Oh good grief - this was actually printed in FORBES in 2020 - "The Myth of Biological Sex" (of course, intersex, JK Rowling, Caster Semenya are all mentioned/lied about )

submitted by BEB from forbes.com

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[–]BiologyIsReal 6 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, biological sex is so complicated that no one can tell me how babies are made.

[–]GConly 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

There are about a dozen different conditions that blur the line between male and female. They’re known as disorders of sexual development or DSDs…. Altogether, DSDs occur as frequently as twins or red hair.”

In fact, research indicates that about 2% of the population is born with these ambiguous traits.

No they don't. This is misinformation (AKA an outright lie).

DSDs occur in about 0.2% of the population.

Of those, only a minority have the traits of both sexes. Most have one sex chromosome too many or one less (XYY, XO, XXY).

About 0.02% of births are ambiguous in some way as to sex.

Look up the article "a response to Anna Fausto Sterling" to see this bullshit debunked with the facts.

As for hormones in athletes.

The regulations about eligibility for women with hyperandrogenism to compete in women′s category are well founded.

Healy et al. find an overlap between testosterone levels in the male and female athletes, which in their opinion proves that there is no clear‐cut separation between the testosterone levels in men and women. The authors do not mention the publications that, under resting conditions, demonstrate no overlap in testosterone levels between healthy men and women. While the IAAF/IOC Regulations state that blood samples must be drawn under resting conditions, Healy et al. obtained blood within two hours after completing national or international competitions. Others have shown that following strenuous exercise, testosterone levels in men decrease, while in women, T is unchanged or moderately increased.

So the method was flawed as hell.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

There's probably an even bigger flaw in the 2014 study measuring testosterone levels that found that 12 of the female athletes tested had T in the male range. Many of the 12 athletes designated female whose T was determined to be in the male range were most likely males with DSDs & functioning testes like Caster Semenya, Margaret Wambui and Francine Niyonsaba, the three winners of the women's 800m in the 2016 Olympics.

In 2014, researchers who looked at athletes' T levels in a different study done on behalf of the IAAF said that the prevalence of XY persons with DSDs in female elite-level sports was "140 times higher than expected in the general population."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25137421/

The researchers who did the study on behalf of the IAAF did not count XY athletes as female for the purposes of their study. But researchers who did the Healy et al T study in 2014 that this and other journalists cite apparently did not do any tests to verify that the athletes counted as female for their T study truly were female. Which the paper that questions the Healy results that you linked to mentions:

Some of the high testosterone levels found in these 12 women might be explained by assay problems, but the majority is probably due to either hyperandrogenic disorders of sex development (DSD) or doping with testosterone. Some of them might have androgen insensitivity; such individuals would not show signs of hyperandrogenism and would not have any known undue benefits in sports. They would likely be deemed eligible to compete. As the authors do not present any follow‐up, the cause of hyperandrogenism in these 12 women remains speculative.

After the ruling in the Semenya case in 2019, quite a few athletes who had been competing in women's athletics were withdrawn or dropped by their countries' teams because they were affected by the new IAAF/World Athletics regulations regarding testosterone levels - which as the IAAF/WA has made clear, only apply to athletes competing in female sports who have XY sex chromosomes, functioning testes, no ovaries, male levels of T and male-typical sensitivity to T, not to any "women with hyperandrogenism."

(A big difference between now and 2014 when the T studies were published is that in its arguments pertaining to the Semenya court case, and in its current literature and regulations, the IAAF/WA stopped calling athletes like Semenya, Wambui and Niyonsaba "women with hyperandrogenism." Unfortunately, the media have not yet caught up.)

In the wake of the 2019 ruling for the IAAF/WA in the Semenya case, Kenya alone had to drop 5 runners from its national women's squad - Maximilla Imali, Evangeline Makena, Jackline Wambui, Linda Kahega and Margaret Wambui - coz it turns out they're all XY persons with DSDs and functioning testes, not "women with hyperandrogenism" as they'd earlier been made out to be. Other countries probably did the same, albeit with less press coverage. It's highly likely that a number of up-and-coming junior athletes who'd been scouted and were in the pipeline to compete on national women's teams have had their aspirations scuttled in the wake of the Semenya ruling as well.

BTW, Semenya's case is going to be heard by the European Court of Human Rights over the summer.

[–]GConly 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

You are a mine of information. You have made my save list.

And.. what a load of cheating bastard's.

Some of the high testosterone levels found in these 12 women might be explained by assay problems, but the majority is probably due to either hyperandrogenic disorders of sex development (DSD) or doping with testosterone. Some of them might have androgen insensitivity; such individuals would not show signs of hyperandrogenism and would not have any known undue benefits in sports. They would likely be deemed eligible to compete. As the authors do not present any follow‐up, the cause of hyperandrogenism in these 12 women remains speculative.

Don't know how I missed that. Probably because I'm I'll rn.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Glad to be of service! I've been following this area since I was a girl 50 years ago.

When sex chromosome testing of athletes competing in women's elite international sports was first instituted in 1967 in the run up to the 68 winter Olympics, one of my heroines - 18 year-old women's world champion alpine skier Erika Schinegger of Austria - was found to be a male with a DSD apparently much like Semenya's. Austrian officials immediately withdrew Schinegger from competition, Schinegger retired from the public stage and went into therapy, ultimately emerging as Erik and deciding to have surgery to repair his genitals. Later he fathered a daughter, which he said is his biggest accomplishment. Later in life, he also located the women who'd placed behind him in ski events and gave him the gold medals he was awarded that should've gone to them. He seems like a lovely, decent man.

https://youtu.be/8mgQ97TKxc8

Today, the people who did the 2014 study on androgen levels in female athletes at the behest of the IAAF/WA, Bermon et al, most likely would not describe the conditions of athletes like Semenya, Wambui and Niyonsaba as "hyperandrogenic disorders of sex development" as they did back then. Coz "hyperandrogenism" by definition is a condition that only affects female people with ovaries. In the proceedings before the COurt of Arbitration for Sports in the Semenya case, the IAAF/WA made it clear that they are not trying to regulate T levels in sports for any females whatsoever or even for all XY athletes with DSDs. They are concerned only with XY athletes who have functioning testes, male levels of T and male sensitivity to T who have a couple of conditions that are DSDs in males alone, like 5-ARD.

In the proceedings before the CAS, Bermon testified that except for genitals that look unusual coz they did not form properly in utero, Semenya is physically no different from any other healthy male athlete.

BTW, one of the reasons there is such an over-representation of XY athletes with specific DSDs/VSCs like 5-ARD in elite sports is that in some countries young people with these conditions have actually been sought out by sports and government authorities for the purpose of entering them in female sports.

Since 5-ARD is the result of consanguinity, it occurs most frequently in places where procreation happens amongst family members, often coz sex abuse of girls & women via incest is widespread and girls & women in those places have little or no rights. Officials know exactly where on earth such patterns most commonly occur.

I know you called these athletes

cheating bastards

as a figure of speech, but actually there is more truth to that term in many of these cases than most people probably realize.

Whilst some of the XY athletes with DSDs in elite women's sports are the result of cousins procreating willingly, others are the offspring of girls and women who were impregnated by their own fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins in what probably were acts of brutal rape or coercion on the part of the males. Which means many of the XY athletes with DSDs/VSCs who've grown up to become "cheating bastards" in elite women's sports actually were conceived as the result of criminal, immoral acts committed by the boys/men who sired them.

In other words, we're talking about bad male behavior across generations. And it's bad male behavior that girls & women of different generations, nationalities and life circumstances have had to pay the price for - either coz they are the girls/women who were impregnated by family members against their will in the first place, or coz they are entirely unrelated girls & women who've have had to compete against these XY DSD/VSC individuals in sports.

I am sorry for the difficulties that people with DSDs/VSCs like Semenya and Schinegger have faced. At the same time, these individuals have been blessed with robust good health overall and will live normal life spans. Lots of people are born with conditions such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia that are much worse. Moreover, lots of people get dealt a shitty hand by fate in all sorts of other ways. But IMO, no genetic condition and no amount of bad luck gives anyone a pass to cheat in sports, to take away the rights of others, or to behave in ways that are morally objectionable, indeed reprehensible.

[–]GConly 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Long post, short reply.

Later he fathered a daughter,

I was wondering if their internal balls would produce sperm. The internal temp is a bit higher than is good for that.

Every time on Reddit you mention Semenya has internal balls, the comment gets deleted. It's "a woman with hyperandrogenism", everything else is banned.

The whole claim that he never knew he was male was utter balls. He was dressed as a boy at school.

It's also kind of insulting to Africans to suggest they couldn't spot he was male when he hit puberty.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Semenya has often said his younger sister & the kids he went to school with all questioned his sex. And yes, he wore the boys' uniform throughout his schooling. Which was not a privilege granted to any other female children in SA then (or now). Moreover, Semenya brags about how his wife has always viewed him as male.

Re the "internal balls" claim: in the development of male humans there are many different stages that the testes go through between originating inside the abdomen and finally ending up on the outside of the body in the groin. Lots of males with DSDs like Semenya's have testes that are more outie than innie, but are hidden from easy viewing by the skin and folds of the groin. The testes of such children at birth/in early childhood have traditionally NOT been seen as indicative of biological sex by sexist health care experts and family & community members. In their view, balls themselves don't matter - only balls of a certain location and size count.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The lie that Semenya is "a woman with hyperandrogenism" isn't just rife on reddit. It's the position that all the MSM take as well.

Yes, it is insulting to Africans to suggest they can't see sex differences and are incapable of discerning DSDs/VSCs the way midwives and ordinary people in rural parts of the Dominican Republic where XY 5-ARD occurs somewhat commonly can.

At the same time, the Semenya scam seems to have been intentionally engineered by male political figures in post-Mandela SA who coz of their membership in or affiliation with the ANC were exiled and educated in "the global North" during the late-apartheid era of the 80s and early 90s. My impression is that a number of these very smart SA men quickly picked up on queer theory and immediately saw how its claims and theories could be used to hoist the white-dominated "global North" by its own petard. Which is exactly what's happened. And the ones who've paid the price are females humans of all races and nationalities.

[–]BEB[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I know - the author is totally lying. Par for the course for US media on the gender ideology issue - constant, flat out lies.