Slashdot Mirror
How To Prove Someone Is Female?
krou writes "Caster Semenya won the 800m at the World Athletics Championship in blistering style, leaving her competitors in the dust, but she has been thrown into the midst of a scandal amidst claims that she's not really a woman. According to the many press reports, she's believed to shave, is flat chested, has a very masculine physique, previously preferred playing physical games with boys, and shunned traditional female activities and clothing. Questions about her gender have dogged her entire career. Previously, acceptance that she is a women relied on simple inspection of female genitals. But now the IAAF claim that they want to conduct further tests to see if 'she may have a rare medical condition that gives her an unfair advantage.' An IAAF spokesmen noted that 'The [testing] process was started after Semenya made her startling breakthroughs — a 25-second improvement at 1500m and eight seconds at 800m, just some weeks ago.' I'm curious what the Slashdot community thinks: what can be considered proof of someone being male or female? Is it simply a case of having the right genitals, or are there other criteria that should be used? Is the IAAF right in claiming that someone should be prevented from competing because they have a rare medical or genetic advantage?"
And lastly, I'd like to believe that as a community that espouses scientific values and intelligent discourse, the answer should be obvious:...
Bad girlintrainig! You never, ever, EVER presume that just because someone is smart and intelligent they should agree with you -- or that, just because someone disagrees with you, they're either not smart or not intelligent.
I'd say it's far more scientific to brand gender and sex as immutable based on your genetics than to relegate it to subjective measurements And on that note...
Life is full of delicious ambiguity, and people assume that two polar opposites (male and female) have nothing in between. But life isn't like that. Life is a spectrum, and any place we draw the line is arbitrary -- not natural. Nature has its own laws, which are not the laws of men.,
A female is an organism that can produce an ova to create young during its lifespan. A male is an organism that can create sperm to fertilize said Ova during its lfiespan. This is not arbitrary -- this is the scientific definition from biology. Any organism that can do neither of those two during its lifespan is neuter, and any that can do both is hemaphroditic (sic). ANY OTHER DEFINITION is cultural, subjective, non-scientific crap.
And additionally, the obnoxious notion of "fairness" further complicates the issue.
When issues like these come up, I'm always reminded of Harrison Bergeron
Also I think you have to define it genetically otherwise people that have a sex change could compete as the sex they want to.
Ummm yeah! But it's not so rare. It's called being a GUY.
It's going to be unpopular here but I'll say it. That woman is the manliest looking 15 year old female on god's good earth. She walks like a man, talks like a man, has muscles like a man, and the general countenance of a man.
People here are treating her case as if she were clearly a female and so are giving her a lot of leeway to be whatever gender she wants. But they are going to be crying foul play if she turns up a man and she is going to be cast a villain for it.
What a difference gender makes, right folks?
Own up to the gender favoritism, kids. When we think someone is a woman, we make psychological concessions, and any big bad man who suspects she might be male is unfair.
None of the crusaders for her cause to be any gender she desires is thinking of her competitors or of the general concept of fairness.
If she has such spectacular genetics, let her compete with the men.
Just callin' it like I see it.
You know, from my point of view, all of these world-class athletes are genetic abnormalities. It's a little rich for them to point to the best of themselves and yell "SHE'S the freak!"
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Even criminals have rights.
If one wants to compete, they have to take a test. If they don't consent, they don't compete. This is not a violation of rights because there is no necessity or right to compete.
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Genetic variants? By many accounts, China outright fabricated passports for some of their prepubescent gymnasts in the last olympics. After an initial hand flapping, that got ignored. But some poor girl who (apparently through no fault of her own) has some natural advantage is being punished. That is simply crazy.
So she has a rare genetic makeup, doesn't every world class athlete have a rare genetic makeup? I consider myself ordinary male and I can't do most of the stuff even a female Olympic athlete can.
Athletes, the Track & Field ones, are already required to piss in a cup for drug testing. The results of which will eventually be published for a positive test. DNA testing is just an extrapolation of an existing process. From the IAAF's perspective participants have no right to hide their sexual identity. Don't like the rules? go form your own organization. Vince McMahon will tell you that's a dumb idea (re: XFL with no drug tests). You want to talk about privacy invasion, try looking at the list of drugs which aren't allowed in an athlete's system and see how many you may have in your medicine cabinet. The majority of cough medicines are verboten. The right question isn't so much about privacy as much as it is how a governing organization should go about sanctioning a fair competition.
Oh, that's right. I forgot there's only two options and no possibility of deviation from those options AT ALL.
Fucking moron.
Since in the vast majority of cases, it really is one of those two options - it seems like the logical first step, given that invasive testing is apparently already the norm for track and field anymore. If Caster's test shows XX or XY, either way the case is closed. Arguing that a remote possibility of a different genetic state exists means you can't first test for the heavily dominant typical state is, quite frankly, silly. That's like arguing that a doctor shouldn't do an influenza test on a patient with flu-like symptoms because there's a remote possibility it's Brucellosis.
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If your body, for whatever reason, allows you to outperform others without the interference of artificial performance-enhancing substances, congratulations. You win.
What this whole argument has thus far ignored is the fact that athletes need at least as much if not more mental strength and inherent talent than physical strength. What she has accomplished has at least as much to do with her mind as her body.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I have persistent thoughts of hoping I die because I feel very strongly that I need to be a woman. I shy away from mirrors in self-disgust. I have to avoid seeing women in general or I will start to get jealous of them. I hate my life.
Why would i choose this?
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
To answer the question of whether or not she should be allowed to compete as a female if she is not 100% female, one must first consider the question of whether women should be competing in a separate class at all.
Let's avoid the underlying moral and philosophical issues and just stick with the practical reason for setting things up so women compete separately: approximately 50% of the population is female, so it is a political necessity. You can argue all sorts of other reasons, but when it really comes down to it, that is the crux of it.
And if you really think about it, we don't actually have women competing against women in one group and men competing against men in another group. What we REALLY have is women competing against women in one group, and EVERYONE ELSE competing in another group. Men are not set up as a protected class, it is only women who are set up as a protected class. If a sufficiently gifted female runner wanted to compete against men, I very much suspect that she'd be allowed to do so.
Once you realize the reality that female sports are basically a protected class based on a political reality, the answer to the other question becomes pretty simple: anyone who is not 100% female is not part of the "protected class" and should therefore compete in the "everyone else" category.
Is it fair? Maybe not. But how is having women compete separately "fair" in the first place? It is just for political expediency, and personally I don't see anything wrong with it if it keeps 50% of the population happier and more fulfilled than they otherwise would be without causing any undue hardship on a significant part of the population.