Jon Pike Profile picture
Jul 31, 2024 18 tweets 3 min read Read on X
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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More from @runthinkwrite

Apr 16
Important!
The International Olympic Committee has published a series of FAQs abut the new eligibility policy for female Olympic sport.
I haven't gone through it all yet, but it's good to see moves to correct all the misinformation being circulated.
olympics.com/ioc/athletes/m…
Right, I've read through these properly and they are *excellent*. Someone, (or some people) in Lausanne has got a real grip on this. They are thoroughly immersed in the evidence, and argument, and, most importantly, they can write in a clear and definitive way. ...
... the difference between this document and the complete mess of the 'Framework Document' of 2021 is clear. I'm particularly pleased to see two features: a proper account of 'category fairness' and an important distinction between ...
Read 15 tweets
Apr 6
Thanks to @HagFeminist for tipping me off to something that I hadn't noticed before: that the influential body in Norway, the Biotechnology Council, has said that Norwegian athletes should be able to get the SRY screen in Norway, and the law should be changed accordingly.
... this was back in February. This seems to me entirely reasonable. I can see the general point of a law preventing the use of genetic testing for non-medical purposes - to prevent the exploitative use of testing in employment decisions, for example. ...
... but I don't think this carries over to sex testing for sport eligibility. So I think the Norwegian change of view makes sense. It isn't law, yet.
The reason this is significant is because many of the legal academics on the other side make a Very Big Deal ...
Read 7 tweets
Mar 31
The claim that this policy (which is not a ban) is discriminatory is either trivial, or both false and racist.
It's trivial in the sense that, of course the policy is discriminatory. It discriminates, rightly and fairly, against males in female sport. ...
... Discrimination, in this sense, is a neutral term, meaning that one group is treated differently from another group. And often that is right. People who have passed their driving test are treated differently to people who have not when it comes to ...
... the legal right to drive on the public highway.

But I think @TheCanaryuk is making a different, and false claim. That claim is, plausibly, racist, and I'm a bit sick of pseudo-leftists engaging in it. I think its time to push back ...
Read 8 tweets
Mar 30
OK, try this one:
Suppose that, to counter an obesity epidemic, the government introduces a new policy. Every citizen has to turn up, once a month, to the town hall. You have to strip down to your underwear, and stand on the scales. You are photographed, and your weight ...
.. is read out to your fellow citizens in the queue which snakes through the hall. Failure to turn up is punishable by a hefty fine, and eventually disenfranchisement after three strikes. ...
... This would be a terrible idea. Coercive, shaming intrusive and illiberal. ...
Read 9 tweets
Mar 5
Q. Why is SRY (or any other sort of sex) screening required for women's sport and not for male sport?
A. Because it's unfair for males to compete in female sport. It's not unfair for females to compete in male sport. It might be a bit tricky, unsafe, and a bit pointless...
... This is the asymmetrical thing that I've been banging on about for years. Women's sport is of equal value to men's sport, because women are of equal value to men. The women's 800m record (Go Keely!!) is of equal value to the male record.
... In order to value, honour, recognise, the female record we need to know that it is set by someone who is actually female. Hence the need for SRY screening. We have no such need for men. But ...
Read 9 tweets
Feb 23
Right, enough of that nonsense: I have a new publication out in JPS. It's a review of Mumford and Bekker's book. Open Play, which argues - I kid you not - for the abolition of women's sport. The review is highly critical ...
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
... - p'raps the most critical review I've written (and the bar is high), and I think, the most critical review that JPS has ever published. I am grateful to them for having the nerve to publish it, since Mumford has been a sizable figure in the philosophy of sport. ...
... and is a sizable figure on the UK philosophy scene: he is on the REF panel. for example.
But the book is terrible. Its central claim is that the performance differences between males and females in sport ...
Read 9 tweets

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