Cont: Trans Women are not Women II: The Bath Of Khan

[Rolfe]

Women with Swyer syndrome, should they be athletic, should be on women's teams. Men with Swyer syndrome , should they be athletic, should be on men's teams.

The issue here is that people only want to compete if they have an unfair advantage. Men with syndromes readily want to compete in female sports because they will be champions but females with issues that cause them to have male traits don't want to compete against males because they will always lose. We are only talking about men who want to compete against women and, to put it bluntly, **** them.

Everyone with Swyer syndrome is a woman.

 

[Rolfe]

If I were committed to existence of separate pickleball leagues, I would point out the existence of SRY-negative androgen-sensitive XX males. I would also argue that currently competing atheletes should be grandfathered in with any rule change, since they trained and competed in good faith under the rules previously established by the ICP itself.

I'm sympathetic to "creative discrimination" in the service of sex-egalitarian participation (I wouldn't be watching the Women's World Cup without it), but athletic bodies are in the unenviable position of trying to come up with an operational definition of "male athlete" or "female athlete" that satisfies our intuitions after the fact, and I suspect that there just isn't one.

XX male syndrome^WP. About 10% of those with the condition are SRY-negative.

Yes, that one. Vanishingly rare, but some bloke will spot his chance if you don't put in a clause about it.

 

[Ziggurat]

Are they, though? I mean, on principle we should be able to do whatever we want, regardless of sex

While I'm a big fan of freedom, this framing has a tendency to inhibit giving people a role. And that's not always a good thing. There is value in having a role in society. Yes, some people have a hard time fitting into typical roles, and society should tolerate and accept those who don't. But for most people, having a role they fit into helps ground them, give them a sense of belonging and purpose. And if you just try to abolish roles completely to accommodate those who don't fit them, you do harm to those who benefit from them. And that can be a greater harm.

tl;dr: social roles are a sort of Chesterton's fence. The people knocking them down largely don't know what they're doing.

 

[Rolfe]

Perfect, thanks!

ETA: Probably I'd advise the pickleballers just let this one go.

Individuals who are 46,XX male, SRY-negative, and identify as women are exceedingly rare.

Not worth it. As soon as there's a loophole, some bloke will slide through. If you leave that one out, as soon as pickleball championships get really lucrative, these guys will be IDing as women before you can say "top prize money". Ban them too. (Or that's roughly what an intersex friend on twitter said to me when I suggested letting that one go!)

So are elite athletes. We should expect people with advantageous intersex conditions to be wildly over represented among high-ranking women (and they are).

Exactly. If it matters, and someone has a chance to game the system, they'll do it. Look at the coaches currently scouting for 46XY PAIS children who have been brought up as girls.

 

[mumblethrax]

PARTIAL androgen insensitivity.

...implies elevated testosterone levels (relative to the typical male) without giving us sufficient understanding about how testosterone is affecting her, rendering the testosterone limit dictated by the IAAF unjustly arbitrary.

Someone with CAIS would likely be excluded by the IAAF rule change, for the same reason, unless they were willing to take hormone blockers.

 

[Rolfe]

I mean, requiring athletes to qualify by publishing personal medical information seems awkward, but not overly so.

Who says they have to publish it? Just make it clear that everyone intending to compete in the restricted league must have no functional SRY gene, or if they have such a gene, they must also have CAIS. (And by the way 46XX non-SRY males can also take a hike.) Require all people who intend to compete at high level to be tested as juniors and that the pickleball governing authorities have access to the results. If it turns out that someone doesn't qualify for the restricted league after all, they just leave the sport or move to the open league, before they've gone beyond back-yard kickabout level.

Nothing needs to be publicised unless the athlete themselves decides to make a big song and dance about it.

 

[Rolfe]

...implies elevated testosterone levels (relative to the typical male) without giving us sufficient understanding about how testosterone is affecting her, rendering the testosterone limit dictated by the IAAF unjustly arbitrary.

Someone with CAIS would likely be excluded by the IAAF rule change, for the same reason, unless they were willing to take hormone blockers.

No, because of the PAIS condition affecting gonadal maturation, testosterone concentrations are typically depressed, not elevated, compared to normal males. Still enough to beat the pants off the girls though. (Actually, Erik Schinneger was winning well in the men's skiing events even after he was diagnosed, but that may be a sport-specific thing, parsimony of expertise and all that. That effect is quite marked in skiing and horse-riding, and horse-riding events aren't sex-segregated at all.)

And CAIS gets a free pass for any testosterone concentration it likes, because it doesn't make any difference.

 

[mumblethrax]

No, because of the PAIS condition affecting gonadal maturation, testosterone concentrations are typically depressed, not elevated, compared to normal males.

No, they're typically normal or elevated, due to hormone regulation.

And CAIS gets a free pass for any testosterone concentration it likes, because it doesn't make any difference.

Which is why the IAAF rule changes should be regarded as unjust--they don't, as far as I know, give such a free pass.

 

[Rolfe]

About this though - I can't speak on behalf of whoever you've been talking to or arguing with. But are you familiar with the concept of a continuum? There exist multiple occurrences in life/science/what have you where there are not clear-cut distinctions between traits. Speciation is sometimes one of these. Color is another - what constitutes green versus blue in some cases is a matter of arbitrary decision. (Greenish blue vs Bluish Green). Unless you have some official body declaring a precise cut-off point between wavelengths of light. And it gets a lot more complicated when we are talking about traits that are multivariate.

It's not that complicated. Gender is just a fancy word for personality. There are about 7.7 billion different genders and counting. It shouldn't matter a damn how yours happens to be. Live and let live.

Sex is as binary as it gets. Spermatozoa or ova. One or the other. If you want an overall definition, then functional SRY gene plus bioavailable androgens is male. (Those diagnosed as male 46XX SRY-negative are also male.) Everyone else is female.

Live as you wish, and allow everyone else to live as they wish and don't hassle them for it. But where there are single-sex spaces or categories, you go with the sex you really are.

 

[Rolfe]

No, they're typically normal or elevated, due to hormone regulation.

Which is why the IAAF rule changes should be regarded as unjust--they don't, as far as I know, give such a free pass.

I need to check again, but Semenya's testosterone concentration is lower than average for a male and I thought that was general among 46XY PAIS patients.

I'm open to correction, but I thought they did give CAIS a pass. If they don't, I agree it's unfair.

Actually, they are unjust in that they allow males who are 46XY with functioning SRY genes and bioavailable androgens to compete in women's events. It's all about coddling the feelings of a handful of people in an invidious position at the expense of fairness for >99% of the competitors.

 

[William Parcher]

IAAF claims Olympic champion Semenya is 'biologically male'

The governing body of track argued in court that Olympic champion Caster Semenya is "biologically male" and that is the reason she should reduce her natural testosterone to be allowed to compete in female competitions, according to documents released publicly for the first time on Tuesday and which provide new insight into a bitter legal battle.

The documents released by sport's highest court show that Semenya responded by telling the judges that being described as biologically male "hurts more than I can put in words." The 28-year-old South African runner said she was unable to express how insulted she felt at the IAAF "telling me that I am not a woman."

The IAAF's stance on Semenya and other female athletes affected by its new testosterone regulations — and Semenya's outrage at the biological male claim — was revealed in a 163-page decision published by the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport. It details parts of the courtroom exchanges that were held behind closed doors when Semenya challenged the IAAF over the highly contentious hormone rules in a five-day hearing in February. CAS had previously released only short excerpts of the final verdict when it was announced last month...

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/iaaf-claims-olympic-champion-semenya-is-biologically-male

 

[d4m10n]

So are elite athletes. We should expect people with advantageous intersex conditions to be wildly over represented among high-ranking women (and they are).

This is the part of the thread where I ask for at least one example of an 46,XX male, SRY-negative athlete playing elite women's sport.

 

[mumblethrax]

I need to check again, but Semenya's testosterone concentration is lower than average for a male and I thought that was general among 46XY PAIS patients.

I don't know what her testosterone levels are, for the same reason I don't know what Jennifer Lawrence looks like naked. But among people with PAIS, testosterone levels are similar or elevated compared to typical males. And even though I do regard the IAAF changes as a "No Caster Semenya" rule, it shouldn't be.

Actually, they are unjust in that they allow males who are 46XY with functioning SRY genes and bioavailable androgens to compete in women's events.

Can't comment on that without knowing how androgens are affecting her, which I don't.

It's all about coddling the feelings of a handful of people in an invidious position at the expense of fairness for >99% of the competitors.

I don't see that the 99% have a greater claim to fairness than the 1%. Semenya has worked in good faith under the rules as the IAAF wrote them--an immediate rule change which looks for all the world designed to exclude her and no one else currently competing is not something I would regard as coddling.

 

[mumblethrax]

This is the part of the thread where I ask for at least one example of an 46,XX male, SRY-negative athlete playing elite women's sport.

Not really possible, since that's normally private medical information and gender identification would normally exclude males. If the IAAF rule changes are permitted to stand, it might become obvious.

 

[Francesca R]

I don't know what her testosterone levels are

Can't we assume that her T-concentration is (naturally) some way above 5 nmol/l?

Can't comment on that without knowing how androgens are affecting her, which I don't.

I think she herself has said multiple times that the IAAF (hyperandrogenism) rule has forever tried to "hold her back" or "slow her down", and I believe in the CAS adjudication she is quoted as agreeing that her athletic performance is/was lower when she was medically suppressing testosterone.

She does however contend that it could have been other factors doing this, and also that the advantage of naturally elevated testosterone concentration is a lot smaller than the forced disadvantage of artificially suppressing it. She also points out that it is arbitrary/unfair that the rule only applies to eight events.

Semenya has worked in good faith under the rules as the IAAF wrote them--an immediate rule change which looks for all the world designed to exclude her and no one else currently competing is not something I would regard as coddling.

Agreed. However giving a pass to XY athletes with partial androgen response in the first place arguably was the coddling that should "never have been done".

Rolling it back is apt to look like targeted exclusion but it may also be the second wrong that (partly) rights the first. But this may be where ultimately she wins; too bad if the original rules were "wrong", you can not now dial them back because that is too discriminatory.

 

[Belz...]

While I'm a big fan of freedom, this framing has a tendency to inhibit giving people a role. And that's not always a good thing. There is value in having a role in society. Yes, some people have a hard time fitting into typical roles, and society should tolerate and accept those who don't. But for most people, having a role they fit into helps ground them, give them a sense of belonging and purpose. And if you just try to abolish roles completely to accommodate those who don't fit them, you do harm to those who benefit from them. And that can be a greater harm.

tl;dr: social roles are a sort of Chesterton's fence. The people knocking them down largely don't know what they're doing.

Well, I hope you read the rest of the post you quoted, because I think we largely agree.

Besides if you abolish roles, new ones will pop right back up.

 

[Rolfe]

Can't we assume that her T-concentration is (naturally) some way above 5 nmol/l?

It's somewhere between 5 and 10 nmol/l, I think we can infer. This is somewhat low for the normal male range, although I'm talking peaks in the diurnal variation here. (I actually did my BSc honours project on this in 1977, how time flies.)

Agreed. However giving a pass to XY athletes with partial androgen response in the first place arguably was the coddling that should "never have been done".

I agree. They badly mishandled the treatment of similar cases in the past with athletes left absolutely devastated. Erik Schinneger was one of the lucky ones who came through it relatively intact. At least one committed suicide. But instead of fixing the system so that girls-who-are-biologically-male are identified as juniors and counselled out of the sport before their whole lives are invested in it they decided just to let anyone who was raised as a girl compete. Absolute madness.

I don't see that the 99% have a greater claim to fairness than the 1%.

That's nonsense. If the events are for female athletes, then male-bodied athletes should be excluded, no matter how they identify or for how long.

I really feel for Caster Semenya, but hurt feelings are not a gotcha in this argument. What about all the girls who truly qualify for the events because, you know, actually female-bodied, who are absolutely devastated because they can never win against someone who shouldn't actually be there but for a bad decision taken 20 years ago?

 

[Shadowdweller]

I really feel for Caster Semenya, but hurt feelings are not a gotcha in this argument. What about all the girls who truly qualify for the events because, you know, actually female-bodied, who are absolutely devastated because they can never win against someone who shouldn't actually be there but for a bad decision taken 20 years ago?

Or who would need to engage in unhealthy practices such as steroid use or blood doping to compete.

 

[Cainkane1]

Trans women should not be allowed to compete with biological women. They are still men and they have a muscular advantage over legitimate women.

 

[Francesca R]

The documents released by sport's highest court show that Semenya responded by telling the judges that being described as biologically male "hurts more than I can put in words." The 28-year-old South African runner said she was unable to express how insulted she felt at the IAAF "telling me that I am not a woman."

Semenya's (financially-incentivised) handlers could have thought of that a decade ago instead of pushing her into championship mid-distance competition, submitting her to testing without telling her much of anything about it, and running her into a collision with just about the only authorities where clinical biology rules and personality can go whistle.

But I think perhaps they opted not to bother. If anyone has been guilty of the most extreme insensitivity to DSD and gender ID affected trauma it is probably them. Way to dismantle the sensibility of someone who otherwise seems to have had no external issue whatsoever impacting her ability to live socially and legally as female.

The CAS arbitration in full (except it isn't) is here PDF 163pages