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posted by janrinok on Monday August 01 2016, @11:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the did-you-just-assume-my-gender? dept.

In The Guardian there is a discussion on the participation of transgender people in the Olympic Games, primarily looking at Caster Semenya. Semenya, a South African middle-distance runner, was subjected to gender testing in 2009, but has been cleared to participate in the Olympic Games beginning in a few days time.

"It's a ticking timebomb," Daniel Mothowagae says quietly on a winter's night in Johannesburg as he anticipates the furore that is likely to explode when Caster Semenya runs in the Olympic Games. Apart from being described by many athletics specialists as an almost certain winner of the women's 800m in Rio, Semenya will suffer again as she is made to personify the complex issues surrounding sex verification in sport."

"The debate around hyperandrogenism is as poignant as it is thorny. In simplistic summary it asks us to decide whose rights need to be protected most. Is it the small minority of women whose exceedingly high testosterone levels, which their bodies produce naturally, categorise them as intersex athletes? Should their human rights be ring-fenced so that, as is the case now following an overturned legal ruling, they are free to compete as women without being forced to take medication that suppresses their testosterone? Or should the overwhelming majority of female athletes be protected – so they are not disadvantaged unfairly against faster and stronger intersex competitors?"

""She is proof of the benefit of testosterone to intersex athletes," Tucker argues. "Having had the restriction removed she is now about six seconds faster than she had been the last two years.""

"The Cas panel defined the crucial factor as being whether intersex athletes would have sufficient advantages to outweigh any female characteristics and make them comparable to male-performance levels. "

"Three months ago Tucker conducted a fascinating interview with Joanna Harper – who describes herself as "a scientist first, an athlete second and a transgender person third." Harper made the startling claim that we might see "an all-intersex podium in the 800 in Rio and I wouldn't be surprised to see as many as five intersex women in the eight-person final.""


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:50AM

    by jdavidb (5690) on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:50AM (#382904) Homepage Journal

    In simplistic summary it asks us to decide whose rights need to be protected most.

    The rights I'd like to see protected most are:

    • The right to hold a sports competition using whatever rules the event holder wants
    • The right of people to decline to participate or view the competition if they don't like it
    • The right of people to not have their resources used to support the competition, so the competition will have to raise funds and venues, etc., only from those who are willing
    • The right of people to talk about, broadcast, or copy what they want without someone having a monopoly on particular ideas or data

    Within that framework I bet we could see an interesting creative variety of approaches to the subject of intersex athletes. Instead we'll get one size fits all.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:59AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:59AM (#382907) Journal

    The right of people to not have their resources used to support the competition, so the competition will have to raise funds and venues, etc., only from those who are willing

    You'll have your Olympics and pay for it too.

    The right of people to talk about, broadcast, or copy what they want without someone having a monopoly on particular ideas or data

    I'm sure someplace has a list of the Olympic trademark horror stories, but I can't be arsed to find it right now.

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    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:28AM (#383012)

      I'm sure someplace has a list of the Olympic trademark horror stories, but I can't be arsed to find it right now.

      ATFY (arsed that for you):
      https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=olympics [techdirt.com]

  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:25AM (#383009)

    No, what you'll see is something like Professional American Football or Baseball. Hardly anyone watches minor leagues and fewer watch equivalent women's sports. Women attract an audience doing volleyball, because ::boing boing boing:: Sex Sells. Sports are 100% testosterone fueled, even when the game they play is not.

    Protip: most WOMEN do not give a fuck about sports. Men are far more competitive physically, women are more competitive so psychologically. So, until we Gossip, Soul Destroying Remarks, or Crying to RomComs for Distance as Olympic sports don't expect women to give ENOUGH of a fuck about these games to make competing against men (or mannish people) profitable or desirable to anyone.