Differences in Sex Development (aka "intersex")

p0lka said:
Well the answers should be logically consistent at the very least, otherwise what's the point.
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One's reasoning in either case needs to be internally logically consistent, to be sure, but since we're balancing different considerations there is no good reason to expect that we'd get the same answers. There are surely some women who would not mind seeing Khelif and Ting in the restrooms but who would mind seeing them in the ring, because people can generally be expected not to punch each other in the face in only one of those two social contexts.
 
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p0lka said:
Nice :) Seriously though, the same people that are arguing that penis and vagina dictates which private spaces you go to, are now gordian knotting themselves to an impressive degree.
I don't actually know how they feel about vagina owners in private spaces tbf, all the fuss has been about penis owners in private spaces.
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You seem under the mistaken impression that the boxers, if they are male, might nevertheless have a vagina. That is not the case.

I mean, I don't care about toilets, but the only gordian knotting and logical inconsistencies seem to be happening in your mind.

There's a lot of ignorance in this thread about what intersex conditions actually entail.
 
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Olmstead said:
You seem under the mistaken impression that the boxers, if they are male, might nevertheless have a vagina. That is not the case. I mean, I don't care about toilets, but the only gordian knotting and logical inconsistencies seem to be happening in your mind.

There's a lot of ignorance in this thread about what intersex conditions actually entail.
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I don't know how you got that idea, but no, exactly the opposite.

Other people in the thread seem to have that impression, but that's what I was questioning.

Olmstead said:
but the only gordian knotting and logical inconsistencies seem to be happening in your mind.
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Physician, heal thyself.
 
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p0lka said:
I don't know how you got that idea, but no, exactly the opposite.

Other people in the thread seem to have that impression, but that's what I was questioning.
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Because you say that there's a logical inconsistency, when there isn't. Male genitals = male = male sports = male spaces. Female genitals = female = female sports = female spaces. Perfectly consistent.

The only proviso is that ambiguous genitals which have been misattributed as female don't magically become female. They are still male, regardless of the mistake.
 
Internal testicles (rare but highly relevant in this thread) can convey the same sporting advantages as ordinary testicles which are much easier to observe.
 
Olmstead said:
Because you say that there's a logical inconsistency, when there isn't. Male genitals = male = male sports = male spaces. Female genitals = female = female sports = female spaces. Perfectly consistent.
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Cool, if that's your position it does indeed seem to be be perfectly consistent.

Olmstead said:
The only proviso is that ambiguous genitals which have been misattributed as female don't magically become female. They are still male, regardless of the mistake.
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Oh, there's the consistency gone.

offtopic:
they keep labelling sports as man woman instead of male female, I dont get it.
 
p0lka said:
Oh, there's the consistency gone.
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How is the consistency gone? The consistency is that it's all about biology, not feelings, and definitely not aesthetics. Male genitals that have not developed right and thus look like female genitals aren't actually female genitals. They are simply undeveloped male genitals.

People cannot possibly be this obtuse.
 
Ziggurat said:
Mostly male. There are a few rare cases where genetic defects can lead someone with XY chromosomes to be biologically female. People with non-functioning SRY genes, for example, can be biologically female with XY chromosomes. This is different than other disorders of sexual development where someone has XY chromosomes, is biologically male, but may appear female at birth. Genetic testing to determine this would need to identify not only the chromosomes present but the actual specific genes at play.
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This gray area brings up an interesting point, which has been nagging a bit in this thread. Samson and others confidently claim that certain characteristics unequivocally define one's sex, but of course, if you use those standards to define sex, then that's how it's done. I don't myself know what would be the very best way to deal with such rare cases, but it seems that any practicable standard is going to leave someone unsatisfied, and I'm not convinced that the IOC's way of doing it is wrong.
 
d4m10n said:
Jesse Singal does a good job of summing up the major issues here, including the extent to which culture war is muddling them:
https://open.substack.com/pub/jessesingal/p/if-your-brain-doesnt-hurt-sometimes
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Thanks for posting this - it reads well (though much behind a paywall) and I wish we could see an essay/article like this reaching a wider audience.

One irony in this case is that trans-activists who typically like to conflate DSDs with trans-identities have been quick to say these boxers are not trans and that being "assigned female at birth" is sufficient to say one is female.

On a (likely) related note, I had not realized that Caster Semenya had admitted that s/he has internal testes, though notably still claims to be a woman.
 
bruto said:
This gray area brings up an interesting point, which has been nagging a bit in this thread. Samson and others confidently claim that certain characteristics unequivocally define one's sex, but of course, if you use those standards to define sex, then that's how it's done. I don't myself know what would be the very best way to deal with such rare cases, but it seems that any practicable standard is going to leave someone unsatisfied, and I'm not convinced that the IOC's way of doing it is wrong.
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The IOC's current method is to use the sex/gender listed on your passport. But you can claim whatever sex/gender you want on US passports, and probably on some other country passports as well. Which means that they have embraced self-ID for sex/gender determination. An ordinary male could declare themselves female and the IOC would be OK with that for boxing.

With that understanding, would you agree that the IOC's way of doing it is wrong?
 
Olmstead said:
How is the consistency gone? The consistency is that it's all about biology, not feelings, and definitely not aesthetics. Male genitals that have not developed right and thus look like female genitals aren't actually female genitals. They are simply undeveloped male genitals.

People cannot possibly be this obtuse.
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Interesting, what do the ones that want to check genitals of people using toilets do with that info?

Oh what an intriguing knot it is.
 
p0lka said:
Interesting, what do the ones that want to check genitals of people using toilets do with that info?

Oh what an intriguing knot it is.
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Well, "genital checking" is an absolutely mad idea in any context. I don't think anyone in this thread is in favour of that, and if they are, I'm definitely dissociating myself from them.
 
Ziggurat said:
The IOC's current method is to use the sex/gender listed on your passport. But you can claim whatever sex/gender you want on US passports, and probably on some other country passports as well. Which means that they have embraced self-ID for sex/gender determination. An ordinary male could declare themselves female and the IOC would be OK with that for boxing.

With that understanding, would you agree that the IOC's way of doing it is wrong?
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I would agree it sounds wrong, or at least inadequate, but it remains unclear what would work better for all, considering your observation that some other criteria are not as definitive as they might appear.
 
bruto said:
I would agree it sounds wrong, or at least inadequate, but it remains unclear what would work better for all, considering your observation that some other criteria are not as definitive as they might appear.
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You seem to be conflating criteria with tests. The criteria can be really simple, even if the tests are not. No males in the female category is a really simple and definitive criteria.

If we agree to this criteria, the next question is how to test for that criteria, and that can get more complex. Looking at passports doesn't really tell you sex. Examining genitals can be misleading in the case of DSDs or transition surgery. Testing for Barr bodies (a simple way of differentiating between XX and XY) is pretty good for the vast majority but can be misleading in edge cases.

But genetic testing directly for the SRY gene is pretty damn definitive. It's more expensive and time consuming than just testing for XY genes (which makes it hard for something like a local softball league to implement), but it works really, really well. And the Olympics actually did that for a few years. They didn't abandon that because of problems with the test results. And they could, if they wanted to, bring that test back.

So why don't they? Because the criteria the IOC wants to use isn't biological sex. The IOC wants to allow males to compete in the female category. And as long as that's the case, it doesn't matter what test you want to use. You will still get males competing in the female category, and that will be unfair.
 
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