What No One Is Reporting About Caster Semenya: She Has XY Chromosomes

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/05/what-no-one-is-telling-you-about-caster-semenya-she-has-xy-chromosomes/

by peter_retief • 7 years ago

107 50 7 years ago

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Havoc• 7 years ago

The whole debacle is just sad. No matter what they do it's unfair to someone.

NotPaidToPost• 7 years ago

Excluding someone is not necessarily unfair to anyone, including the person excluded.

pas2• 7 years ago

Well, life is "unfair" (see the just world fallacy). Of course we can try to find the most fair solution and then call that fair.

Fairness is not absolute, the intent, effort, consideration (of past effects, and possible and likely outcomes) matters.

Sometimes making a race more interesting is more important, than allowing someone to dominate it for decades. However, that sounds like a pretty serious difference in rules. But. But we should consider that we already have a lot of complex rules (doping rules are not completely fair either, because biology is complex), and similarly the problem of how to separate males and females for competitions is not new, and never was simple.

sonnyblarney2• 7 years ago

Not 'unfair' just 'unfortunate'.

viach3• 7 years ago

Isn't splitting Olympic Games by 2 (or more?) dimensions is in general a sort of propaganda of gender inequality?

Arbalest2• 7 years ago

That's like saying that, your child gets to go to a public school, just like a rich child. The rich child just happens to be able to afford a private school.

viach3• 7 years ago

Rich/Poor are not genetic qualities. It's more like saying girls and boys go to different schools, because they have different abilities to learn.

Which is obviously not true in learning and, as it turns out, in sport.

polote• 7 years ago

So going back to the premise that women’s sport is the PROTECTED category, and that this protection must exist because of the insurmountable and powerful effects of testosterone, my opinion on this is that it is fair and correct to set an upper limit for that testosterone

They use the "protected category" expression in the article

Jabbles2• 7 years ago

It isn't propaganda to acknowledge that elite male athletes are better than elite female athletes, for any reasonable definition of better.

Therefore, if we want any women participation in the Olympics, we have to have more than one category.

viach3• 7 years ago

Where this boundary where we can acknowledge that one category of people is _better_ in something and needs to participate only in _protected_ type of some events?

garmaine• 7 years ago

Or we can apply weighting factors to calibrate everyone onto a single scale. You could even weight age, tested T levels, height, weight, etc...

pdkl95• 7 years ago

The solution is to define the categories by the specific physical traits that are beneficial to the competition (sort of like the weight classes used in boxing). Gender is an indirect indicator. Instead of dividing in to [men, women, ...(other?)...], divide by e.g, size, weight, allele, etc.

adminu2• 7 years ago

Well, in a performance point of view it is a fact that women perform 10-12% worse then men (from the article) in certain disciplines. The genders are quite measurable not equal in this metric.

stefan_• 7 years ago

Of course, it's discrimination. That is the whole point.

SubiculumCode2• 7 years ago

Well it certainly does invite the question of why the olympics does not further divide the games to make it fairer for other groups, say a basketball division for shorter people...they do for boxing already re feather and heavy weights). Perhaps it is better to just let people compete all together no matter their sex, and let the best succeed. I do not doubt there are a number of sports that female athletes would dominate. ---Seems better than asking a woman to change her body because it doesnt fit a feminine archetype for testosterone levels.

qazpot• 7 years ago

Then people like you would cry about How nobody watches the Short People Basketball League or How Weightlifting league for weak people did not generated any revenue.

Sport are meant to celebrate the best of Humans in fields of physical endeavor.

Jabbles2• 7 years ago

I do not doubt there are a number of sports that female athletes would dominate.

Such as?

DoreenMichele4• 7 years ago

It’s absolutely mind-boggling that virtually every major outlet in the world reporting the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling yesterday has failed to mention one of the most important facts of the entire case. Caster Semenya has XY chromosomes.

Not really.

Genetics is generally a poorly understood subject. Even in online discussion groups for people with genetic disorders, basic information about genetics is often not well understood by many of the members, even though almost all will be there because either they or an immediate family member has a genetic disorder.

darawk• 7 years ago

It may be that the issue is complex, but the fact that she has XY chromsomes is definitely a salient fact. There are basically two defining characteristics of masculinity at a biological level: XY chromosomes and testosterone. She has XY chromosomes and elevated testosterone. It certainly may be that there is additional nuance yet to be revealed, but to not report on one of these facts is unbelievably dishonest.

Veen4• 7 years ago

I’m not sure leaving out relevant details because they are poorly understood is good journalistic practice, especially when those details are central to what’s being discussed. It would only take a paragraph to clarify what XX, XY, and intersex means. It’s exactly what the writer of the linked article did.

DoreenMichele4• 7 years ago

Ah, I see the misunderstanding. You think I meant they did it on purpose to pander to an uneducated audience.

Au contraire.

I'm saying the reporters probably didn't really get it.

adminu2• 7 years ago

I think it is worrying that some types of facts sometimes appear to be left out or be misrepresented seemingly willingly to produce a certain image. That's not what I expect from good news reporting.

As an example take the 1.7% intersex figure quoted in the article. Apparently a reporter took this to big number to inflate the importance of her message. I think that disqualifies such an author to be credible.

TulliusCicero• 7 years ago

XX vs XY chromosomes for women vs men is broadly taught in schools. Most people (at least in developed countries) will remember it at least vaguely. I find it very unlikely that all the reporters at these mainstream news sites were just ignorant of this.

cowwithbeef• 7 years ago

It’s absolutely mind-boggling that virtually every major outlet in the world reporting the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling yesterday has failed to mention one of the most important facts of the entire case. Caster Semenya has XY chromosomes.

This is a minefield of an offensive topic, but I will give it a shot.

Each outlet has a narrative that all stories support. "Right wing" outlets like Breitbart run the narrative that women are being pushed out of their own sports organizations by (insert polite term for all of the recent expansions to the definition of women here.) Most others run the narrative that this expanding definition has no negative consequences and we all accept it with jubilation. Reporting the XY chromosome detail could cause some readers to support the opposing narrative.

sonnyblarney2• 7 years ago

This is the obvious reality that people still have a hard time processing: "My opponents news is obviously biased, but my own is not"

There's a massive intersectional narrative at stake whereupon reality can be bent if need be in this case.

My original encounter with this story was the IOC's decision to allow Caster to compete: the NYT had a story supporting it, I thought it was enlightening. Until my bias radar went off and I did further research and found 'the most relevant facts' changed the story quite dramatically.

The NYT left out the fact she was intersex / hermaphrodite entirely!

So why would even the NYT leave out such critical information?

Google 'caster semeny new york times' for the latest headlines. Among them you'll find 'The Myth of Testosterone' - trying to convince us that we really don't have any advantage due to testosterone!

It's interesting but ultimately maligned, so one must wonder why they'd take up such a position that should undermine their credibility?

The issue is identity: reality seems to be less important than people's right to choose their own expression, which is a current 'rights' issue ... and so the truth gets utterly muddled.

It's one thing when it has no consequence, it's another thing altogether when power/rights are bestowed due to it.

We're tricked with language: 'women' to most has biological implications, though we recognized not always. But when headlines such as this appear (in Quartz):

"The demonization of Caster Semenya’s womanhood is part of a dark history in female athletics"

And this classic from Vox:

"I am a woman and I am fast: what Caster Semenya’s story says about gender and race in sports The constant scrutiny into the runner’s medical history reveals what happens to women who don’t conform to stereotypes."

I think this headline really summarized the root of misinformation:

Caster is a woman by choice. She could have ostensibly chosen the male identity. She has utterly fundamental biological differences that are material in sport. Which in her life, is her business of course; but in sport, it becomes another issue.

So when they refer to her as 'female' and then reference the antagonism to her, it's a terrible straw-man.

Caster is not just a woman who 'doesn't conform to stereotypes'. Having male sex apparatus, XY chromosomes, and the testosterone of a male athlete which endows her with considerable and obvious advantage ... is not a 'stereotype'.

Effectively, a false parallel is drawn between trans people under scrutiny for 'non conforming identity' issues, into Caster's situation, where there are material differences to be addressed.

It's an information war unfortunately.

pas2• 7 years ago

The NYT article seems simple, what are they leaving out? It mentions that mid-distance running seems to be testosterone independent, yet the ruling mandates to lower her levels.

PavlovsCat• 7 years ago

https://terfisaslur.com/erasing-female-biology/

Is it right-wing to not accept that with jubilation? What does right-wing mean at that point other than doubleplusungood?

Thinking biology and hormones matter and saying so, no matter with how much respect and how much scientific fact, is increasingly subject to censorship.

Reporting the XY chromosome detail could cause some readers to support the opposing narrative.

So could not flagging this story, so it must be flagged, I guess. But it's all in service of something "we" all agree to with jubilation, all enemies are a monolith, they're right-wingers, while no brainwashing can be found over here.

pjc50• 7 years ago

Specifically, https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/8538/46-xy-disord...

nneonneo• 7 years ago

Just having XY chromosomes is not enough to actually make someone a male, despite the insinuations of this (rather biased) article. Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), for example, results when the body's cells do not respond at all to testosterone. A person with CAIS develops as a female (albeit sterile), no matter how much testosterone they have.

The exact nature of Caster's biology have not been publicly disclosed, but it's clear that it's not enough to simply say she's an XY female. Because of this, the properly cautious approach (which most news organizations have adopted) is to avoid saying anything about her actual biological condition.

This article is unnecessarily inflammatory, and insinuates pretty strongly that the mere presence of Y chromosomes should subject Caster to scrutiny; the reality is likely a lot more nuanced.

peter_retief• 7 years ago

CAIS is not relevant in this case. XY chromosomes does not make an athlete male but having testis might well. It is a dilemma and the reality is a lot more nuanced as you say

ordinaryperson2• 7 years ago

but it's clear that it's not enough to simply say she's an XY female.

The article explicitly states several times Caster Semenya is not male or female but intersex female with male characteristics -- no womb, ovaries but internal testes.

insinuates pretty strongly that the mere presence of Y chromosomes should subject Caster to scrutiny

The article praises Caster and does not "insinuate" she should be subjected to elevated scrutiny, it instead singles out reporters for over-simplifying the situation and omitting important biological facts; it insinuates reporters are taking a social justice angle (woman with high levels of testosterone not allowed to compete) when Caster is more appropriately described as intersex, and unfortunately the Olympics do not have an intersex category.

It's not critical of Caster at all and struck me as a balanced, well-written take.

rurban• 7 years ago

One should really dig the fact that she is legally a female, maybe to the appearances of her outer sex organs, and in sports classified as male, due to her having testicles, XY chromosomes and therefore too much testosteron.

What she choose as legal gender should not care much, as nowadays it's much easier to choose that. Good so. What is more important to her is what the sports classification panel put her in, because that's what's her income is. She can easily run in men competitions, no one forbids that. Letting her run with women was unfair to all other women. And you cannot compare that to the former hormone-doped women (e.g. the former east european runners). They had no testicles and no XY chromosomes.

What No One Is Reporting About Caster Semenya: She Has XY Chromosomes

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