This threatening and distracting post is, itself, unethical (in my view). Here's why I think this:
... The @DZFOOTBALLDZ account agrees, in another post, that the athlete in question has a condition like Caster Semenya. That condition is a male, 46XY DSD: 5alpha Reductase Deficiency. We have known that this is the condition, since the World Athletics regulations ...
... and the testing of those regulations in the Court of Arbitration of Sport in 2019. You can read the judgment here: ...tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user…
... this confirms that athletes like Semenya are karyotypically male. That is, they have male chromosomes. But this might not be the point if we are interested in phenotype. In sport, we are interested in whether athletes have specifically *male advantage* ...
... this depends largely but not wholly on male puberty and the affects of circulating testosterone. If someone's body is completely immune to androgenisation (CAIS cases), then there is, arguably, no male advanatage at all, and these cases are, ethically, quite hard. ...
... but if @DZFOOTBALLDZ are correct, and the condition in question is 46XY 5ARD, ('like Semenya') then this is not a tricky ethical problem.
What is in question is *whether the athlete in question has male advantage* Let's keep our eye on the ball...
... What *doesn't* count for resolving this question?
Your preferred pronouns
How you dress
How you were brought up
What it says on your passport
Your 'legal' sex
Whether you are, or are seen as 'trans' or not.
Your 'race' or ethnicity.
How your genitals look
...
... People on all sides should remember this: I *don't care* how the athlete in question was dressed in their childhood, or how they dress now.
What matters is, as CAS said in 2019, "immutable biological characteristics". The regulations concern ...
... "a group of individuals who have certain immutable biological characteristics (namely a 46 XY DSD coupled with a material androgenising effect arising from that condition)" ...
... and this is important because "It is human biology, not legal status or gender identity, that ultimately determines which individuals possess the physical traits which give rise to that insuperable advantage, and which do not." ...
... We know, for certain, that the possession of the following characteristics is jointly sufficient for an athlete to be biologically male:
i) XY chromosomes
ii) the existence of testes (producing small motile gametes)
iii) the existence of male-typical levels of ...
...testosterone and
iv) sensitivity towards those levels of testosterone such that they drive physiological change through puberty.
Some people have speculated about PCOS and CAIS in these cases.
PCOS cases fail, obviously, on i) and ii).
CAIS cases fail on iv). ...
... But 5ARD cases, covered by the 2018 regulations and meet all four of these criteria.
The standard story about such athletes is just false. In referring to Semenya as a female athlete with abnormally high testosterone levels, the story has barely a nodding acquaintance ...
... with the truth. Semenya is, indeed, legally female. But Semenya is biologically male. As well as being biologically male, CS have normal levels of testosterone, which has had an androgenising effect. (andros = man, genesis = becoming) ...
... (By the way. I think the World Athletics rules are terrible: there should have been no route into female competition from reducing testosterone).
Let's go back to the rational for separate female competition: Male physiological advantage. ...
... again, this is what justifies female sport both in terms of fairness and safety. Male advantage justifies the *existence* of female sport, and it gives the *conditions of eligibility* for the female category - it must exclude male advantage. ...
... Allowing male advantage into female sport unquestionably undermines both fairness and, where appropriate, safety. And this is precisely what the @IOCmedia is licencing.
This is unethical.
I do not believe that female boxers at the Paris games can have given their ...
... fully informed, rational consent to such match ups. I also believe that the post I'm quoting places unreasonable pressure on those boxers.
It is, for those reasons, deeply unethical.
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