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@Mr-Fish said in Transgender debate, in sport, in general:
By all accounts, Khelif is outwardly a female (and has been since birth), so she's likely female with a DSD 'at worst'.
Is that an actual fact or is he hiding a gun in his pocket?
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Why would you need a testosterone examination when you can determine if there's a Y chromosome?
I don't know the specifics, but the fact the IBA Secretary General and CEO alone made a determination isn't a problem for me either when the CAS can and does make determinations with only a Sole Arbitrator. If the IOC didn't like the IBC's governance, that should've been addressed.
But if this is a picture of the athlete in question, I know what side of this particular argument I'm coming down on.
And a little more scientific:
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@antipodean said in Transgender debate,
in sport, in general:Why would you need a testosterone examination when you can determine if there's a Y chromosome?
I don't know the specifics, but the fact the IBA Secretary General and CEO alone made a determination isn't a problem for me either when the CAS can and does make determinations with only a Sole Arbitrator. If the IOC didn't like the IBC's governance, that should've been addressed.
But if this is a picture of the athlete in question, I know what side of this particular argument I'm coming down on.
And a little more scientific:
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@antipodean said in Transgender debate, in sport, in general:
Why would you need a testosterone examination when you can determine if there's a Y chromosome?
I don't know the specifics, but the fact the IBA Secretary General and CEO alone made a determination isn't a problem for me either when the CAS can and does make determinations with only a Sole Arbitrator. If the IOC didn't like the IBC's governance, that should've been addressed.
But if this is a picture of the athlete in question, I know what side of this particular argument I'm coming down on.
And a little more scientific:
Pretty sure that’s Daniel Ricciardo
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From the IBA press conference:
Both boxers were initially subjected to a chromosomal test by an independent laboratory in Istanbul after the IBA received complaints from coaches and competitors during the 2022 Women's World Boxing Championships.
*Both boxers were re-tested in India again during the 2023 Women's World Boxing Championships to clarify and confirm prior results.
*Both boxers were found to have XY chromosomes.
*Both boxers were informed of the results of the tests in writing.
*Both boxers were given the opportunity to appeal the findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
*The IBA offered to pay for the majority of the costs to allow both boxers to appeal.
*Lin Yu-Ting did not appeal the decision.
*Imane Khelif appealed the decision, and then withdrew the appeal.
- at this point, everyone knows they’re male. The IOC putting inclusion above safety and fairness now laid bare for all to see. Shameful.
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@Dodge said in Transgender debate, in sport, in general:
From the IBA press conference:
Both boxers were initially subjected to a chromosomal test by an independent laboratory in Istanbul after the IBA received complaints from coaches and competitors during the 2022 Women's World Boxing Championships.
*Both boxers were re-tested in India again during the 2023 Women's World Boxing Championships to clarify and confirm prior results.
*Both boxers were found to have XY chromosomes.
*Both boxers were informed of the results of the tests in writing.
*Both boxers were given the opportunity to appeal the findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
*The IBA offered to pay for the majority of the costs to allow both boxers to appeal.
*Lin Yu-Ting did not appeal the decision.
*Imane Khelif appealed the decision, and then withdrew the appeal.
- at this point, everyone knows they’re male. The IOC putting inclusion above safety and fairness now laid bare for all to see. Shameful.
Ooooooooooooh
Aren't the tests and the organisation (IBA) under investigation though?
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@Dodge said in Transgender debate, in sport, in general:
The IBA has all sorts of corruption allegations levelled at it, however the tests were conducted at approved independent labs, the results were not appealed. The IOC are a disgrace
Thanks
Got a link please?
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@Dodge said in Transgender debate, in sport, in general:
From the IBA press conference:
Both boxers were initially subjected to a chromosomal test by an independent laboratory in Istanbul after the IBA received complaints from coaches and competitors during the 2022 Women's World Boxing Championships.
*Both boxers were re-tested in India again during the 2023 Women's World Boxing Championships to clarify and confirm prior results.
*Both boxers were found to have XY chromosomes.
*Both boxers were informed of the results of the tests in writing.
*Both boxers were given the opportunity to appeal the findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
*The IBA offered to pay for the majority of the costs to allow both boxers to appeal.
*Lin Yu-Ting did not appeal the decision.
*Imane Khelif appealed the decision, and then withdrew the appeal.
- at this point, everyone knows they’re male. The IOC putting inclusion above safety and fairness now laid bare for all to see. Shameful.
This is all there is to it, the IBA may be corrupt but they were right when they said they don't bother testing testosterone levels as they can be altered. The test of whether they are XX or XY is conclusive, if they are XY then they would have gone through puberty with male levels of testosterone (note - there is no overlap in testosterone levels between males and females during puberty). That gives them a raft of advantages across the board, and as they've found with trans women even if they take hormonal treatment to lower their testosterone level, it doesn't do nearly enough to counter the advantages gained during puberty.
@Mr-Fish as someone that gave a different perspective in this thread (which I appreciated), would you agree that if someone with DSD has XY chromosomes they should not be allowed to compete in women's sports?
I studied this stuff at university, but that was over a decade ago now and things have evolved since then. If I'm missing something here I'd love someone to point out what and why, as this seems quite straightforward to me which is why it's so insane that it has been allowed to get to this point by sporting bodies. What category someone with DSD competes in should be sorted out at the lower levels well before it gets to the professional scene in the public eye.
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@No-Quarter I really don't know enough to say whether someone with XY chromosomes should be allowed to compete in women's sports. It's a tricky area.
There's been a lot of discourse online about how various athletes have various advantages in sports because of their physiology (Michael Phelps is the common example) but it's obviously not quite as simple as that. At a bare minimum, the IOC should make it very clear what the rules are (i.e. Even if you do have XY chromosomes you are allowed to compete under these conditions... Etc). Many will argue that's not enough but, as I say, I just don't know enough about the issue.
I do think a lot of the commentary online and by her opposition following the match etc was horrific. That's what I take the most umbrage with. Very few people know all the circumstances and there was a lot of charged language used that was downright nasty. People were stating she is trans, people were stating she's a man (which, I'm sure by many of their own metrics, would not be the case).
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@Mr-Fish said in Transgender debate, in sport, in general:
Many will argue that's not enough but, as I say, I just don't know enough about the issue.
It's goddamn blurry and that's the problem. You have to draw a line somewhere to make things 'fair. IF you don't, you kill women's sport. But - where is the line? Who goddamn knows. How much testosterone before you become overly advantaged?
And this being elite sport, you're getting only corner cases pushing the boundaries. IT's really not good.
This has not been helped by the qualifying criteria being different between different competitions (Olympics vs World Champs).
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@Mr-Fish thanks, and I completely agree that the commentary about this both in mainstream media and social media has been really diabolical, and I do have sympathy for the fighters in question. This should have been sorted out well before they became professionals.
A particular frustration I have with the reporting of the case is that they don't talk about any of the facts at all, finding articles that even mention chromosomes is challenging when that is at the heart of the issue! It's honestly like the media are trying to obfuscate the issue as much as possible, it's not difficult for reporters to do a bit of research before putting pen to paper.
I will say though, the "Michael Phelps" argument is extremely disingenuous, pushed forward by people that should know better (not including you there). I've posted about that on this very thread earlier on, relating to Laurel Hubbard at the time. In fact it's probably easier to quote myself again so here that is:
I strongly dislike this argument. I don't think you have bad intentions, in fact quite the opposite, but this is really misleading.
Of course there is variation within the sexes, that's why I'm not an All Black, could never play pro basketball or be a top weight lifter. There's even overlap between the sexes - Serena Williams would smoke plenty of male tennis players for example.
But we're not talking about matching up the weakest men against the strongest women here. We're talking about professional sports - the strongest men vs the strongest women. Here there is no overlap at all. None. Nada. Nil. The strongest woman is not even in the same stratosphere as the strongest man. Serena got smoked by an alcoholic male that was outside the top 200 and in poor physical condition. She could barely get a point off him. It was laughable and her bold "I want to play against the men" statements evaporated.
And so we have Hubbard. A male that would never get even close to the top of his field transitioning to female later in life, past the peak of an athlete, and immediately shooting straight to the top of the female division. That's seriously not fair on women that have slogged their guts out and are at the peak of their career age wise with a small window for winning a medal. It makes a farce of women's sports which have come such a long way in recent times to be taken seriously.
I just can't believe this is even up for debate let alone actually happening, and I'm utterly ashamed that NZ is sending a biological male to compete against women that have trained their whole lives for this moment.
This post was about trans women at the time, but the same principle applies to males with DSD, they have an unfair advantage and so should either be competing in the men's/open category, or, they can pursue something else in life. Competing professionally is not a "right", it's something only very few people are able to do, if they are not good enough to compete in the correct category then honestly, tough shit, join the rest of us.
And lastly, I agree with you that it is up to the IOC (and other sporting bodies) to set clear rules so that everyone knows what the criteria is moving forward. A very clear and easy to understand rule is that if you are born with XY chromosomes, then you will have gone through puberty with male typical levels of testosterone, so that excludes you from competing in the protected women's category. Clear, easy to understand, can be confirmed with a simple test early on, and would avoid all of this controversy.
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@No-Quarter said in Transgender debate, in sport, in general:
This post was about trans women at the time, but the same principle applies to males with DSD, they have an unfair advantage and so should either be competing in the men's/open category, or, they can pursue something else in life. Competing professionally is not a "right", it's something only very few people are able to do, if they are not good enough to compete in the correct category then honestly, tough shit, join the rest of us.
Agreed. A right to participate in sport is neither a right to compete at the highest level, nor is it a right to infringe on another's.
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Emma Hilton and Ross Tucker have summed up the situation nicely. Emma in particular has laid out the workflow that should be followed when deciding whether someone should be excluded from competing in the female category:
XY
AND
testes
AND
Testosterone production from testes
AND
Functional testosterone receptors
AND
Functional response to testosteroneEssentially as Tucker argues, a sex test should be the starting point for investigation, simple cheek swab identifies XY, it should be regarded as a screen. XX, automatically qualify for female category, XY requires further testing to establish the above from Hilton.
The last time female athletes were polled, over 80% supported sex screening, I bet that is higher now. So why the IOC keep repeating the line that ‘no one wants to go back to sex testing’ is beyond me. Women do.
The condition that Semenya had is v likely the same as these two boxers, internal testes with male testosterone production. People keep talking about Swyers, however that is apparently vanishingly rare and has never been observed in female athletes, where as the 5ARD is sought after in sport and therefore more likely.
I don’t like the fact this has become about the two individual boxers, this is a systemic failure on the part of the IOC for not acting on the test results when initially provided. The fact that they’re happy to rely on passports in a sport which is literally life threatening is disgusting. Men hit c162% harder than the same weight woman, this is a safety and governance issue. That said, once the results of those tests became known by the athletes and they chose not to appeal, they became complicit in dangerous cheating.
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So do you think this is all a power play between the IOC and the IBA?
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Of sorts, I think this is an ideological position from the IOC that the individual sports federations have gradually disagreed with as they’ve understood the risk / lack of fairness of males appearing in women’s categories in their sports over the years. Because the IOC control the boxing with no external federation running it they’ve imposed their own desire for inclusion over fairness / safety. I imagine the IBA are pissed off at the IOC for having been displaced, and have taken this as an opportunity to get their own back.
Ultimately I don’t care about the motivation of the IBA, this debacle can only be laid at the feet of an ideologically captured IOC
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@Dodge Emma Hilton is fantastic, I know she advised the RFU on this and they stopped biological males competing in women's rugby as a result due to the obvious safety concerns. The IOC and other sporting bodies would do well to do the same.
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This article is just such a great example of how bad the media are.
"Boxer Imane Khelif advances to gold medal bout at Paris Olympics with another victory amid gender misconceptions"
"Carini’s abandonment of the fight led to comments from the likes of former U.S. President Donald Trump, “Harry Potter” writer J.K. Rowling and others falsely claiming Khelif was a man or transgender."
And yet, not a single sentence in that article either confirming or denying that she has XY chromosomes. That isn't reporting, that's an ideologically captured "journalist" writing an opinion piece with zero evidence and presenting it as fact.
Just when I thought I couldn't despise these media outlets any more they sink to new lows.
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Transgender debate, in sport, in general
