The claim is not that she was initially considered to be a man by the Algerian government and then changed her public identity to that of a woman, but rather that she has some sort of intersex condition that elevates her testosterone levels into the masculine range.
All Olympians are genetic outliers. Do you really want to be the DNA police? Then every Michael Phelps medal should be returned because that man is naturally different from the rest of us. But he's a man so we're not talking about him.
Seriously. Phelps is pretty much genetically ideal for a swimmer, but nobody claimed it was "UnfAiR!!" when he swept the board multiple olympics in a row, garnering more gold medals than anyone in history, before or since.
One female boxer looks a bit "too" muscular and the bigots are up in arms. Fucking assholes.
And Khelif lost plenty of bouts in her career, but somehow, those aren’t relevant because, “I know a man when I see one.”
I actually encountered someone a couple of days ago herr on Lemmy that said it was unfair of Phelps to compete because he was too genetically superior. It was bizarre. Course it was on a thread about Phelps criticizing Chinese athletes who were doping so I imagine it was just a tankie trying his best.
And yet Katie Ledecky beats Michael Phelps on long distance swims.
And Simone Biles is arguably the greatest athlete of all time.
She's obviously the greatest American gymnast of all time. I don't know if you can go much further than that. Larisa Latynina makes it rather hard to win the argument for greatest gymnast of all time let alone greatest Olympic athlete.
Agree to disagree
So not all that arguable after all I guess.
I mean, there's about 15 different news articles all explaining why Biles is the greatest athlete. There's absolutely none for the person you listed, who has more Olympic medals but not a harder routine or more worldwide medals. It didn't really seem like you were being serious with your argument tbh.
Biles leapt 12ft in the air. She is 4'8". She has 5 different gymnastics maneuvers named after her.
Eta: ig it was you who didn't want an argument. You lost quick..I was right, it wasn't a serious argument. You just wanted to be racist or smth
And yet Katie Ledecky beats Michael Phelps on long distance swims.
She doesn't. Phelps when he was 15 made a time 9 seconds slower than the record established during these Olympic games (although in 25m pool) by Ledecky in the 1500m. He, still at 15, swam 5 seconds faster than the 800m time Katie Ledecky just did in this Olympics (although in 25m pool), only 2 seconds slower than the record she established in 2016. See this.
Despite Phelps being a completely different athlete, not training for it, it's quite reasonable to assume that once he was not a teenager anymore he could easily beat Katie (especially since long distance swimming requires maturity and experience to dose energy etc.). I think this reinforces the obvious fact that men do have advantages, and I really don't see the point of trying to deny it.
If you want even more info, look at juniors (under 18) records:
for 1500m a 16 years old swam more than 30seconds faster than Ledecky's record.
for 800m another 16 years old swam more than 20seconds faster than Ledecky's record.
You would be surprised to see that Ledecky swam faster than Phelps in some events (personal best comparison):
What do you mean source? I have literally posted you a page with the times and compared to the world records she established.
The only example your article shows where she swims faster is the table at the bottom. If you look closer, you will see that for the 800 and 1500 freestyle, the times are exactly the ones in the link I shared. These times compare the world records she did, with a time Phelps did when he was 15 in 2001! The only difference with what I shared is that they took the short course time for the 800, while I used as a reference the long course.
The other which is lower is the 400m freestyle. I didn't quote this, but this is from the same competition in 2001, still when Phelps was 15!
None of these competitions are what Phelps actually swam in his professional career, and how does it make sense to compare times in your peak athletic age (usually mid-20s) vs one-time races from when Phelps was in Junior category?
If you open the link I shared, you will see that he literally has 1 entry for 1500m, 800m and 400m, all from FINA Swimming World Cup 2000-2001, which is probably before he even specialized. Everything above 400m in swimming is considered long distance, and he is a sprinter instead.
The article you cite is making a point, which is the relative superiority of Katie Ledecky compared to peers, which is fair. When it then talks about swimming speed it turns into complete garbage, because it takes garbage data.
I have genuinely no idea what are you trying to prove, I have showed you with numbers that Katie Ledecky's records are tens of seconds behind even what Juniors do in men's category, once you take athletes that practice the same discipline (long distance swimmers).
I hope this is enough source for you...
So your source and my source both agree that Katie Ledecky beats him on 800m and 1500m?
Are you in bad faith?
Would you compare the performance of any swimmer in the Olympics with that of a teenager who didn't even finish to develop his body, let alone developer experience and was not specialized in the same type of competition?
Are you really trying to base your argument on a pure rethoric base with such a shitty comparison? I am sure that when I was 20 I was beating Bolt, when he was 5 years old. This conclusively prove I run faster than Bolt.
There are plenty of sports where being a teenager gives you an advantage over adults. A teen isn't a 5 year old. Per data, I'm correct.
Swimming is not one of them for fucking sake.
Are you done dancing around rethoric arguments to avoid saying that you were wrong?
Comparing the performance of a non specialized teenager swimmer with that of a specialized adult woman in peak adult performance is a shitty comparison.
This is a fact that can be easily confirmed if you do 10 seconds of research and you check swimming records by age category.
It's fine, you used as source an article that made this claim based on shitty data, you have been shown that the data was shitty. The mature thing to do is to say "OK, that was a false claim".
Running gives taller people an advantage, yet ShaCarri is only like 5'1" and wins. Also, there are plenty of people taller than Michael Phelps who can't bear him af swimming. There are many people who have bigger feet who can't beat him. Is height as critical as testosterone in this case?
This is honestly an argument that I find very weak. I mean absolutely there are plenty of genetic advantages in general in sport. The problem is that not all sports have categories to isolate competitions for certain parameters. Swimming does not, so you could argue that is unfair by default, but that's what it is right now. Fighting sports generally do have categories, both gender and weight.
If we leave alone gender, if someone had some condition (let's imagine something that doesn't exist) that would result in having muscle mass common for a 80Kg, but in a 70Kg body, that person would probably have an unfair advantage in the 70Kg category because weight is a proxy for muscle mass as well.
The only reasonable argument here is that the boxer, even if she has some genetic condition, still tested within the limits for female boxers. That is pretty much it, which means that whatever condition she has (if any), it's not considered an advantage in the female category according to current standards.
Was it him or Lance Armstrong that ended up getting caught doping? Pretty sure it was the latter, but also recall Phelps getting accused of something. If could've even been something irrelevant like marijuana.
Agree with your point, though.
It was pot for Phelps
And poor Sha'Carri
Lance Was the one that got accu of doping. He never got caught. Just didn't contest charges by the anti doping agency after he retired anyway.
But also, everyone seems to do it in cycling.
I'm pretty sure he was caught. Like proven. It's just they caught like virtually every other cyclist in that same race.
What's interesting is Katie Ledecky can beat him on long distance swims, if we go by their times. So how much of an advantage is gender in many sports at this level? And let's look at disability - Usain Bolt had/has scoliosis, Ledecky has POTS, and many other athletes have "disabling" conditions. So why would intersex get a special category that isn't allowed? It's just transphobia.
Looking at the other comments, you are clearly not here to discuss, but I will make a good faith attempt and play devil's advocate.
The difference between intersex and other conditions you mentioned is that it blurs the lines of a specific set of parameters that are specifically used to create categories between sports. Men and women are not fighting each other for more than anagraphic reasons (I hope we can all agree on this), and if a condition invalidates that distinction (I.e. gives some advantages that men have over a women), then it breaks the boundary of such categories in a similar way as it would be having someone from a heavier category fight in a lighter one (BTW, this is routinely done by having athletes go in terrible dehydration regimes).
Now this has nothing to do with this specific case, as there is no any objective proof for any of this, nor that she is intersex nor that she does have any advantage, but it's purely a way to frame the answer to the question "what's the difference between having scoliosis and being intersex".
Edit:
I will add one more thing, comparing a sprinter to a long-distance swimmer is exactly like comparing someone who runs 100m with those who run marathons. Clearly there is an advantage, considering that Katie Ledecky is an absolute monster, but she would have beaten the 3 worse times only that men did in this Olympics, and that she would have been almost a minute behind the winner, meaning almost 2 full lengths. Of course men have an advantage...also if you took the time from https://www.worldaquatics.com/athletes/1001621/michael-phelps, you probably have seen that he was 15 at the time...
The thing is, other hormones can give advantages too. That people put so much stock into testosterone alone is bad science. That intersex conditions that involve testosterone are so hated is transphobia. Women should be in their neat little boxes and men in theirs and any anatomy that changes that is taboo and should be banned. Like where should an intersex fighter compete? If this woman was intersex and had LOCAH or PCOS or other conditions, should she not be allowed in any division of Olympics?
Why don't we have testosterone classes instead of (or in addition to) weight classes, if it matters so much? All athletes with the same level of testosterone can compete, just like athletes that weigh the same compete against each other. Why dont we organize it that way instead? Isn't that more exact and fair?
I didn't mention testosterone at all. I am not a specialist and I mostly don't care about the details. I specifically talked in functional terms: if whatever condition gives you some advantages that men have, then it breaks the categories that are established. In this way, that condition would be different from -say- having huge feet like Phelps, even if they give you an advantage, because there are no categories based on foot size in swimming.
Everything else is an interesting hypothetical discussion, and maybe one day categories will be based on more parameters. Fact is, today they are like this, rough and using proxies such as gender and weight to make fights that are more-or-less fair.
Well, everyone else here is specifically talking about testosterone. That's the "problematic" chemical. It's relevant because it's a normal endogenous chemical we make and some women naturally make more. It can help with more muscle mass and bone density. That it's testosterone is entirely relevant.
That's like speaking on Gaza and saying "it doesn't matter where it is." Like yes it absolutely matters. The context and specifics matter when discussing complicated topics.
All athletes that beat other athletes have a presumed physical advantage. A physical advantage isn't an issue. It's testosterone that's the issue according to the people bitching about it.
A physical advantage isn’t an issue. It’s testosterone that’s the issue according to the people bitching about it.
No, it's a physical advantages that derive from a condition that renders certain parameters (whatever they are) similar to stronger categories (in this case, men).
If it's just testosterone or a combination of hormones and other things it doesn't matter in the perspective of the discussion I was trying to have (which answered your question, by the way)...
So why would intersex get a special category that isn’t allowed?
But that's literally every condition. Thats everything a top physical athlete has - their entire physique is a physical advantage over others. How is it different than say, Michael Phelps producing less lactic acid which allows him to have greater endurance? Why is lactic acid okay to be different with, but not testosterone? Both are genetic abnormalities that confer an advantage.
The reason is that they can't be transphobic about lactic acid.
So why men and women should compete separately?
If you think they don't, then fine.
If you think the do, then the reason pretty much is "because men have physical advantages and make the competition unfair or even impossible for women". What gives this advantage is the kind of stuff that I am talking about.
Is lactic acid production a property that is advantageous to men (I don't think it is, just making an example)? Then if you have the lactic acid production of men, you effectively have some of the advantages that men have over women, hence competing against women creates question. This is not binary, it's a scale, and at some point there is a limit that is fixed in the rules.
I will answer your question once again: because there are categories based on gender, there are not based on lactic acid production.
Testosterone is one of the advantages that men have over women, and in fact there is a limit.
You specifically ignored my argument, which can be summed up like this: categories for sport are fairly arbitrary, but it's what is currently used. If you have properties of a stronger category, it is unfair for those of the category you compete in. Yes, there are other N genetic advantages within that category, but since they are not parameters that are used to slice competition, they are not addressed. I didn't make the rules and frankly I don't care. If in the future we are going to have height and feet size categories for swimming, with lactic acid production, and tens more, I honestly would have no problem. Today genders are used in most of the sports because it's a simple and effective proxy to a bunch of advantages.
There are sports that are designed in a way that give estrogen dominant people advantages. Testosterone isn't an advantage for every sport, and Testosterone in isolation isn't an "advantage men have over women," because it comes with a cost including lower lifespan. Cool that you think that way?
The way many sports are designed gives testosterone dominant people an advantage. That's patriarchy for ya.
Height isn't that important for swimming or even running - ShaCarri is like 5'1".
Lactic acid is not related to gender, that's my point. But you clearly believe in gender determinism and think sex chromosomes make up a huge part of genetic makeup when it is quite tiny. Women and men have more in common than we have different.
My criticism is that categories based on gender are unscientific. Which you agree with but say you can't be bothered with the details so its good enough. Well, some of us are smart enough to actually analyze this and know enough about medicine to criticize the heuristic of Testosterone as a metric for athletic competitions when there's more involved than just T.
Testosterone isn’t an advantage for every sport,
Is it for boxing?
because it comes with a cost including lower lifespan
How is this relevant when you look at advantages in a single competition? This is not a "is it good in life"-situation.
Height isn’t that important for swimming or even running
hence it doesn't have a separate category? BTW, swimmers are taller than average, because being tall is generally ad advantage. It's one of many factors, but it's there.
The way many sports are designed gives testosterone dominant people an advantage. That’s patriarchy for ya.
This seems...unlikely. I would say that combat sports have not been "designed" with this in mind, and many other sports are done in the only way they could: swim as fast as you can, run as fast as you can, jump as high/far/etc. as you can.
Lactic acid is not related to gender, that’s my point.
Then you should understand my answer: it doesn't break the boundary of established categories.
But you clearly believe in gender determinism and think sex chromosomes make up a huge part of genetic makeup when it is quite tiny.
Are you a medium? Do you read my mind on arbitrary topics? Can you give me 6 numbers for next lottery?
Jokes aside, I didn't talk about chromosomes, I didn't talk about testosterone (only once you brought it up), I specifically referred to functional difference, whatever the origin, and also mentioned that the reality is not so easy (not binary).
My criticism is that categories based on gender are unscientific.
Perfect, this is a completely separate discussion, one I might agree with even. I wouldn't know how to make it better, it's not my area of expertise. What I know is that in many sports women holding record would barely qualify if they were to compete against males, and I think that would not be fun nor fair for anybody. I also think that in combat sports that would be potentially dangerous. Happy to see alternatives in the future.
My argument is that if testosterone is considered an advantage in a sport, then athletes shouldn't be banned for their anatomy, but instead the sport should adapt and sort athletes by T levels if it truly matters. Men shouldn't be getting hurt by other men with higher testosterone, either. And we should be MORE inclusive of athletes who don't fit the gender binary by getting rid of these men's/women's categories that aren't really helpful or accurate anyway.
If a sport included both men and women at the higher level, then they will compete at lower levels. It's not like we'd be asking women to box men for the very first time in an Olympic setting, if we organized the groups by testosterone and some women and men ended up competing.
Some sports including fighting sports can have rule changes or be redesigned to give women advantages. If we look at those warrior challenges, many of that has to do with center of gravity. If women can get their hips over stuff, they are good, but for men it's often their shoulders. If women run the course a little differently, they can often do really well. That's not because they are "worse" athletes, they are just athletes different than men.
I've already provided multiple examples where the physical advantages, resulting from a neurochemical anomaly, exist and no one had an issue. Why is testosterone special? And if testosterone ISN'T special, then why aren't they testing for other enodgenous neurochemicals like lactic acid and banning based on that? Why doesn't this group of lactic acid anomalies get kicked out and refused placement?
Again, it's transphobia.
You are arguing a point I specifically didn't make. So I don't know what to answer you, since none of it has to do with my actual opinion.
Your argument is that intersex conditions blur boundaries for sex in sports. My argument is that these categories are arbitrary and I'm explaining why.
You: the color orange messes with the boundaries we have in place for red and yellow! It can't be involved!
Me: the boundary for yellow and red is arbitrary and visible light exists on a continuum anyway!
Me: the boundary for yellow and red is arbitrary and visible light exists on a continuum anyway!
Actually me:
This is not binary, it’s a scale, and at some point there is a limit that is fixed in the rules.
I fully recognize that this is arbitrary, I fully recognize that any "limit" is somewhat arbitrary. The only difference is that I acknowledge that sex is a "good enough" proxy for now.
I still don't understand how would you avoid that women will never see a medal again in any combat sport, athletics, swimming, tennis and many other sports if you stop using sex as a category. What categories would you use, and are they pragmatic enough that they can be implemented easily?
You see how when you demand orange not exist, and that's apparently "good enough" for you, that it doesn't represent reality? Instead of demanding these boundaries, if testosterone matters, then organize people into classes by testosterone. This allows women with higher T to compete as well as men with lower T. For many categories, testosterone will be unnecessary to test anyway.
"Women will never see a medal again," hmm don't be so confident about that.
She is a woman who was born a woman and happens to have high testosterone for a woman, just like some people are taller than others. She just happens to be at one end of the testosterone spectrum.
Just because you want baseless rumors to be true doesn't make them true.
Hold on, her testosterone levels are known? I haven't come across them. What are they?
"Higher than average." Hence the upper body muscles being larger that average for a female boxer.
It isn't rocket surgery.
wrong. the IBA said they never did any testosterone tests. feel free to disprove me, but to my knowledge there is 0 evidence even hinting at her having high T
Where did I say anyone tested her?
Oh, they must just have gotten her "hIgEr ThAn AvErAgE" testosterone results from the Olympic village psychic. I must have been silly to assume that saying it's higher than average meant someone tested rather than you just pulling bullshit out of your ass.
You say it like it is a bad thing to acknowledge that people have differences in their biology.
So they're not known.
Why would they ever make that known to the public. Would be a huge invasion of the competitors privacy. Kinda weird.
Its part of wada rules to which the ioc is compliant? Drug test results for these organization are often published, at least they are for my powerlifting org
I haven't seen any evidence that you aren't a Russian bot.
Нет, Я сам Путин.
There seems to be little credible hard evidence on either side, so anyone claiming to know the real truth here is just talking out of their ass.
That's the point I was originally trying to make. This article is written as if the question has been conclusively answered, but it hasn't been.
You're making it sound like whether she's trans is a valid question, which it isn't
Her testosterone treated within the allowed range.
The genetic issue she has is in 1in 600 people. Not exactly rare
The claim is not that she was initially considered to be a man by the Algerian government and then changed her public identity to that of a woman, but rather that she has some sort of intersex condition that elevates her testosterone levels into the masculine range.
All Olympians are genetic outliers. Do you really want to be the DNA police? Then every Michael Phelps medal should be returned because that man is naturally different from the rest of us. But he's a man so we're not talking about him.
https://www.biography.com/athletes/michael-phelp-perfect-body-swimming
Seriously. Phelps is pretty much genetically ideal for a swimmer, but nobody claimed it was "UnfAiR!!" when he swept the board multiple olympics in a row, garnering more gold medals than anyone in history, before or since.
One female boxer looks a bit "too" muscular and the bigots are up in arms. Fucking assholes.
And Khelif lost plenty of bouts in her career, but somehow, those aren’t relevant because, “I know a man when I see one.”
I actually encountered someone a couple of days ago herr on Lemmy that said it was unfair of Phelps to compete because he was too genetically superior. It was bizarre. Course it was on a thread about Phelps criticizing Chinese athletes who were doping so I imagine it was just a tankie trying his best.
And yet Katie Ledecky beats Michael Phelps on long distance swims.
And Simone Biles is arguably the greatest athlete of all time.
Here's a source for Katie Ledecky beating Phelps: https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-olympics-news-swimming-news-is-katie-ledecky-faster-than-michael-phelps-answering-the-burning-question-of-the-swimming-community-before-us-olympic-trials/
Simone articles:
https://www.upworthy.com/simone-biles-deserves-goat-status
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNswsHfp/
https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2018/nov/05/simone-biles-world-gymnastics-championships
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/sports/other/simone-biles-the-greatest-athlete-of-all-time/ss-BB1qLsIQ
https://asdnext.org/blog/the-return-of-the-greatest-athlete-simone-biles/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/simone-biles-excellence-resistance-greatest-athlete/619149/
https://www.sbnation.com/2019/10/13/20912350/simone-biles-medal-record-gymnastics-greatest-ever
https://www.msn.com/en-my/sports/other/simone-biles-the-greatest-athlete-of-all-time/ss-BB1qLzmw
She's obviously the greatest American gymnast of all time. I don't know if you can go much further than that. Larisa Latynina makes it rather hard to win the argument for greatest gymnast of all time let alone greatest Olympic athlete.
Agree to disagree
So not all that arguable after all I guess.
I mean, there's about 15 different news articles all explaining why Biles is the greatest athlete. There's absolutely none for the person you listed, who has more Olympic medals but not a harder routine or more worldwide medals. It didn't really seem like you were being serious with your argument tbh.
Biles leapt 12ft in the air. She is 4'8". She has 5 different gymnastics maneuvers named after her.
Eta: ig it was you who didn't want an argument. You lost quick..I was right, it wasn't a serious argument. You just wanted to be racist or smth
She doesn't. Phelps when he was 15 made a time 9 seconds slower than the record established during these Olympic games (although in 25m pool) by Ledecky in the 1500m. He, still at 15, swam 5 seconds faster than the 800m time Katie Ledecky just did in this Olympics (although in 25m pool), only 2 seconds slower than the record she established in 2016. See this.
Despite Phelps being a completely different athlete, not training for it, it's quite reasonable to assume that once he was not a teenager anymore he could easily beat Katie (especially since long distance swimming requires maturity and experience to dose energy etc.). I think this reinforces the obvious fact that men do have advantages, and I really don't see the point of trying to deny it.
If you want even more info, look at juniors (under 18) records:
for 1500m a 16 years old swam more than 30seconds faster than Ledecky's record.
for 800m another 16 years old swam more than 20seconds faster than Ledecky's record.
Source? According to this article, you're wrong:
https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-olympics-news-swimming-news-is-katie-ledecky-faster-than-michael-phelps-answering-the-burning-question-of-the-swimming-community-before-us-olympic-trials/
What do you mean source? I have literally posted you a page with the times and compared to the world records she established.
The only example your article shows where she swims faster is the table at the bottom. If you look closer, you will see that for the 800 and 1500 freestyle, the times are exactly the ones in the link I shared. These times compare the world records she did, with a time Phelps did when he was 15 in 2001! The only difference with what I shared is that they took the short course time for the 800, while I used as a reference the long course. The other which is lower is the 400m freestyle. I didn't quote this, but this is from the same competition in 2001, still when Phelps was 15! None of these competitions are what Phelps actually swam in his professional career, and how does it make sense to compare times in your peak athletic age (usually mid-20s) vs one-time races from when Phelps was in Junior category?
If you open the link I shared, you will see that he literally has 1 entry for 1500m, 800m and 400m, all from FINA Swimming World Cup 2000-2001, which is probably before he even specialized. Everything above 400m in swimming is considered long distance, and he is a sprinter instead.
The article you cite is making a point, which is the relative superiority of Katie Ledecky compared to peers, which is fair. When it then talks about swimming speed it turns into complete garbage, because it takes garbage data. I have genuinely no idea what are you trying to prove, I have showed you with numbers that Katie Ledecky's records are tens of seconds behind even what Juniors do in men's category, once you take athletes that practice the same discipline (long distance swimmers).
I hope this is enough source for you...
So your source and my source both agree that Katie Ledecky beats him on 800m and 1500m?
Are you in bad faith?
Would you compare the performance of any swimmer in the Olympics with that of a teenager who didn't even finish to develop his body, let alone developer experience and was not specialized in the same type of competition?
Are you really trying to base your argument on a pure rethoric base with such a shitty comparison? I am sure that when I was 20 I was beating Bolt, when he was 5 years old. This conclusively prove I run faster than Bolt.
There are plenty of sports where being a teenager gives you an advantage over adults. A teen isn't a 5 year old. Per data, I'm correct.
Swimming is not one of them for fucking sake.
Are you done dancing around rethoric arguments to avoid saying that you were wrong?
Comparing the performance of a non specialized teenager swimmer with that of a specialized adult woman in peak adult performance is a shitty comparison.
This is a fact that can be easily confirmed if you do 10 seconds of research and you check swimming records by age category.
It's fine, you used as source an article that made this claim based on shitty data, you have been shown that the data was shitty. The mature thing to do is to say "OK, that was a false claim".
Running gives taller people an advantage, yet ShaCarri is only like 5'1" and wins. Also, there are plenty of people taller than Michael Phelps who can't bear him af swimming. There are many people who have bigger feet who can't beat him. Is height as critical as testosterone in this case?
This is honestly an argument that I find very weak. I mean absolutely there are plenty of genetic advantages in general in sport. The problem is that not all sports have categories to isolate competitions for certain parameters. Swimming does not, so you could argue that is unfair by default, but that's what it is right now. Fighting sports generally do have categories, both gender and weight.
If we leave alone gender, if someone had some condition (let's imagine something that doesn't exist) that would result in having muscle mass common for a 80Kg, but in a 70Kg body, that person would probably have an unfair advantage in the 70Kg category because weight is a proxy for muscle mass as well.
The only reasonable argument here is that the boxer, even if she has some genetic condition, still tested within the limits for female boxers. That is pretty much it, which means that whatever condition she has (if any), it's not considered an advantage in the female category according to current standards.
Was it him or Lance Armstrong that ended up getting caught doping? Pretty sure it was the latter, but also recall Phelps getting accused of something. If could've even been something irrelevant like marijuana.
Agree with your point, though.
It was pot for Phelps
And poor Sha'Carri
Lance Was the one that got accu of doping. He never got caught. Just didn't contest charges by the anti doping agency after he retired anyway.
But also, everyone seems to do it in cycling.
I'm pretty sure he was caught. Like proven. It's just they caught like virtually every other cyclist in that same race.
It was so bad that there are 6 Tours De France without winners because he and so many people behind him were all disqualified.
What's interesting is Katie Ledecky can beat him on long distance swims, if we go by their times. So how much of an advantage is gender in many sports at this level? And let's look at disability - Usain Bolt had/has scoliosis, Ledecky has POTS, and many other athletes have "disabling" conditions. So why would intersex get a special category that isn't allowed? It's just transphobia.
Here’s a source for Katie Ledecky beating Phelps: https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-olympics-news-swimming-news-is-katie-ledecky-faster-than-michael-phelps-answering-the-burning-question-of-the-swimming-community-before-us-olympic-trials/
Looking at the other comments, you are clearly not here to discuss, but I will make a good faith attempt and play devil's advocate.
The difference between intersex and other conditions you mentioned is that it blurs the lines of a specific set of parameters that are specifically used to create categories between sports. Men and women are not fighting each other for more than anagraphic reasons (I hope we can all agree on this), and if a condition invalidates that distinction (I.e. gives some advantages that men have over a women), then it breaks the boundary of such categories in a similar way as it would be having someone from a heavier category fight in a lighter one (BTW, this is routinely done by having athletes go in terrible dehydration regimes).
Now this has nothing to do with this specific case, as there is no any objective proof for any of this, nor that she is intersex nor that she does have any advantage, but it's purely a way to frame the answer to the question "what's the difference between having scoliosis and being intersex".
Edit:
I will add one more thing, comparing a sprinter to a long-distance swimmer is exactly like comparing someone who runs 100m with those who run marathons. Clearly there is an advantage, considering that Katie Ledecky is an absolute monster, but she would have beaten the 3 worse times only that men did in this Olympics, and that she would have been almost a minute behind the winner, meaning almost 2 full lengths. Of course men have an advantage...also if you took the time from https://www.worldaquatics.com/athletes/1001621/michael-phelps, you probably have seen that he was 15 at the time...
The thing is, other hormones can give advantages too. That people put so much stock into testosterone alone is bad science. That intersex conditions that involve testosterone are so hated is transphobia. Women should be in their neat little boxes and men in theirs and any anatomy that changes that is taboo and should be banned. Like where should an intersex fighter compete? If this woman was intersex and had LOCAH or PCOS or other conditions, should she not be allowed in any division of Olympics?
Why don't we have testosterone classes instead of (or in addition to) weight classes, if it matters so much? All athletes with the same level of testosterone can compete, just like athletes that weigh the same compete against each other. Why dont we organize it that way instead? Isn't that more exact and fair?
I didn't mention testosterone at all. I am not a specialist and I mostly don't care about the details. I specifically talked in functional terms: if whatever condition gives you some advantages that men have, then it breaks the categories that are established. In this way, that condition would be different from -say- having huge feet like Phelps, even if they give you an advantage, because there are no categories based on foot size in swimming.
Everything else is an interesting hypothetical discussion, and maybe one day categories will be based on more parameters. Fact is, today they are like this, rough and using proxies such as gender and weight to make fights that are more-or-less fair.
Well, everyone else here is specifically talking about testosterone. That's the "problematic" chemical. It's relevant because it's a normal endogenous chemical we make and some women naturally make more. It can help with more muscle mass and bone density. That it's testosterone is entirely relevant.
That's like speaking on Gaza and saying "it doesn't matter where it is." Like yes it absolutely matters. The context and specifics matter when discussing complicated topics.
All athletes that beat other athletes have a presumed physical advantage. A physical advantage isn't an issue. It's testosterone that's the issue according to the people bitching about it.
No, it's a physical advantages that derive from a condition that renders certain parameters (whatever they are) similar to stronger categories (in this case, men).
If it's just testosterone or a combination of hormones and other things it doesn't matter in the perspective of the discussion I was trying to have (which answered your question, by the way)...
But that's literally every condition. Thats everything a top physical athlete has - their entire physique is a physical advantage over others. How is it different than say, Michael Phelps producing less lactic acid which allows him to have greater endurance? Why is lactic acid okay to be different with, but not testosterone? Both are genetic abnormalities that confer an advantage.
The reason is that they can't be transphobic about lactic acid.
So why men and women should compete separately? If you think they don't, then fine. If you think the do, then the reason pretty much is "because men have physical advantages and make the competition unfair or even impossible for women". What gives this advantage is the kind of stuff that I am talking about.
Is lactic acid production a property that is advantageous to men (I don't think it is, just making an example)? Then if you have the lactic acid production of men, you effectively have some of the advantages that men have over women, hence competing against women creates question. This is not binary, it's a scale, and at some point there is a limit that is fixed in the rules.
I will answer your question once again: because there are categories based on gender, there are not based on lactic acid production. Testosterone is one of the advantages that men have over women, and in fact there is a limit.
You specifically ignored my argument, which can be summed up like this: categories for sport are fairly arbitrary, but it's what is currently used. If you have properties of a stronger category, it is unfair for those of the category you compete in. Yes, there are other N genetic advantages within that category, but since they are not parameters that are used to slice competition, they are not addressed. I didn't make the rules and frankly I don't care. If in the future we are going to have height and feet size categories for swimming, with lactic acid production, and tens more, I honestly would have no problem. Today genders are used in most of the sports because it's a simple and effective proxy to a bunch of advantages.
There are sports that are designed in a way that give estrogen dominant people advantages. Testosterone isn't an advantage for every sport, and Testosterone in isolation isn't an "advantage men have over women," because it comes with a cost including lower lifespan. Cool that you think that way?
The way many sports are designed gives testosterone dominant people an advantage. That's patriarchy for ya.
Height isn't that important for swimming or even running - ShaCarri is like 5'1".
Lactic acid is not related to gender, that's my point. But you clearly believe in gender determinism and think sex chromosomes make up a huge part of genetic makeup when it is quite tiny. Women and men have more in common than we have different.
My criticism is that categories based on gender are unscientific. Which you agree with but say you can't be bothered with the details so its good enough. Well, some of us are smart enough to actually analyze this and know enough about medicine to criticize the heuristic of Testosterone as a metric for athletic competitions when there's more involved than just T.
Is it for boxing?
How is this relevant when you look at advantages in a single competition? This is not a "is it good in life"-situation.
hence it doesn't have a separate category? BTW, swimmers are taller than average, because being tall is generally ad advantage. It's one of many factors, but it's there.
This seems...unlikely. I would say that combat sports have not been "designed" with this in mind, and many other sports are done in the only way they could: swim as fast as you can, run as fast as you can, jump as high/far/etc. as you can.
Then you should understand my answer: it doesn't break the boundary of established categories.
Are you a medium? Do you read my mind on arbitrary topics? Can you give me 6 numbers for next lottery?
Jokes aside, I didn't talk about chromosomes, I didn't talk about testosterone (only once you brought it up), I specifically referred to functional difference, whatever the origin, and also mentioned that the reality is not so easy (not binary).
Perfect, this is a completely separate discussion, one I might agree with even. I wouldn't know how to make it better, it's not my area of expertise. What I know is that in many sports women holding record would barely qualify if they were to compete against males, and I think that would not be fun nor fair for anybody. I also think that in combat sports that would be potentially dangerous. Happy to see alternatives in the future.
My argument is that if testosterone is considered an advantage in a sport, then athletes shouldn't be banned for their anatomy, but instead the sport should adapt and sort athletes by T levels if it truly matters. Men shouldn't be getting hurt by other men with higher testosterone, either. And we should be MORE inclusive of athletes who don't fit the gender binary by getting rid of these men's/women's categories that aren't really helpful or accurate anyway.
If a sport included both men and women at the higher level, then they will compete at lower levels. It's not like we'd be asking women to box men for the very first time in an Olympic setting, if we organized the groups by testosterone and some women and men ended up competing.
Some sports including fighting sports can have rule changes or be redesigned to give women advantages. If we look at those warrior challenges, many of that has to do with center of gravity. If women can get their hips over stuff, they are good, but for men it's often their shoulders. If women run the course a little differently, they can often do really well. That's not because they are "worse" athletes, they are just athletes different than men.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNG16aYg/
I've already provided multiple examples where the physical advantages, resulting from a neurochemical anomaly, exist and no one had an issue. Why is testosterone special? And if testosterone ISN'T special, then why aren't they testing for other enodgenous neurochemicals like lactic acid and banning based on that? Why doesn't this group of lactic acid anomalies get kicked out and refused placement?
Again, it's transphobia.
You are arguing a point I specifically didn't make. So I don't know what to answer you, since none of it has to do with my actual opinion.
Your argument is that intersex conditions blur boundaries for sex in sports. My argument is that these categories are arbitrary and I'm explaining why.
You: the color orange messes with the boundaries we have in place for red and yellow! It can't be involved!
Me: the boundary for yellow and red is arbitrary and visible light exists on a continuum anyway!
Actually me:
I fully recognize that this is arbitrary, I fully recognize that any "limit" is somewhat arbitrary. The only difference is that I acknowledge that sex is a "good enough" proxy for now.
I still don't understand how would you avoid that women will never see a medal again in any combat sport, athletics, swimming, tennis and many other sports if you stop using sex as a category. What categories would you use, and are they pragmatic enough that they can be implemented easily?
You see how when you demand orange not exist, and that's apparently "good enough" for you, that it doesn't represent reality? Instead of demanding these boundaries, if testosterone matters, then organize people into classes by testosterone. This allows women with higher T to compete as well as men with lower T. For many categories, testosterone will be unnecessary to test anyway.
"Women will never see a medal again," hmm don't be so confident about that.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNG16aYg/
It's often the way sports are designed that keep women out intentionally
She is a woman who was born a woman and happens to have high testosterone for a woman, just like some people are taller than others. She just happens to be at one end of the testosterone spectrum.
Just because you want baseless rumors to be true doesn't make them true.
Hold on, her testosterone levels are known? I haven't come across them. What are they?
"Higher than average." Hence the upper body muscles being larger that average for a female boxer.
It isn't rocket surgery.
wrong. the IBA said they never did any testosterone tests. feel free to disprove me, but to my knowledge there is 0 evidence even hinting at her having high T
Where did I say anyone tested her?
Oh, they must just have gotten her "hIgEr ThAn AvErAgE" testosterone results from the Olympic village psychic. I must have been silly to assume that saying it's higher than average meant someone tested rather than you just pulling bullshit out of your ass.
You say it like it is a bad thing to acknowledge that people have differences in their biology.
So they're not known.
Why would they ever make that known to the public. Would be a huge invasion of the competitors privacy. Kinda weird.
Its part of wada rules to which the ioc is compliant? Drug test results for these organization are often published, at least they are for my powerlifting org
I haven't seen any evidence that you aren't a Russian bot.
Нет, Я сам Путин.
There seems to be little credible hard evidence on either side, so anyone claiming to know the real truth here is just talking out of their ass.
That's the point I was originally trying to make. This article is written as if the question has been conclusively answered, but it hasn't been.
You're making it sound like whether she's trans is a valid question, which it isn't
Her testosterone treated within the allowed range.
The genetic issue she has is in 1in 600 people. Not exactly rare