from the just-testosterone-for-now...-but-in-100-years...? dept.
What exactly makes a woman? Track and field's world governing body thinks the answer has to do with levels of serum testosterone, at least when it comes to female runners competing in middle-distance races.
The International Association of Athletics Federation announced a new set of rules Thursday that will ban women who naturally produce higher-than-normal levels of testosterone from participating in races ranging from 400 meters to the mile, unless they agree to take medication. Athletes with the condition, called hyperandrogenism, would be eligible to compete at the international level only if they reduced blood testosterone levels through the use of hormonal contraceptives, including birth control pills. The rule will go into effect on Nov. 1.
"Our evidence and data show that testosterone, either naturally produced or artificially inserted into the body, provides significant performance advantages in female athletes," said IAAF President Sebastian Coe in a statement. "The revised rules are not about cheating, no athlete with a [difference of sexual development] has cheated, they are about levelling the playing field to ensure fair and meaningful competition in the sport of athletics where success is determined by talent, dedication and hard work rather than other contributing factors," he added.
The new stipulations are stricter than those established by the IAAF in 2011, which limited women's testosterone levels to 10 nanomoles per liter of blood. The new requirements reduce the limit by half to 5 nanomoles per liter. That is still far above levels in most women, including elite female athletes, whose levels range from 0.12 to 1.79 nanomoles per liter, states a 22-page IAAF document [auto-download PDF] defending the organization's decision. Meanwhile, the normal male range after puberty is much higher, from 7.7 to 29.4 nanomoles.
Previously, the Court of Arbitration for Sport struck down the IAAF's hyperandrogenism regulations in response to a challenge by sprinter Dutee Chand.
Related: The Caster Semenya Debate
The Olympics, Science and Intersex
Related Stories
Ross Tucker over at The Science Of Sport has an in-depth and interesting piece on the debate over Olympic athlete Caster Semenya, a 400m and 800m runner, who has become a central figure in the issues of gender testing in women's sport, and the likelihood of continuing controversy at the Rio 2016 Olympics:
There is no more certain gold medal in the Rio Olympics than Semenya. She could trip and fall, anywhere in the first lap, lose 20m, and still win the race. There is also no more certain a controversy at the Rio Olympic Games than Caster Semenya. Her story began in 2009, with the sex-verification controversy of Berlin, and then it progressed over six years during which she was subject to a new rule that governed intersex athletes by limiting their testosterone levels.
CAS overturned that rule last year, when an Indian sprinter called Dutee Chand took her case to them. The result is that all intersex women no longer have a limit on testosterone. Semenya is certainly not the only one – rumours of other runners exist, though none were so shamefully "outed" as Semenya in 2009. However, she is proof of the benefit of testosterone to intersex athletes – having had the restriction removed, she is now about 6 seconds faster than she'd been over the last two years.
And the way that she is running those times suggests much more to come.
(The CAS referenced is the Court of Arbitration for Sports)
This article links to an earlier posting with more detail as well as some additional publications on the history and science of sex verification in athletics[PDF].
[Continues with an addition to the original submission with more background information...]
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.""
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 28 2018, @11:20AM (7 children)
That's a lot of hoops to jump through just to pander to less than one percent of the population. And it is pandering. The limitations weren't made to separate people by what they wanted to think of themselves as. They were made to give actual women a chance in hell at winning anything because they were unable to physically compete with actual men in most of the categories. Letting anyone compete as whatever they like completely undermines that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:12PM (5 children)
You're against having "a lot of hoops to jump through," so it sounds like you don't want blood tests. However, you're also against "letting anyone compete as whatever they like." You didn't propose a solution. How would you feel if they were to stop the testing and just check the birth certificates? Then users of exogenous androgens will go undetected and will have a significant, and unfair, advantage. Women with hyperandrogenism would continue to have an advantage over women with normal physiology—this decision, which you clearly disapprove of, attempts to lessen that advantage. A woman with hyperandrogenism will have an "F" on her birth certificate. Without blood tests, it's unclear how a woman with hyperandrogenism can be distinguished authoritatively from a typical woman. So when such a person wants to compete as a woman, on what basis shall she be excluded?
I think you're just virtue signalling that you have a problem with intersex people, am I right? It could be that competitive athletes are the "less than one percent of the population" you have in mind, but I doubt it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:47PM (4 children)
You noticed that, did you? The subject doesn't hold enough interest for me to bother with anything more than some passing snark.
Incorrect. I don't really care about them at all beyond what I care about any other arbitrary group of people. Now the white college chicks with blue hair and their beta male minions that stir up shit over irrelevancies like this? Those I have a problem with.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 28 2018, @01:41PM (3 children)
Allow me to propose a possible solution. Let's look at boxing. There are all kinds of weight classes. My stepdad was welter weight champion of the Pacific fleet when he was in the Navy. I couldn't imagine him as a welterweight, but he had the certificate to show for it. Weight separates the classes of boxers, right?
So, set up a few classes for women - and maybe men too - based on their hormone levels. At one end of the spectrum, you have the girly-girls, and at the other end of the spectrum, the manly-men. Test hormone levels to determine which class you compete in. Male or female doesn't really matter, it's the hormone levels that count.
If the child is born with a vagina and a uterus, it's pretty definitely a woman. She may not be especially girly-girl, but she's a woman. Check those hormones, and assign her class based on those hormones. Job done. Run fast, baby, and good luck!!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 28 2018, @01:49PM
That might work.
Alternatively, we could have gladiatorial blood sports where skilled women could possibly use speed and weapons to their advantage, and overcome bulkier opponents. And if they don't measure up, that will be reflected in the betting odds (usually bigger payout when a woman wins).
Add cryptocurrency and dark streaming and we'll have a new global pastime.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @03:54PM
We would also need sub categories for length of legs, since it would be unfair for a short person to compete against a tall one in a sprint... etc.
Agree with the intent (esp. using hormone levels instead of genitalia to classify competitors), but, if the goal is to level the playing field between groups of competitors, things could get messy really fast.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @11:21PM
It's not just hormonal though, it's skeletal also, especially when it comes to running.
Women have wider hips, this means that they have to expend more energy compensating for the extra torque from having the leg hip joint even further from the center of the body.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @07:27AM
Yea.. we should ask Captain caveman for the bestest and easiest way...
Captain Caveman: Me look, me hard! You woman!
- posted as AC to avoid SJW hipsters.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @11:26AM (1 child)
Someone said [soylentnews.org] "A person with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome could have XY testicles, [tons] of testosterone and yet be weaker than any woman competing in the Olympics."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:55PM
And yet that woman probably wouldn't be competing in the Olympics.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:24PM (10 children)
It's time to end sexism in sports. Don't have separate events for men and women, just have events.
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:26PM (2 children)
Then you can forget about women participating in the vast majority of disciplines, and about men participating in gymnastics.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:49PM
Yup. Be careful of what you ask for when using the words "fair" or "equal".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday April 30 2018, @10:42AM
Why will men have an issue in Gymnastics? The Male events are geared more towards strength exercises, the Female are geared more towards balance and performance. I understand women might have issues on the rings, but would men underperform on the balance beam?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday April 28 2018, @02:37PM (6 children)
There wouldn't be much of a competition then. Most of "the best" women would be put down by more or less random teenage males, I don't have any links to provide in English but the female national soccer team has been beaten by fairly mediocre teenage male teams on so many occasions that they stopped playing vs them. Comparing pro male athletes to pro female athletes wouldn't be much better. If whatever they are competing in requires on strength and stamina it would be a horribly one sided affair. If one went into specifics I'm not sure I would want to even see a heavy weight boxing fight between a man and a women, one would demolish the other. So you probably have to have the gender divide in a lot of sports otherwise it would just be male sports since there would be no point on women competing. There would probably be a sport or two that would be dominated by females to and there would be no point for men to bother -- things that benefit from having small and slender bodies.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:59PM (1 child)
I don't know about boxing, but you have to consider that the best soccer player in the world, Lionel Messi [wikipedia.org] is slender and not too tall (5'7") and you can watch [youtube.com] him drive a formidable Jerome Boateng into the ground.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:23PM
There are probably a lot of sports where being big, tall and strong might not matter as much. It might even be hindrance (compare say Soccer players to American Football players, the defensive line would never player pro-Soccer). Soccer might be an example, there are benefits to being tall but they might not be all that. Soccer is probably filled with short men, or below average height. Messi is one, Diego Maradona is another and the list can just go on. That said one can probably assume that even short for males if one took a comparable height female the males would still be physically better as in stronger, faster and have more endurance. It's not really sexism, it's just biological fact. There are probably sports where such things doesn't matter, or matters as much, but for most sports it will matter -- since that is really what it's almost all about, a physical contest. But there is still a wide difference between sports. But men for the most parts are just going to be superior by nature.
One could look at the extreme end of it all -- Olympic world records (1). When one compares the male to females, these are then both "the best" in the world of their gender, there is really no competition. When females finish men have already crossed the finish line quite some time before. The only place it looks like women are better or close to men it turns out that they are not really doing the same thing even if it's called the same thing. Shot put and Discus being such things, turns out the female shot and discus only weighs about half as much. Marathon running, when she crosses the line he has already been there for about 17 minutes.
It's not to put women down, I just don't think it would be a very good or interesting competition. Which might also explain why watching women sports on Telly (or live) doesn't draw as big a crowd or viewer numbers. It's after all watching the inferior athletes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_athletics [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday April 28 2018, @09:14PM (3 children)
Would you provide the links anyway? This sentence really stood out as informative.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday April 28 2018, @10:53PM (2 children)
It might have been a bit of an overstatement or hyperbole on my part, I don't really know if they have stopped playing vs them. But there have been no news articles about the attempts that are newer then three years old. Also they are not complete random male muppets but they are boys teams vs the female national team. They probably play them cause they can't find teams of equivalent level female players. But still with that in mind it is probably fair to infer that a game vs the national male team would not be overly pretty or great. The news might be somewhat skewed tho since they probably don't report on how they win vs boys teams since victory over children is probably not something to brag about.
This is from 2015, the female national team fielding the team they play with vs other nations get beaten 1-0 by a team of boys aged 16 belonging to the tier 2 male soccer club GAIS.
https://www.dn.se/sport/gais-pojklag-gav-landslaget-en-bra-match/ [www.dn.se]
https://www.svt.se/sport/fotboll/nyttig-match-mot-gais-p16/ [www.svt.se]
This is from 2013, female national team play lost 3-0 to a boys 17 team belonging to the tier 1 male soccer club AIK.
https://www.fotbollskanalen.se/dam/tv-damlandslaget-forlorade-mot-aiks-pojklag/ [fotbollskanalen.se]
http://8sidor.se/sport/2013/01/sveriges-fotbollsdamer-forlorade-mot-pojklag/ [8sidor.se]
A quick further search on the topic seem to indicate that this is a somewhat common training method for female teams all over the globe and the outcomes seem to be about the same. Australian, American (US) etc doing the same and the result being about the same.
2016 Australian national team loses 7-0 against boys team.
https://www.thedailystar.net/sports/australia-womens-natl-team-loses-u-16-boys-1230229 [thedailystar.net]
https://www.dailywire.com/news/6072/australias-national-womens-soccer-team-lose-7-0-amanda-prestigiacomo [dailywire.com]
This is just the few examples that some minor googling will provide. They apparently do this in preparation for international events. According to the female coach for the Swedish national team, that previously used to coach the US national team (Pia Sundhagen), they do this to work on techniques when playing vs superior teams and opponents. She acknowledges that they are the physically superior team but that there are good lessons involved with losing and playing vs a superior opponent. Sure one can say that it was training games or whatnot but they are fielding the same team they use to play vs other nations. Plus as noted these are teams of 16-17 year old boys. So while I said mediocre they are not complete muppets or anything but they are not professionals or men either.
It wouldn't really surprise me if you can find this in other sports as well. You could probably even find it in boys vs men plays to where boys just bring peak physical condition to the table while the older men play on technique and it eventually might grind the "older" men down.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:25AM
Same thing with Esmee Visser, the current Olympic champion on the 5km speed skating event. She was still training with the regional male juniors in the season she participated in the 2018 Winter Olympics.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:42AM
Same for tennis too. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/sports/tennis/28serena.html [nytimes.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/allenstjohn/2015/08/31/john-mcenroe-cant-beat-serena-williams-but-some-journeyman-pro-at-the-u-s-open-could/#5f75d832650a [forbes.com]
FWIW women seem pretty good at ten pin bowling.
As for women with high testosterone, if too many women think it's so unfair then perhaps they should have a separate league for high testosterone women as suggested by someone else here. BUT if you look at the different body types of World/Olympics class people, we are selecting for "freaks" anyway - different height etc, so why not different testosterone? See: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/19/howard-schatz-photos-women-professional-athletes_n_4297902.html [huffingtonpost.com]
https://www.boredpanda.com/athlete-body-types-comparison-howard-schatz/ [boredpanda.com]
https://ninamatsumoto.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/athletes16.jpg [wordpress.com]
By the way, a relative of mine proposed that there be a different league for shorter players for basketball. Doubt that'll ever happen though.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:28PM (6 children)
I can already see the next issue arising. Some athlete is going to claim to be transgender (male to female), take drugs to (temporarily) suppress their testosterone, and compete in women's competitions. Because of the male bodily development, which includes greater lung capacity, they will have an unfair advantage.
For this reason, I think the restrictions should include requiring "women" to be genetically "XX", plus the testosterone restriction. If necessary to make people happy, they could then rename the "men's" category to the "open" category.
Alternatively, they could put similar requirements on the men's category (genetically "XY", typical male hormone levels), and create a third category for the generic edge cases.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @12:57PM (3 children)
If only the Olympics could do drug testing ...
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday April 28 2018, @01:22PM (2 children)
Drug testing doesn't help. Consider: a male grows up, his body develops as a male, he trains to be (say) a runner. Then, at the age of 18 or 20, he claims to be transgender, starts taking drugs to suppress his testosterone, and for the next 3, 4, 5 years competes in women's events. How does drug testing help? (S)he is doing exactly what the committee demanded, shows the proper levels of testosterone. But (s)he still benefited from a body developed under the influence of testosterone, and this is still an unfair advantage.
Actually, the very same thing applies to genetic females with excessive testosterone. Look at Caster Semenya [duckduckgo.com]. She may be "XX" genetically, but she has developed a male physique under the influence of her unnaturally high testosterone levels. She should not be allowed to compete in women's competitions, not even with testosterone suppression. I'm sorry if it hurts her feelings, but it is simply unfair to everyone else in those competitions.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:59PM
Should end the God gave me a gift speeches so many athletes use.
Sure will make balancing the special Olympics much harder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @01:19AM
So we should go with an "every snowflake deserves a prize" approach? Somebody who has superior potential through a lucky dice-roll of genetics should be disqualified but somebody with a more normal dice-roll tries really hard, so the latter deserves to be recognized and the former shunned?
Competitions that focus on physical capability are carried out to identify extremes: the strongest, the fastest, the most flexible, etc., not the-ones-who-tried-hard-so-really-deserve-acknowledgement. If anything, it's surprising that we don't see more genetic mutants coming out on top.
If people are serious about wanting to remove competitors who are genetically gifted from consideration, they need to re-evaluate how things are defined. Someone needs to set up definitions of normal, super-normal and sub-normal (it's only fair, after all; everybody is special in their own way) and apply it to all contenders, not just lump them based on whether they have a willy or not. More likely a more refined scale should be defined. Measure a potential competitor's characteristics against the scale and let them compete in that class, regardless of sex, height, weight, eye color, hair color, testosterone levels, etc. Look at the weight classes in formalized pummeling (boxing), for example. If you meet characteristics x, y and z, you compete against others who meet the same characteristics.
But that's not what people want to see. They want to see the extremes: the fastest, the strongest, etc. They want to find the genetic mutants, because that's so cool, they just don't want to acknowledge that. Instead, when confronted with the facts, they claim that they're only interested in the extreme normals because then there's a chance that, if they were to train hard, they could do that, too. They know they won't, but gosh darn it, if they really wanted, that could be them in the limelight.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Saturday April 28 2018, @01:49PM
.
Shhhh, they'll hear you and start doing this... :-p
.
It has started happening in competitions already (weightlifting, wrestling and others) where barely competitive former male athletes are crushing female elite athletes and breaking records.
.
They don't have to suppress the testosterone afaik, they let if fade normally and just benefit from the physical advantages gained by having it their entire lives as their physique developed. The only way to compete for women soon enough will be to take testosterone their entire lives.
.
If someone wants to twiddle with their genetic gender with surgery and hormone therapy, it is THEIR body and choice, but it should automatically put them in the hardest (typically 'mens' ) category permanently in sports.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday April 30 2018, @07:32AM
The transgender bit already happened in the recent commonwealth games in Australia and he-she was allowed to compete though didn't get very far.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/commonwealth-games/102956209/nz-transgender-weightlifter-laurel-hubbard-injured-out-of-games [stuff.co.nz]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @01:05PM
https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/273153-overview [medscape.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @02:37PM (1 child)
Low T test was positive. Am I at risk of being female?
Which bathroom do I use?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @02:47PM
Depends. [depend.com]
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday April 28 2018, @04:10PM
Tennis will never be the same.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:15PM (3 children)
...to ban anybody with a genetic predisposition for better lung capacity, muscle density, metabolic rate, hand-eye coordination, pain endurance etc. that might give them an unfair advantage in sports? Only people who test as authentically mediocre should be allowed to compete.
Then, as for all those sneaky bastards who give themselves an unfair advantage by staying in shape and training hard...
Of course, if a sportsperson is lucky enough to land substantial funding so they don't need to fit their training around the day job, and can afford the best coaches, sports medics, the latest equipment etc. then that's perfectly fair.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:20PM (2 children)
You say "genetic predisposition". Just wait until athletes begin using gene therapy. They might be doing so already since they tend to be bleeding-edge early adopters of new "doping" techniques.
Gene therapy might be able to influence things like muscle growth but probably won't result in adult athletes growing taller, etc. That's where designer babies come in (and possibly gene therapy interventions during early childhood). Rich parent(s) will have the resources to produce offspring who are genetically designed to be fit and attractive (both of which result in more lifetime success regardless of occupation, or can help athletes to get on that box of Wheaties), as well as the resources to fund a full-time sports/Olympics career.
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(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:26PM (1 child)
It might be a separate event, a competition where such things would be allowed. The Roid-Lympics. Where the one that dares to juice the most wins? Could be interesting in a freakshow kind of way.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:57PM
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=20891&page=1&cid=548996#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
It might go that way. Anti-aging could eventually allow people to compete with today's young athletes even at 100+ years old.
The problem is that the Roid-Lympics will have to become the ONLY Olympics. It would be "immoral" to deny significant anti-aging developments and gene therapies to a group of "natural" athletes. Preventative anti-aging damage repair and other treatments could optimize human muscle mass and even brain function. If we had a cure for the effects of traumatic brain injury, would we deny it to American football players? I doubt it.
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