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Perhaps my mind is so open that it's in danger of falling out, but when people say that that's so easy to define and then don't do so, I get really confused. I'
by silverquiet 3y ago
Perhaps my mind is so open that it's in danger of falling out, but when people say that that's so easy to define and then don't do so, I get really confused. I'm like, have you ever seen a dude who looks like a lady? It's a question that's bedeviled sports for a long time actually - in the 60's the Olympics required "nude parades" to check that competitors were in fact women, but obviously that had some problems. I believe they eventually settled on some sort of hormone ratio as the definition.
- iopq 3y agoYes, this dude looks like a lady: https://64.media.tumblr.com/83308f0513790d8503264e72aa5e854a/37840f84773c473e-66/s540x810/63354126dc1ffa77ee5b227c41f52e1d7b5e281d.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/83308f0513790d8503264e72aa5e854a...
- thaumasiotes 3y agoIn the classical Olympics, as in all Greek athletic competitions, all competitors were required to be nude during the events. You can't compete in clothes. It didn't cause any problems.
- daemoens 3y agoI mean, who actually cares about things like chafing, sunburns, or the awkward stares of spectators? Let's all just embrace our inner Greek and strip down for the 100-meter dash.
- samatman 3y agoHN really isn't the place for this conversation, but if we ever found a human whose biological sex was ambiguous using a simple checklist with maybe three tests in it, that would be a first. Woman and man are complex, female and male are not. Yes, this includes all known intersex conditions. No, there's no significant disagreement about those criteria.
- silverquiet 3y agoFunny, I think HN is the ideal place for this conversation, though it's a bit weird to get there on this thread. But it's a subject of fascination for me personally, and it's a shame that it's taken on weird political dimensions. I was under the impression that Caster Semenya tends to confound simple categorization like you suggest.
- samatman 3y ago"The condition is rare, affects only genetic males, and has a broad spectrum." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5α-Reductase_2_deficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5α-Reductase_2_deficiency
- silverquiet 3y agoAnd now you have posted a vague reply of your own; what are you trying to say? From the same article: > Management of this condition in the context of sex assignment is a challenging and controversial area. As I said, it seems that there are cases where things are not clear.
- samatman 3y ago> Sex assignment is the discernment of an infant's sex, usually at birth. The question is not whether you can briefly look between someone's legs and determine their sex. We know (per the article) that this can fail as much as 0.05% of the time. The question was what is Caster Semenya's biological sex: the answer is male. This is, in fact, clear.
- iopq 3y agoHow about a condition where the person looks like a woman, acts like a woman, but has XY chromosomes and internal testes? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndr...