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?"
To expand on what you said, if she's banned or pulled back because of her genetic condition, then you can probably expect your gold medal in the mail any day now. Treating people differently for their genetics has a very bad history so far, and sets a bad precedent for the future. Wake me up when the question is about whether someone genetically engineered to be better should compete in the same league as naturals. That's an interesting topic since genetic engineering could be construed as a performance enhancement.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Considering that there are plenty of creatures which can be hermaphrodites, and that there are rare genetic variations (YXYY, for example) where one is born with e.g. male characteristics while the sexual organs may be female, this is a difficult point. Where do you draw the line? I know of a few lesbians who, except for the chest, could easily pass for male: large arms and hands, low voice, etc.
The sexual differences are fairly pronounced for "normal" men and women, but there are plenty of in-betweens. Methinks the only thing they can do is make an extensive study of all the differences between men and women, and say that if more than an x number of variables lean towards the one or the other, the person in question must be considered as being of the opposite sex. Either that, or you have to create the Hermaphrodite Olympics. They'll probably still have to investigate each case separately either way.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
Assuming you're right (and I don't know either way), I imagine that such a rule would disappear quickly if these transgendered women started *winning* against the `real' women consistently. They would only allow something like that if it didn't actually make a difference. Once it made a difference, people would argue it was unfair and it would be thrown out.
I'd have to say the entire idea of athletic competition is a farce. We say genetics don't matter, but we've got demonstrated proof that certain clusters of genes lead to better physical performance -- and that almost without fail, the athletes in the top 0.01% of their sport have some or all of those genetic markers. Arguing over who is more 'real' than others is an argument that goes against nature; Questions about how 'real' they were would never come up if they weren't in a competition. If they weren't being reduced from human beings into objects for us to cheer, dissect, and comment about.
We're creating an arbitrary line in the sand -- telling people they can't take certain drugs, or that their hormone levels need to be a certain way, or that they need to be born in just such a fashion, or raised just so -- in order to pass for "real". Most of the debate on this forum is not intellectual discourse but a mere re-arrangement of our prejudices.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
From wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foekje_Dillema
"In 1950 Dillema was expelled for life by the Dutch National Athletics Federations. A gynaecologist concluded that Dillema was an intersex."
"In 2008, a controversial DNA-test on dead cells from her clothing found that she may have been a Genetic Mosaic, having both 46XX (female) and 46XY (male) chromosomes in approximately a 3 to 1 ratio. "
For fook sake...if someone is born with a vagina and they haven't taken drugs or gotten surgery to get there, they are a woman.
To try to weed someone out of the athletic process because God (or whatever you believe in) has given them "a little extra" is absurd.
Are we going to treat the Olympics like a dog show and start delving into genetics and "quality of their coat" and all the other BS nitpicks that people use to judge dogs in order to allow people to compete in sports? Absent an obvious attempt at cheating, I find this whole line of "testing" to be repulsive.
According to the venerable BBC report on the subject, it isn't as simple as all that. While the vast majority of us possess chromosomes in the traditional formations XX and XY, there exist some 25 OTHER possible arrangements, which, taking into account a variety of other factors, can lead to an even larger possible selection of physical effects and outcomes.
The vast majority of us aren't in rigorous physical competition, and so might never know if we are one of these "intersex" conditions. If she of TFA does, how do you interpret the results?
Not only is the genetics of sexuality complicated, scientists haven't even identified all the genes.
Even worse, they identified a lot of genes that turned out to wrong.
Remember USP9Y? That's the gene that's supposed to be responsible for loss of sperm production in deletions of the AZFa region -- the balls of the AZFa region, as it were.
The New England Journal of Medicine had a report last February of a man who had the whole USP9Y gene deleted, and still was able to produce sperm. In fact, his father had the same USP9Y deletion.
You can divide the genes that determine human sexuality into two groups. One group determines the form that genitals take. The other group determines all the other physical and psychological aspects of sexuality. Conceptually, it's easy to see how someone could develop with female genitals and everything else male. That doesn't mean that anyone has identified it as a syndrome, much less the genes and protein-level mechanisms.
I assume they'll give Caster Semenya a karyotyping, FISH, and test for every known gene involved with sexual development. Maybe they'll find an abnormality, and maybe they won't.
But that won't answer the question. Is somebody female because she has female genitals, XX karyotype, some arbitrary sex-determining genes, female hormones, female body type, or female reproductive ability? Gender is a social construct, not a lab test.
(BTW, I think the New Scientist had an article on this subject of sex tests for athletes a few years ago.)
Interesting post you wrote. I'm transgendered, and I, meaning I personally, didn't choose to be trans. Trans is something I am, not that I pay attention to those HBSers who call themselves brain-intersexed that annoy you IS people so much. I didn't choose to be trans, but how I respond to trans and act upon my trans...that is the choice.
I've been touched by IS too, and my genito-urinary system has given me trouble since I was young. Had a nice perineal urethrotomy in late spring to bypass all that. But I don't identify as IS, since, again, I know how IS folk feel about what they see as some transfolk trying to appropriate the IS identity and I had read about transgender stuff before I even knew I was IS. Doctors had never explained my problems to my parents and never ever used the word hypospadias. I was curious when my problems started getting worse a few years back and went back to the hospital and asked for my old records as a kid (when they tried to fix my recurring meatal stenosis and urethral strictures....twice)
I'd like to echo CronoCloud's sentiment, as another trans /.er: Being trans isn't something anyone chooses to be.
I totally understand and respect the more understandably medical situation that intersexed people are in and, for you, the issues that required a particular medical/biological solution. Likewise, if I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, kimvette, I apologize. All that said, I read, "It's not like we're cheating. We're dealt an unusual hand and society often punishes us for it because we do not conform to the norm." as implying A) trans people are cheating and B) trans people - and any who don't fit into nice, simple, gendered boxes - aren't also dealt an unusual hand, and punished accordingly for it by society.
(I'm realizing as I reread your post that it's entirely possibly you mean "It's not like we're cheating" in reference to the original issue of the athlete in question. If that's the case, scratch the above paragraph.)
I don't want to get into an Oppression Olympics, and I'm not for a second trying to deny the very real issues that all intersexed people, and you specifically, have faced. But I hope it's possible to express your experiences without feeling the need to justify them by calling into question the validity of trans experiences.
-Trillian
I too am a transgendered slashdotter,
And as I see it, being transgendered is not a choice, just like being born with any condition is not a choice, if someone has gender dysphoria, it's there, there is no choice about that. While technically choosing to transition IS a choice, to me it's kind of like the choice between fleeing a burning building or letting it engulf you in flames.
I don't really understand your need to use transgendered people as a way to validate yourself to slashdotters or society, as I too have been "dealt an unusual hand and society often punishes us for it because we do not conform to the norm." Surely you understand that gender dysphoria is not something anyone chooses?
As for sports, If I were even interested in competing, I would compete as a woman and I would not feel like I was cheating, I have been on HRT since before puberty so I don't understand how I would have an unfair advantage. Though I would rather see sports not segregated by sex at all, just let everyone compete together, OR have seperate leages based on bodysize/musclemass/whatever.