6 ms·

I wonder if anyone has measured the speed in which reality is codified into law or regulation. Women have been fighting against males in female sports for many,

by xvxvx 7mo ago

I wonder if anyone has measured the speed in which reality is codified into law or regulation. Women have been fighting against males in female sports for many, many years. Why did it take so long for something so obvious to be acted upon?

happytoexplain 7mo ago
[flagged]
- moi2388 7mo ago
  What a ridiculous reply to a perfectly reasonable comment.
- LunicLynx 7mo ago
  If anything your comment is trying to personally vilify someone. Something the other comment clearly did not.
pasquinelli 7mo ago
how many actual cases does that amount to, i wonder.
- enoint 7mo ago
  Other comments mention the 1996 screen, which found 8/3387.
tensor 7mo ago
To educate others reading this, it's far from "obvious" how to classify gender in sports. Checking if they have the right "parts" physically doesn't do it. Checking for hormone levels doesn't do it. Even checking for Y chromosomes doesn't do it. In my opinion the way forward is to stop trying to find arbitrary ways to define gender, and just start making competition classes based on whatever factors are relevant to the event. E.g. a women with high testosterone? They can compete with men or women with the same testosterone bracket. This would also let men with low-T compete fairly rather then be excluded from the games. It's also relevant at what point other genetic changes are "unfair." There are absolutely genetic traits that give people HUGE advantages in various competitions. Just like the gender-related properties, these are natural and yet result in unfair competitions.
- VirusNewbie 7mo ago
  >checking for Y chromosomes doesn't do it Lol why does this not do it?
  - joshuahaglund 7mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrom... Among others
    - hervature 7mo ago
      I am going to try to keep my response apolitical to try to avoid fanning a culture war. That Wiki is the exact reason we are in this situation because we are bringing up points for 1 in 20000 or 0.005% of the population. Any system designed around 0.005% edge cases is going to be so complex that it is functionally impossible to do in practice. That is why one side says the solution is "obvious" because we have a simple rule that covers 99.9% of cases and the other 0.1% is unfortunately effectively barred from high level competition. Note, high level competition already bars 99.9% of people. Even though the opposing side is correct in pointing out these edge cases, it does nothing to advance an actual solution.
      - saalweachter 7mo ago
        There are statistically around 15 women AFAB with XY chromosomes in the NCAA by those numbers (assuming no correlation between Swyer syndrome and athletic performance). There are currently around 10 openly transgender women in the NCAA. Small numbers either way.
      - tensor 7mo ago
        Except I proposed a solution, which you ignored (I'm assuming here that I'm your "opposing side".) Also, there are a significant number of these sorts of arguments in high-level sports, probably precisely because these "0.1%" cases are exactly the ones that result in exceptional ability relative to norms. It's also curious that there is such obsession about naturally occurring genetic outliers with respect to females or gender but absolute silence about naturally occurring genetic outliers among men unrelated to gender. And surprise surprise the top athletes often have such outlier genetics! If you're drawing a distinction between natural genetic difference related to only gender and no other factors then sadly it's exactly a culture war, not a war based in science or fairness.
fn-mote 7mo ago
Can you say more details? What are you talking about?
wasabi991011 7mo ago
> Why did it take so long for something so obvious to be acted upon? A few reasons: 1. Sex is not as straightforward as most people think, and what to do with intersex people is not clear. 2. Trans athletes are underrepresented at pretty much all levels of sport, and aren't actually winning that much, making it not actually an urgent problem. 3. The philosophical underpinnings that advantages due to differences in body development should be disqualifying is a little broken, since we do not consider Michael Phelps being double jointed as being an unfair developmental advantage.
- appreciatorBus 7mo ago
  Being double jointed is something you are born with. Being male is something you are born with. Being male and competing against females is something you choose to do.
mandevil 7mo ago
The Olympics used to do this. From as early as the 1960's they were doing genetic testing on female athletes. They stripped Polish sprinter Ewa Kłobukowska of all her medals and records in 1967, in spite of the fact that she gave birth to a child a year later, which would seem to indicate that she was a woman. The Olympics only abandoned this testing regime after the 1996 Olympic Games when 8 women who were cis and assigned female from birth to that moment were wrongly tested as male (7 AIS cases, 1 5-alpha-steroid reductase deficiency ). The uproar from that caused the Olympics to realize that this was a lot more complicated then they thought and abandon the idea of a strict genetic test. Because those 8 women at that one Games were a lot more than all transfem Olympic athletes in history combined, the danger of ruling people out is much greater than the danger of allowing someone in who doesn't deserve it.
- starkparker 7mo ago
  Fascinating that this is being downvoted. Anyway, some more links to spread the getting-downvoted love: "Gender verification of female Olympic athletes" (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2002): https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2002/10000/gender_verification_of_female_olympic_athletes.1.aspx https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2002/10000/gende... > The shift to PCR-based techniques replaced one diagnostic genetic test with another but did not alleviate the problems. Positive results still stigmatized women with such conditions as androgen insensitivity, XY mosaicism, and 5-α-reductase deficiency. Both sex chromatin and SRY tests identify individuals with genetic anomalies that yield no competitive advantage. Therefore, finally in 1999, the IOC conditionally rescinded its 30-yr requirement for on-site gender screening of all women entered in female-only events at the Olympic Games, starting with Sydney in 2000. Rather, intervention and evaluation of individual athletes by appropriate medical personnel could be employed if there was any question about gender identity. This change has not been made permanent. "World Athletics' mandatory genetic test for women athletes is misguided. I should know – I discovered the relevant gene in 1990" (Andrew Sinclair, 2025): https://www.mcri.edu.au/news/insights-and-opinions/world-athletics-sry-gene-conversation https://www.mcri.edu.au/news/insights-and-opinions/world-ath... > It is worth noting these tests are sensitive. If a male lab technician conducts the test he can inadvertently contaminate it with a single skin cell and produce a false positive SRY result. > No guidance is given on how to conduct the test to reduce the risk of false results. > Nor does World Athletics recognise the impacts a positive test result would have on a person, which can be more profound than exclusion from sport alone. > There was no mention from World Athletics that appropriate genetic counselling should be provided, which is considered necessary prior to genetic testing and challenging to access in many lower- and middle-income countries. > I, along with many other experts, persuaded the International Olympic Committee to drop the use of SRY for sex testing for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. > It is therefore very surprising that, 25 years later, there is a misguided effort to bring this test back. "Medical Examination for Health of All Athletes Replacing the Need for Gender Verification in International Sports" (JAMA, 1992): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/395077 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/39507... > Even if a molecular method could be devised that had a very small error rate, it would still just constitute a test for a nucleic acid sequence, not for sex or gender. Although one can test for the main candidate gene for male sex determination, SRY, it still holds that most XY women test positive and some XX males test negative for SRY. It is possible that there will never be a laboratory test that will adequately assess the sex of all individuals. ... > (IAAF proposals held) that the purpose of gender verification is to prevent normal men from masquerading as women in women's comopetition was reinforced. Perhaps a genuine concern decades ago, this fear now seems to be a less pressing concern. One reason may be that routine drug testing now requires the voiding of urine be carefully watched by an official to make certain that urine from a given athlete actually comes from his or her urethra. Thus, athletes are already carefully watched in "doping stations". The likelihood of a male successfully masquerading as a female under such circumstances seems remote in current comparison.

by xvxvx 7mo ago

happytoexplain 7mo ago

[flagged]

moi2388 7mo ago
What a ridiculous reply to a perfectly reasonable comment.
LunicLynx 7mo ago
If anything your comment is trying to personally vilify someone. Something the other comment clearly did not.

pasquinelli 7mo ago

how many actual cases does that amount to, i wonder.

enoint 7mo ago
Other comments mention the 1996 screen, which found 8/3387.

tensor 7mo ago

To educate others reading this, it's far from "obvious" how to classify gender in sports. Checking if they have the right "parts" physically doesn't do it. Checking for hormone levels doesn't do it. Even checking for Y chromosomes doesn't do it. In my opinion the way forward is to stop trying to find arbitrary ways to define gender, and just start making competition classes based on whatever factors are relevant to the event. E.g. a women with high testosterone? They can compete with men or women with the same testosterone bracket. This would also let men with low-T compete fairly rather then be excluded from the games. It's also relevant at what point other genetic changes are "unfair." There are absolutely genetic traits that give people HUGE advantages in various competitions. Just like the gender-related properties, these are natural and yet result in unfair competitions.

VirusNewbie 7mo ago
>checking for Y chromosomes doesn't do it Lol why does this not do it?
- joshuahaglund 7mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrom... Among others
  - hervature 7mo ago
    I am going to try to keep my response apolitical to try to avoid fanning a culture war. That Wiki is the exact reason we are in this situation because we are bringing up points for 1 in 20000 or 0.005% of the population. Any system designed around 0.005% edge cases is going to be so complex that it is functionally impossible to do in practice. That is why one side says the solution is "obvious" because we have a simple rule that covers 99.9% of cases and the other 0.1% is unfortunately effectively barred from high level competition. Note, high level competition already bars 99.9% of people. Even though the opposing side is correct in pointing out these edge cases, it does nothing to advance an actual solution.
    - saalweachter 7mo ago
      There are statistically around 15 women AFAB with XY chromosomes in the NCAA by those numbers (assuming no correlation between Swyer syndrome and athletic performance). There are currently around 10 openly transgender women in the NCAA. Small numbers either way.
    - tensor 7mo ago
      Except I proposed a solution, which you ignored (I'm assuming here that I'm your "opposing side".) Also, there are a significant number of these sorts of arguments in high-level sports, probably precisely because these "0.1%" cases are exactly the ones that result in exceptional ability relative to norms. It's also curious that there is such obsession about naturally occurring genetic outliers with respect to females or gender but absolute silence about naturally occurring genetic outliers among men unrelated to gender. And surprise surprise the top athletes often have such outlier genetics! If you're drawing a distinction between natural genetic difference related to only gender and no other factors then sadly it's exactly a culture war, not a war based in science or fairness.

fn-mote 7mo ago

Can you say more details? What are you talking about?

wasabi991011 7mo ago

> Why did it take so long for something so obvious to be acted upon? A few reasons: 1. Sex is not as straightforward as most people think, and what to do with intersex people is not clear. 2. Trans athletes are underrepresented at pretty much all levels of sport, and aren't actually winning that much, making it not actually an urgent problem. 3. The philosophical underpinnings that advantages due to differences in body development should be disqualifying is a little broken, since we do not consider Michael Phelps being double jointed as being an unfair developmental advantage.

appreciatorBus 7mo ago
Being double jointed is something you are born with. Being male is something you are born with. Being male and competing against females is something you choose to do.

mandevil 7mo ago

The Olympics used to do this. From as early as the 1960's they were doing genetic testing on female athletes. They stripped Polish sprinter Ewa Kłobukowska of all her medals and records in 1967, in spite of the fact that she gave birth to a child a year later, which would seem to indicate that she was a woman. The Olympics only abandoned this testing regime after the 1996 Olympic Games when 8 women who were cis and assigned female from birth to that moment were wrongly tested as male (7 AIS cases, 1 5-alpha-steroid reductase deficiency ). The uproar from that caused the Olympics to realize that this was a lot more complicated then they thought and abandon the idea of a strict genetic test. Because those 8 women at that one Games were a lot more than all transfem Olympic athletes in history combined, the danger of ruling people out is much greater than the danger of allowing someone in who doesn't deserve it.

starkparker 7mo ago
Fascinating that this is being downvoted. Anyway, some more links to spread the getting-downvoted love: "Gender verification of female Olympic athletes" (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2002): https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2002/10000/gender_verification_of_female_olympic_athletes.1.aspx https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2002/10000/gende... > The shift to PCR-based techniques replaced one diagnostic genetic test with another but did not alleviate the problems. Positive results still stigmatized women with such conditions as androgen insensitivity, XY mosaicism, and 5-α-reductase deficiency. Both sex chromatin and SRY tests identify individuals with genetic anomalies that yield no competitive advantage. Therefore, finally in 1999, the IOC conditionally rescinded its 30-yr requirement for on-site gender screening of all women entered in female-only events at the Olympic Games, starting with Sydney in 2000. Rather, intervention and evaluation of individual athletes by appropriate medical personnel could be employed if there was any question about gender identity. This change has not been made permanent. "World Athletics' mandatory genetic test for women athletes is misguided. I should know – I discovered the relevant gene in 1990" (Andrew Sinclair, 2025): https://www.mcri.edu.au/news/insights-and-opinions/world-athletics-sry-gene-conversation https://www.mcri.edu.au/news/insights-and-opinions/world-ath... > It is worth noting these tests are sensitive. If a male lab technician conducts the test he can inadvertently contaminate it with a single skin cell and produce a false positive SRY result. > No guidance is given on how to conduct the test to reduce the risk of false results. > Nor does World Athletics recognise the impacts a positive test result would have on a person, which can be more profound than exclusion from sport alone. > There was no mention from World Athletics that appropriate genetic counselling should be provided, which is considered necessary prior to genetic testing and challenging to access in many lower- and middle-income countries. > I, along with many other experts, persuaded the International Olympic Committee to drop the use of SRY for sex testing for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. > It is therefore very surprising that, 25 years later, there is a misguided effort to bring this test back. "Medical Examination for Health of All Athletes Replacing the Need for Gender Verification in International Sports" (JAMA, 1992): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/395077 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/39507... > Even if a molecular method could be devised that had a very small error rate, it would still just constitute a test for a nucleic acid sequence, not for sex or gender. Although one can test for the main candidate gene for male sex determination, SRY, it still holds that most XY women test positive and some XX males test negative for SRY. It is possible that there will never be a laboratory test that will adequately assess the sex of all individuals. ... > (IAAF proposals held) that the purpose of gender verification is to prevent normal men from masquerading as women in women's comopetition was reinforced. Perhaps a genuine concern decades ago, this fear now seems to be a less pressing concern. One reason may be that routine drug testing now requires the voiding of urine be carefully watched by an official to make certain that urine from a given athlete actually comes from his or her urethra. Thus, athletes are already carefully watched in "doping stations". The likelihood of a male successfully masquerading as a female under such circumstances seems remote in current comparison.