport. Being successful at sport is not a human right. You can’t just go into a category where you can easily win just because you can’t compete in your own category. By banning 15-year olds from the 12-year old category, you do not ban them from sport. To have a category, it is understood and obvious that you need to exclude those who don’t meet the criteria of the category. What do you have against categories? I think they are democratising.

Do trans people have no responsibility for their own decisions, at all? If you are a successful male athlete, and then decide to medically supress your testosterone levels, meaning you won’t be as successful in sport anymore, why on earth should that entitle you to compete and win in the female category instead? If a male is not successful in the men’s category he should be granted access to the female category, to win there instead? That is NOT what the female category is there for.

Anyone who makes the personal choice to medically transition has to face a lot of decisions and probably give up lots of things. Males who lower their testosterone won’t be competitive in the male category anymore. Females who start taking testosterone won’t be allowed to compete in the female category anymore. They can get a special permission to compete in the men’s category despite taking testosterone, but they don’t threaten the best men. Trust me, if they did, they would not be allowed to compete while on testosterone. These are individual choices. It’s not everybody elses responsibility. You have to think of potential consequences beforehand.

goodbye chances of making it into competitive mens sport if youre actively suppressing testosterone as a trans woman. cool? cool.

Yes, cool. Your opinion on this is truly baffling. What about ”goodbye chances of making it into competitive women’s sport if you’re a biological female, with lower testosterone than your competition”.

ONE male might not make it into competitive men’s sport, through an active choice of his own, and you are outraged? But ALL women should be forced to accept chronically unfair sporting events just so that a few males can boost their egos by beating women at sport. That is a crazy take. Why do you feel you have to take a special stand for men like this? Men who want to intrude on a female space? They don’t need it and don’t deserve your help. Men already have every opportunity in sport. Some men don’t succeed at becoming world class athletes, that’s ok. That doesn’t mean they should compete against women. They can just get a normal job instead, and you don’t need to feel sorry for them.

thank you for coming to my sideblog btw, appreciate taking this away from main. i dont know how to tell you that everyone should be given an equal opportunity at competing in sports.

'What about ”goodbye chances of making it into competitive women’s sport if you’re a biological female, with lower testosterone than your competition”' - how many trans people do you think exist in sports??? there is no goodbye chances if there is one or two trans women competing in a single sport. you argue this but then turn around and say im being ridiculous for being outraged over the treatment of a few trans people.

trans people should not have to choose between a sport they love and make a living off of and transitioning to better their mental health. that's it, thats the argument. your argument reeks of transphobia and inflammatory language and a fundamental misunderstanding of trans women's intentions for competing with other women, instead you project this idea of trans women being deceptive villains looking to take opportunities away from cis women for a medal. your standpoint comes from a place of believing that trans women are not women, and until you understand and accept that trans women are women and not men as you repeatedly claim this argument is pointless. it's also evident that you believe that every man is inherently stronger than every woman when that is just not the case and honestly? sexist. biological diversity in athletes is wide and varied and also overlaps significantly, in fact a majority of male athletes even have lower than average testosterone closely lining up with female athletes with higher than average testosterone- i can link the studies if you so wish. i truly have no words anymore and until you can separate your irrational anger towards trans women from your argument i don't have anything more to say.

[odinsblog]

qwhite interesting 🤔

racialized misogyny 🤝 transphobia

For female athletes of color, scrutiny around gender rules and identity is part of a long trend

Overcome with emotion, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif left the ring in tears after a resounding victory this weekend. Khelif has faced days of hateful comments and false accusations about her gender following her first fight against an Italian opponent who quit seconds into their bout.

“It’s because she’s African, because she’s Algerian,” 38-year-old Algerian fan Adel Mohammed said Saturday, when Khelif clinched an Olympic medal. “These comments are coming from white people … it’s a kind of racism.”

Female athletes of color have historically faced disproportionate scrutiny and discrimination when it comes to sex testing and false accusations that they are male or transgender, historians and anthropologists say. Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting, who won her bout Sunday after similar abuse and questions about her gender, are the latest examples of women of color who have found themselves caught in the contentious debate around gender regulations and perceptions in sports.

More women from the Global South or developing countries are affected by sex testing in sports, said Payoshni Mitra, executive director of Humans of Sport, an advocacy organization that focuses on human rights issues for athletes. She has worked with dozens of female athletes across Asia and Africa to fight sex testing practices.

“Sport is very Eurocentric — the approach is not necessarily global,” Mitra said. “We need to accept women in all their diversity. And we are not seeing that at this point.”

Mitra and other advocates and anthropologists note that international sporting federations don’t tend to promote an understanding of diversity in sex and gender identity and that gender tests have often targeted female athletes of color who don’t conform to typically Western, white ideals of femininity.

In 2009, after her 800-meter victory in the world championships, South African runner Caster Semanya was sidelined for 11 months because of track and field rules about hormone levels. She has spent years in her legal battle against requirements for her to suppress her natural testosterone to compete.

Semenya was identified as female at birth, raised as a girl and has been legally identified as female her entire life. She has one of a number of conditions known as differences in sex development, or DSDs, which cause naturally high testosterone.

(continue reading)

For the record, no one is accusing the taller, broader WHITE woman of being a man

Says it all

[female-malice]

Opinion on women with higher testosterone levels being able to compete or not compete with other women? And intersex females?

"Women with higher testosterone levels" is a fictional problem used by TRAs to divert attention away from males. As someone who watches a ton of women's sports, this is not a real problem.

Right now, the real problem is there are males competing in women's sports.

Women's sports is for females. People who were born female, go through female puberty, and then have athletic careers.

And then there's the males who find their way into women's sports. Males like Lia Thomas and Caster Semenya. These two athletes have extremely different life circumstances. But they have some things in common. Both of these males identify as women. And they both went through male puberty.

Caster Semenya is frequently mislabeled as an intersex female. This is not correct. Caster is an intersex male with 5-alpha reductase deficiency. Caster has the exact same advantage from male puberty that Lia Thomas has. Just because Caster was raised as a woman, that does not erase biological advantage.

Intersex females competing is another fictional problem used by TRAs to divert attention away from males. Most people know very little about intersex conditions and assume it means "halfway between male and female." But that is not how genetic disorders work at all. Actual intersex female conditions do not offer much athletic advantage. Many of these conditions effect health in a way that would make a professional athletic career extremely challenging.

99.98% of women have 46 XX SRY- dyadic female genes. And these genes are extremely diverse. There is way more genetic variation among dyadic females than among dyadic males.

But there is much more social acceptance of dyadic male genetic variation. There are huge male athletes like Andre the giant, Shaq, and Boban Marjanovic. These guys are over 7 feet tall. And when they open their mouths and speak, their voices are impossibly low. They sound like their voices are being digitally lowered for a giant character in a fantasy film. But that's just the normal voice that comes out of them.

No one questions whether Andre, Shaq, and Boban have some fantastical intersex condition. When people meet a 7'4" man, they aren't surprised to hear a voice lower than every other male. The look at the size of the guy and go "yeah, that voice makes sense."

But then giant 6'9" female athletes like Han Xu and BG open their mouths and speak with low female voices. And everyone loses their minds about it.

Even though women have more variety than men, society only allows women to look one way. Dyadic female genetic diversity and uniqueness is marginalized in every sector of society except for sports. In sports, ideally, everyone is sorted by merit. Women who don't get promoted in other fields because of their looks do get promoted in sports through merit.

So when TRAs say "what about women with higher testosterone? what about intersex females?" what they're really saying is "what about all these ugly brawny women who are good at sports? They seem like men! Males should be allowed to compete against them if they want to!"

[nerdygaymormon]

Don’t you look at Lia Thomas and think ”oh this is why they have different categories for men (including people who identify as women but have a man’s body) and women”? If you let someone biologically male compete in the women’s category, they win. That’s why the categories exist to allow fair competition. What does Lia get out of winning in the women’s category, not pride in the physical performance surely?

The assumption underlying your comment is that trans women have the same 'advantages' of men and will always have a competitive advantage over cis women in sports. I assume you believe the converse, that trans men will always be at a disadvantage when competing against cis men.

The stats don't reflect your belief. Thousands of trans athletes have been competing at national and international competitions who you don’t hear about simply because they don’t win or qualify for the Olympics...even with all their 'unfair' advantages.

————————————————————

In consultation with medical experts, the NCAA has a rule (which has been adopted by the International Olympics Committee and many other governing bodies) that a trans woman can compete on collegiate women’s teams after one year of testosterone suppression.

In the case of Lia Thomas, she's been on testosterone suppression for two years. 

Hormone-replacement therapy causes the individual to go through something like female puberty, including a softening of muscles, fat being redistributed around the body, losing aerobic capacity. 

It's easy to look at Lia's history and see that hormone therapy has slowed her down.

————————————————————

Can certain trans individuals retain some form of competitive advantage after transitioning?

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, sports isn't 'fair,' and it never was.

Genetics isn’t fair, either. Many elite athletes are genetically blessed in a way the average person isn’t. Bodies come in different sizes & shapes.

Privilege isn’t fair, either. Some athletes have resources that allow them opportunities and access to specialized training and facilities the average person does not.

From the beginning of women's sports, people have complained about the 'masculine' women having unfair advantages over the more feminine women. As a result, women's athletics is full of attempts to police who isn't 'woman' enough to compete.

There was a time women were required to strip nude so a doctor could confirm their female genitals.

That was later replaced by tests to check for a Y chromosome, but then it was discovered some cis women carry a Y chromosome, in all other ways they're women but they fail this genetic test.

Around 2000, chromosome tests were replaced by testing levels of testosterone. Some women naturally produce higher amounts of testosterone than other women, and it could be because their body doesn't utilize the hormone as efficiently as other women's bodies do, therefore they produce more.

Considering testosterone levels are used to determine who is 'female' enough to compete, it seems fair to hold the same standard for trans women

For over 10 years, thousands of trans athletes have been competing in national and international athletics competitions. The thing is, you don’t hear about them because they aren't winning competitions nor considered among the elite of their sports.

More important than any 'advantages' they bring with them when they transition, what makes an elite trans athlete is the same thing for cis athletes--training, skill, perseverance, resilience, and a host of other reasons.

————————————————————

Students should get to have the experience of playing on a team with friends if they want to. We regularly extol all the benefits & life lessons that come from participating on sports teams, we should try to be as inclusive as possible to give people these opportunities.

If trans athletes are allowed to participate, and I believe they should have the same opportunities as others, we have to be willing to accept that sometimes a trans athlete will win.

————————————————————

To deny trans athletes the opportunity to participate is to confirm the social stigma that classifies them as outsiders and misfits and a possible danger to 'real' women. This has real-world consequences for trans individuals.

For several years we've had state legislatures competing to see who could pass the most anti-trans legislation. Why?

This is a vulnerable population that faces very real threats. Rather than looking for ways to protect them, politicians are playing on the fears and misperceptions some voters have, which are exacerbated by debates about unfair advantages in athletics.

Trans people as a group already deal with significant issues such as homelessness, poverty, violence, bullying, rejection, depression, and suicidal ideation.

Considering the social, legal, financial & other disadvantages the trans population deals with, it seems cruel that the idea they might have some sort of advantage & success in athletics means we need to make laws to single them out for yet more discrimination.

The real issue is many people are uncomfortable with the idea of trans people and see them as "other," which makes it easier to deny them the full range of human rights we claim for ourselves.

————————————————————

If you really want to make sports fair, then I have a suggestion.

Instead of simply dividing teams by male and female, create a system that uses an algorithm to account for both physiological factors and socioeconomic factors. Thanks to computers, we could do this.

By physiological, I mean things such as testosterone, height, endurance, leg length, and so on.

Socioeconomic factors includes things like gender identity, the opportunities provided by their school, their income bracket, race/ethnicity and so on.

[jerseydeanne]

SARAH VINE: Are you really telling me burly swimmer Lia Thomas who set a new record for the 200-yard freestyle race is playing fair?

On Friday night, Lia Thomas, a transgender woman athlete, set a record for the 200-yard freestyle race in the Ivy League university swimming championships in the US, beating her closest opponent by half a pool length.

Her win was widely praised as a victory for women’s sport as Thomas, who until 2019 was competing – with notably less success – in the male category, took to the podium to claim her prize.

Alongside her, somewhat dwarfed by her broad shoulders and imposing stature, her defeated opponents smiled and applauded in the approved manner, as though the entire thing were completely normal.

No mention of the fact that they had just been bested by someone with an inherent set of physical advantages: muscle mass, speed, size.

No acknowledgement of the fact that, in reality, they never stood a chance against someone such as Thomas.

Just smile and nod and take it on the chin, girls, and don’t you dare complain. And frankly, who can blame them?

In the current climate of terror created by extreme trans activism, what choice do they have? What choice, for that matter, does any of us have?

It seems we have finally passed through the looking glass.

Forget believing six impossible things before breakfast, as the White Queen said to Alice; nowadays we must believe whatever nonsense the woke supremacists want us to believe, no matter how scientifically inaccurate or, for that matter, unfair it may be. Or else suffer the consequences.

In the context of trans ideology, this means total and complete acceptance of anyone who self-defines as female, regardless of the impact upon other females around them. Biological sex doesn’t exist, and anyone who dares to question the wisdom of, say, placing vulnerable women in hospitals or prisons alongside individuals who were born males, risks obliteration.

Doesn’t matter how calmly or rationally they argue their case (JK Rowling being the most obvious, but there are countless more), it’s sentence first, verdict after, off with their heads, and so on.

To be branded a transphobe is the equivalent of being called a Communist in McCarthy-era America: the end of everything. Unless we all agree that two plus two equals five, we risk being cast into the outer darkness.

And the truth is, it’s working. Like those girls standing next to Thomas on the podium, people are starting to accept this new reality for the simple fact that they haven’t the strength or the fight to challenge it.

They’re scared, and rightly so. They just want to protect their jobs and their reputations, and they don’t want to have the black mark of the TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) placed upon them.

It’s how radical ideology has always worked. Frighten people out of their wits, threaten their livelihoods and their reputations, and eventually they will agree to anything. Even the impossible.

But I am not easily bullied, and I refuse to parrot the lie.

The truth in this case is that Lia Thomas, while emotionally and psychologically a woman, still retains much of the physical attributes she acquired as a man. And as such, she should not be competing against other women who do not possess her inherent advantages.

It’s the equivalent of pitting an eight-year-old against a fully grown adult. It’s not a question of transphobia. Absolutely no one in their right mind, certainly not me, cares about that. It’s about honesty, fairness and maintaining a level playing field.

That is why, in all sporting disciplines, there are such hard and fast rules around doping. Performance-enhancing substances give competitors an unfair advantage, from increasing concentration to optimising anaerobic respiration.

And there are few more powerful performance-enhancing hormones in nature than testosterone. A substance that males possess in abundance; and that women, on the whole, do not.

To my mind, it’s as simple as that. If we allow trans women who have gone through male puberty equivalence in women’s sport, we are effectively condoning doping – and making a mockery not only of women’s sport, but of the fundamental principles of fair play.

This was a week where we saw a 15-year-old girl – Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva – crushed and humiliated in the eyes of the world after being accused of taking a banned substance.

Perhaps we will never know whether the heart drug found in her system was ingested intentionally or, as her family claim, by accident (although either way she can’t really be to blame, since she is a minor). But the opprobrium heaped upon her slender young shoulders was certainly real enough, and I would surmise very hard to bear for one so young.

And yet were she a strapping 22-year-old biological male identifying as female, no one would bat an eyelid. Or, for that matter, dare to challenge her.

That, I’m afraid, is the reality of the world we live in now. And I for one don’t think it’s right or fair.

source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10531313/SARAH-VINE-really-telling-burly-swimmer-Lia-Thomas-playing-fair.html

[renardtrickster]

"Republicans posit themselves as the voice of common sense, what the average person wants, the physical embodiment of the silent majority, but it just isn't true. Even putting aside the FACT that statistically the "average person" is in favor of trans people and their rights, the conservative culture war has become so radicalized and hitleresque that they've become parodies of themselves. It is not, per their definition, "normal" to transvestigate every other person walking down the street, or to shout "THEY'RE A MAN WHO WANTS TO BEAT UP WOMEN" when cis female athletes have slightly higher than average testosterone levels, or to be as possessive of children and what they learn as they are (ironically in a way conducive to actual grooming), or for your wannabe Vice President runner-up to currently be condemning the degeneracy of women who don't want to be broodmares. Saying they're weird isn't a centering of normalcy as innately desirable goal or the prescribed model of acceptable behavior, it's dispelling the notion that they REPRESENT the average person when pre-2016 this rhetoric was exclusively the purview of nazis on 4chan. Also fascists like being thought of as scary and them being laughed at makes them deeply uncomfortable, which is an important political end in and of itself."

"But have you considered that I'm queer and people dehumanize me by calling me a freak? By calling JD "if you aren't pumping out babies you're a subhuman" Vance a freak, you're using the exact same othering rhetoric people use against me. You're not as progressive as you think you are, because I'm actually more progressive than you are, and smarter. In two weeks the Democrats are going to flip the "leftists are all groomers" script on its head by pointing out that their presidential candidate is literally a friend of Epstein's and I'm unironically going to argue that you're casting Donald Trump in the role of the trans woman by pedojacketing him. Both sides are exactly the same, there is no difference between anything and anything else in the world, also I am very smart."

"By calling JD Vance weird as part of your moral denunciation of him, you're also morally denouncing the online transgender furry kinksters who get called weird" Why would you besmirch the good name of online transgender furry kinksters by insinuating that their weirdness is in any way comparable to JD Vance? I am going to attack you.