The Right-Wing Campaign to Purge Women From Women’s Sports
The Right-Wing Campaign to Purge Women From Women’s Sports
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is the latest Olympic athlete deemed insufficiently female by extremists obsessed with the strictest of gender binaries.
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So put those women in a higher class. There are plenty of women with "masculine" physiques... or are you going to claim Brittney Griner is also not a woman?
I don't think it's fair to penalize a woman who works all her life to get to a certain level and just make her compete against someone who maybe hasn't had to work at all because they are physically male. If anything, we need to make a class for people who are physically male but presenting female.
Are you talking about Khelif? How do you know she is "physically male?" What does that even mean? Is Brittney Griner "physically male?" Because she looks bigger and stronger than Khelif.
As far as I can tell, that reliable information isn't out there other than the fact that a Russian judge said she tested as XY and that she's tested for high testosterone. I'd say XY is a pretty good starting place to call someone male or at least not traditionally female, if that test can be trusted.
But I think a lot of the controversy here comes from a lack of trustable info.
You mean the Russian judge who said that after she beat her Russian opponent? Cool. Let's see the evidence.
You aren't believing a Russian judge, of all people, without evidence, are you?
Also, does that mean anyone with XY gonadal dysgenesis needs to be genetically tested before they're allowed to compete? If so, at what age should they be tested? The youngest Olympian this year is a 12-year-old skateboarder from China. The youngest Olympican ever was an 11-year-old figure skater from China.
Now... bear in mind that many women who have that particular condition are not even aware that they have it.
Would you be willing to support either genetic testing or genital examination of 11 or 12-year-old girls? Do you think that might make girls and women less likely to aspire to be athletes than they might occasionally have to compete against a "man?" Because I sure do.
No, I'm not saying I believe him, and yes I would like to see the evidence. It's pretty hard to draw conclusions without it.
And no I don't support genital inspections of 12 year old girls, and frankly don't think genital inspections are probably the best way to decide this. I think chromosomes and hormone levels are probably the best we have, and maybe there's just a class for athletes that fall outside the norms for their sex, similar to weight classes, because it's pretty clear that it does give a huge advantage.
But it's worth considering that maybe 12 year olds just shouldn't be in the Olympics in the first place.
Why not, if they're the best athletes in their country?
Also, it is far more complicated than you have any idea about. This person can explain it better than me:
Fair enough. But why not handle these exceptions in the rules then? If they don't confer a major competitive advantage then let them compete as the sex they feel like.
But I don't think we can draw this out to a full blown man who identifies as a woman so gets to compete against women. As usual, there is a sensible middle ground, and you have to get into the weeds a bit to sort it out.
Its like people who say only "pure capitalism" or "pure communism" is the best system, when in fact they are both garbage options, and the best is actually capitalism constrained by socialist policies like in Scandinavia. Yes, it's messy and complicated and hard to figure out, but that's pretty much always the case for coming to the best result.
The extremes on either side are almost always wrong.
What is a "full blown man" in your definition based on what I pasted above?
Also, who gets to decide that and what is the test?