“Imane Khelif Wins First-Ever Gold Medal In Freestyle Domestic Violence”

Sad for you…no more gender confused “sports” for you to do god knows what to.

 

The IOC has its standard for establishing gender and that seems to be what is stated on the passport which reflects the birth certificate and anatomy at birth. Easy to do. Other more involved standards are chromosomal profile and hormone levels. You seem to want the chromosomal standard exclusively which is fine but determining that is a more intensive process and would involve a great deal more expense - assuming all 10,500 Olympic athletes had to be tested (to be fair). And of course assaying hormone levels would similarly increase costs above that of the BC . Your beef is with IOC and their reliance on the recorded gender at birth.

A credible argument could be made that a person with a vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes is a female.

https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/swyer-syndrome#
A rare genetic condition in which people who have an X chromosome and a Y chromosome (the usual pattern for males) look female. They have normal female reproductive organs, including a uterus, fallopian tubes, and vagina. However, the ovaries do not develop and are replaced by clumps of tissue where they would normally form. Swyer syndrome is usually not diagnosed until puberty, when menstrual periods do not begin as they should. Having Swyer syndrome increases the risk of certain types of germ cell tumors.

 

I sort of agree with some of the premise above, however, the XY chromosome pair in this case is typically indicative of a human who may have female parts, but also non-descending testicles which would cause an abnormal amount of testosterone in the body. Which is what makes it unfair in women's competition. It would be no different than a female boxer injecting exogenous testosterone during training and the lead up to the competition. Exogenous testosterone is a banned substance. Therefore, if Khelif has an elevated testosterone above that of a normal biological woman's range, Khelif should be disqualified.

Further, upon visual inspection, it's quite obvious Khelif possesses several male physical characteristics, which can likely be explained by the condition with which Khelif was born (ie non-descending testes, XY chromosome pair, etc). So while Khelif may have been identified at birth as a female, the elevated level of testosterone in Khelif's blood should disqualify Khelif from participation in the competition. The IBA tests for the chromosomal standard for this exact reason. It's not the first time and won't be the last. A rare condition, but Khelif should never have been allowed to compete in women's Olympic boxing. It's a travesty. Call Khelif a woman if you wish, but a woman who adds exogenous testosterone would have been disqualified without a question. It's an unfair competitive advantage, hence the IBA's decision to ban Khelif.

 

I applaud you for trying to explain this to people who are either (1) unwilling to admit your point is correct, (2) lack the intellectual capacity to understand your explanation or (3) are simply a mentally deranged troll.

 

Whatever happened to BELIEVE ALL WOMEN ?

Nowadays it’s okay to beat them up.

 

I had never heard of this condition, but it’s kind of amusing to see all the “gender is definitive and assigned at birth” folks suddenly become experts at genetics as well as experts at how sports should administer testing regimes for this sort of thing.

 

Yeah we have people throwing around words like "non-descending testicles" after they saw a clip from a boxing match

 

I think it’s quite different when someone injects themselves (I.e intentionally cheating).

If the condition is there, it may be an advantage, but it’s also not cheating. They are also going by their “gender assigned at birth”, so no weird sex change stuff going on.

Maybe an athlete with this condition or other hormone imbalances should be required to treat their hormone levels to bring it to some “normal” or maximum threshold? But then you are actually requiring them to get gender affirming care in order to meet a sports testing regime, and this requirement by its very nature could only be applied to females. Not sure sports bodies want to get into that when they can barely handle doping and trans athletes.

 

So, what now? Hormone tests for all athletes prior to approval for competition?

Or is that only if they "look a little off". If that's the case, how are you going to sell that to the courts? That's a pretty flimsy standard for requesting a blood test.

 

The devil is always in the details (see: Abortion). Which is why the MAGA fools run from details like scalded dogs. Always purely emotional and rhetorical. ALWAYS.

 

Here's the thing, if fair competition is just about hormone levels and not the conditions of your birth, what is the case against trans athletes competing? Especially ones that didnt go through male puberty.

 

If the standard for allowing women to compete in the Olympics comes down to those whose 'naturally occurring testosterone levels' are within the 'normal range' for women, then the Olympics is going to look VERY different in the future - for nearly every sport and every country, including the USA. Go ahead and set most of the Olympic and world records for women in stone too.

You might get a spectacle that's more appealing to you (sexually or experientially biased though it may be), but thousands of women, daughters, mothers, sisters... will fail that arbitrary measure of normal.

Not only does that not hold up in any scientific capacity, it's ridiculous on the surface as well.

 

When I was in Olympia and took the tour, they pointed out a bunch of altars and markers where athletes did all sorts of weird things to get an edge, whether it was animal sacrifice or the ancient form of doping. People would ingest dried bull testicles and stuff lol. I'm not sure the Olympics were ever "clean" and certainly for most of their existence ancient and modern, there wasn't anything like the testing regime that exists today.

 

I would argue it's NOT about hormone levels. For instance, I see a clear difference here vs. what Lia Thomas did, which was essentially a 16yo playing in the 12yo division. That was a poach play from day 1 and, hormones or no hormones, was patently unfair. And here is where I take my shot at the left, many of whom treat this as literal religion. The inability to recognize that and call it out for what it was just played into the MAGA fools hands. And yet, people who knew that was clearly wrong still reflexively supported Thomas.

 

I don't think its as clear cut as you make it out to be. Someone like Khelif who was born female but with naturally high testosterone levels is probably more advantaged in certain types of sport than someone assigned male at birth that has basically been doing hormone therapy to get their testosterone to a median female range is (whether they did puberty blockers or not). Whatever you do, someone is going to be bigger or stronger, faster whatever, and that will all be because certain facts of their birth. You see it in every sport, where someone with freakish size or ability dominates. Since there is little agreement over what even constitutes a natural advantage, its not going to be clear cut. If Castor Semenya is unfair despite being born female and has to lower hormone levels to compete, then there is going to be a gray area. Because however people want to argue, biology is diverse and complicated and we have basically only male/female sports.

 

I'm with you on the Lia Thomas perspective. I don't think she should be allowed to compete at the highest levels of her sport. Right to compete in a sport doesn't rise to a right to speech level and sport does in fact have, and require, parameters for entry. The discussion of what those parameters are can be complicated and messy. But it seems there are enough posters here that basically fall back on appearances as the decider on whether someone belongs and use presumed testosterone levels as that qualifier, in spite of the fact that millions of very real and actual women have, like men, very real and varying levels of hormones.

 

Dude, Thomas was an accomplished male swimmer on a full ride at Penn. Wikipedia page says he swam the 6th fastest time in the nation in one event (I think 1000M) as a male. Other top 15s in different events. This is someone who had been swimming since the age of 5, who knew the swimming culture and who was constantly aware of his/her times. So when she took those hormones, and the "levels tested good" she could see that she was slower than she was as a male. BUT, she also saw she was 2-3 seconds faster than any of the female competition. Keeping in mind, that "competition" was World Class female swimmers. There is nothing here that doesn't SCREAM poaching. Thomas knew from Day 1 exactly how this would turn out and thus, it's no surprise FINA took measures within days of her stealing those NCAA titles.

Again, the devil is in the details. Peel back the layers and the story looks a lot different than it's portrayed in the media. . . On both sides. I've gone back and forth with MAGA fools who get all upset if you mention that Thomas was a very good male swimmer. They want to see him/her as some kind of pu--y. However, the reality (he was a very good male swimmer) actually makes it worse. They're just too dumb and addicted to emotional rhetoric to connect those dots.

 

It’s not only her appearance, it’s the result of what happened in the competition too.
Maybe if your daughter got knocked the F out by someone like this…maybe you’d be slightly more emotional.