Track star both a man and a woman. (Page 2)

First, I feel terrible for this woman for many of the reasons previously mentioned. Her life has been shattered as a result of her innocent participation in athletics for which she seems "good" regardless of her male/female status.

I have some questions about "gender". Does genetics define gender? More specifically is XY=male and XX=female all there is to it?

Also, I have not seen where they have stated that she is genetically either XX or XY. I'll I read was that she lacks ovaries (I'm sure many women do) and has internal testicals. Does this require that she be XX? Or could she be XY and have this condition. Does it even matter?

It seems this issue is challenging the distinction between fair and unfair advatages in competition. What if she had no testes, but had the same natural levels of testosterone (I recognize this would be extremely unlikely)? Would she be banned for this natural condition. What if a man had abnormally high levels of testosterone? Furthermore, I will point out that her condition is "natural" in that it occurs in nature. So what distinguishes between men and women in competion and should that be constructed in a manner that is fair to their natural identity as a man or woman? Maybe they should just have two non gender categories, basically distinguishing between hormone levels.

At this point my opinion is that this is a natural (if rare) advantage to her and that she should be allowed to keep her medal with no exceptions or footnotes or additional first place medals and that it would have to be definitevly concluded that she is a man to have her banned from women's competition.

I agree with a lot of what you said but remember Gender Identity and Sexual identity are two different things. A person can be genetically/physically/hormonolly a male but identify their Gender as Female and Vice-versa. In her case it appears her Gender is female but the report as to her sexual identification has yet to be fully revealled and according to the IAAF if will not be till their meeting in November. I will wait till then to really understand what is going on.

Gender identity = which gender you identify with
Sexual preference = which gender you want to have sex with
Biological sex(?) = the XX/XY thing

None of these necessarily has anything to do with the other one, and they are all continuums.

Edited by newleaf 2009-09-11 2:32 PM

This stuff has happened before....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislawa_Walasiewicz      


 

Interesting lil update
http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ys-intersexplight090913&prov=...

I think this is a very good point. As stated in the follow-up article:

As long as she was not knowingly doing anything to artificially enhance her performance, she should be allowed to compete as she is. She should at the very least keep her medals and records in good standing.

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Edited by AcesFull 2009-09-14 1:26 PM

All athletes undergo sex testing at the Olympics. The lone exception in recent memory was Princess Anne. (She competed in equestrian in the...1976 Olympics)

John

What makes a man a man? What makes a woman a woman? If a baby is born without a penis do we automatically call it a girl? A line in the most recent article linked really jumped out at me:

Semenya is a female with a birth defect, simple as that, said Dr. Myron Genel, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at Yale University.

Why isn't Semenya a male with a birth defect?

Actually I believe they stopped gender testing at the Olympics after the 1996 games. I think that for 2000 and on they have not done it due to the equality/human rights issues. (Not to mention it just made the athletes feel degraded.)

This user's post has been ignored.

Maybe it has to do with her having grown up identifying herself as a female. If she had grown up identifying as a male then maybe it would be the other way around? Could also be based on what her external Genitalia most closely resemble? Not really sure but hopefully as a doctor that person knows what they are talking about ...

Genetically she is a man. Her testosterone is more than her estrogen. Therefore she must compete as a man. So yes, she should be stripped of her medals. The other ladies were unable to fairly compete again her.

My heart goes out to this young lady and her family. As an NICU nurse with many years experience I have seen first hand the heartbreak that ambiguous genitalia and other such disorders can bring to families. I hope that her case is treated with dignity and sensitivity...........

I feel so bad for her.

I cannot believe how poorly this was handled by the IAAF. So many leaked reports, information getting out, etc. This should have been dealt with quietly, which is about as far from what happened as can be. This is a human being we are talking about, not some animal or test subject. Even the president of the IOC (which is usually very mum on issues like this) came out and commented on how badly this whole situation has been handled.

I hear what you're saying, and I realize that is a factor in all this, but her growing up identified as a female in no way makes her female biologically, and at the end of the day I think that is the bottom line. When a child is born with ambiguous genitalia, parents have to make some very hard decisions. Maybe deciding to raise this child as a girl was not the correct decision. And now this has to be played out on the public stage. This can't be easy for that family.

I am not sure that is olympic protocol. I do not think it is IAAF protocol either. I just think they stopped any required testing without legitimate reasons for individual cases. If that was the case a parent could decide at birth to raise a boy as a girl even if it required a little illegal surgery or some such, and then imagine the advantages that "girl" would have over all the others? When it comes to elite athletes Genetics do play a roll BUT can only account for so much of an advantage and I think that a case like this steps over that advantage line.

do you mean that testosterone to estrogen ratio is the definition of male vs female. or did you find somewhere that they had concluded that genetically she is male? it is not clear to me that biochemistry is equivalent to genetics. genetics has to do with the chromosomes (XX vs XY), right?

If she has testes, she's XY or something with a Y. (XXY, XYY less likely). Embryologically we're all female initially. Only when genes on the Y chromosome are expressed do we produce male features such as sex organs.

I think in this case her genitals were not externally ambiguous, so the family and doctors had no way to know she was anything other than a true female.

Another point discussed in that article was androgen sensitivity, and that some women might be resistant to the effects of testosterone.  If that were true in her case (and I obviously don't know), perhaps her having internal testes is insignificant.  (Though I must admit she does appear rather masculine to me...)

But plenty of female athletes appear masculine! There's also such a thing as a testosterone bath in utereo. It has been a long time since I looked into it, but it is a condition where a female fetus gets a wash of hormones that affect her development, but she is still fully and completely female. Often, however, she will be a tomboy, possibly have some facial hair, develop muscles more readily, and excel at physical activities. Should those women be excluded? I still stand by the argument that ALL elite athletes have not-normal bodies, which is why they do stuff the rest of us don't even bother to dream about.