Semenya misses Tokyo, may be forced out of Olympics for good

He had a nice run.

This is a tough one, she was born a woman but naturally has an elevated testosterone level. She actually did do suppression therapy from 2010-2015. That lead to problems like weight gain and abdominal pains and other things.

While I do see there is an advantage, I feel bad because she was just born like that.

Forced out for being different. So, where have I seen that before?

OK, who really believes "she" is a biological female? Usain Bolt would be jealous. Having long hair and wearing a couple pieces of jewelry doesn't count.

The issue here dan, as an athlete wants and believes to compete as a Girl.

Now the IOC has a genuine concern, 21st century we are living in a politically different world.

Trans rights have lead to violence in Los Angeles.

Have to accept the fact, I am a women, born as such, Caster Semenya isn't, so sorry, blame all sundry. If ir makes the fact bearable. But before and after Caster Semenya floats between genders.

Male/ Female it matter in sport, the level playing field. Whether Caster Semenya can potentially grow a beard  is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

Caster Semenya must accept the fact we are born with whatever nature intended.

The IOC is hewing to definitions of gender. She is not transgender. She is a female with a somewhat unique biology.

The Finnish skier Eero Mäntyranta had a genetic mutation that boosted his red blood cell count by 25-50% (he produced more blood hormone erythropoetin, or EPO). He and won several Olympic medals with this natural form of doping.

Competitors with genetic mutations causing increases in red blood cell mass, and who experience enhanced oxygen-carrying capacity as a result, are not required to reduce their biological levels.

Other women with disorders resulting in higher than expected levels of testosterone, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are not required to reduce their biological advantage.

But it's a fella...

M3, that could be interpreted and as a political wooden spoon, There is a possible debate to be had for these so called Intersex. competitors to have there own event. The issue though would be inclusion.

Would society as a whole politically accept, be comfortable, with the intersex track and field.

That is frankly stated with respect. It a no no,

Semenya got a bum deal at birth, No amount of legal toing and froing will change that fact

Crazy, this just just going to make people watch less of these already tainted games.

what all this gobbledygook, Talk about making it hard for yourself (IOC) if it is artificial high levels yes bar the lady but if a lady has natural high levels meaning her body produces the high levels without taking any enhancements let her compete but the IOC are telling her to take artificial enhancements to lower her level. This is the same has cheating. I call for this many time the IOC should be dismantled.

She works so hard, only to be dismissed because of discrimination. No more, no less.

There are many alternative solutions to resolve this. For example, why not award additional medals and qualification spots to the next best athlete who doesn't suffer from an extremely rare medical condition or hasn't changed their gender? Athletes like Semenya and Hubbard can compete and win gold, but they won't be the only gold medalists.

I suspect they (and their backers) would reject this as discriminatory because for them it's not actually about being allowed to compete and win. Their real desire is to bend society to accept the abnormal as normal, which is, by definition, impossible.

Large gametes or small gametes? It’s not complicated.

These Olympic rules are too abtritary and seemingly lean towards rich countries' advantages. In one case, here is a black woman from poor family born with female genital, identified as a female, but has Y chromosome. So they stop her from competing due to her natural advantage even though it's what Nature made her. Then there is a case of a white millionaire man who identified as a female, transitioned to become a woman yet still retain their natural advantage for muscle and bone development. This person was an average weight lifter as a man, yet perform at Olympic competition level as a woman even they are in their 40s. How does this even make sense? The whole thing also stinks of most of the -ism, sexism, racism and even classism.

This is just discrimination against high testosterone levels. No different from other forms of discrimination, like race, sex, orientation, etc. And discrimination against hard work.

This one argument, I don't agree, but one must see both sides to this intersex debate.

That is a interesting and valid point .....Intersex.

Ten ethical flaws in the Caster Semenya decision on intersex in sport....

https://theconversation.com/ten-ethical-flaws-in-the-caster-semenya-decision-on-intersex-in-sport-116448

This probably won't help.;.....

“Now is all about having fun,” she said at a meet in South Africa in April. “We’ve achieved everything that we wanted‚ all the major titles‚ inspiring the youth.”

This makes sense, it is time to walk away. Or run quickly.

raising criticism from Semenya's camp that the regulations were specifically designed to target her because of her dominance.

Exactly.

If Semenya was America would this absurd rule been created? Of course not

The two runners that finished second and third behind Semenya at the 2016 Olympics, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi and Margaret Wambui of Kenya, have said publicly they also are affected by the testosterone regulations and have been banned from the 800, too, unless they undergo medical intervention.

Poor Africans targeted and at the receiving end again.

Imagine, You have a very high iQ and you are sitting for an exam and you are told you can't sit for the exam because it would be unfair to the others whose iQ is average so they have to reduce their iQ medically. How absurd and it surprises me that there are some here who don't see anything wrong with this ridiculous rule.

This stupid rule reminds me of Surya Bonaly unfairly cheated at world championship skating for doing a back flip why because she was black.

Caster Semenya identifies as female, lets be honest nature did not do Caster Semenya any favors.

Add politics into the mix, and what you have is a never ending legal quagmire.

They should have testosterone limits for middle distance races too. Actually, all. Men run much faster in the middle and long distance runs so it's still unfair.

When I look at the photo above, one of these is not like the others.

Can she compete in the men's races? In the US, there are female football players (usually kickers), wrestlers, and baseball players.

Are there clear, large, differences in the testosterone levels between 99% of men and women? Can a man with extremely low testosterone compete in the women's races? This feels like an opportunity for the governing bodies to solve the male/female/other gender issue by some mix of hormone levels and chromosomes.

Let's see solutions that are fair and inclusive, if we can.

Funny how a lot of "equality" posters always seem absent from this particular story.....

More to the point, this is a pretty tragic set of events for an athlete. Through no fault of thier own they have been asked to dope using life altering drugs to compete in events because people think a natural advantage is unfair. Even more because the ban is so targeted.

Caster is a very rare case, externally she has female organs but no womb, uterus etc. She does however, have internal testes and XY chromosomes making her biologically male. She is "natural" and hasn't cheated but does have an unfair advantage of competing against women who haven't been pumping testosterone around their bodies for 30 years.

It would be fair to her to let her run but unfair to other athletes.

I think the doctors from 100 years ago were smarter, they knew right away who was male and who was female.

Idiocracy is unfolding at record speed right before our eyes. The more we advance the more we distance ourselves from our basic nature as human beings.

The South African once said she wanted to run at top track events until she was 40. 

I don’t see much problem with a man competing against women at the elite level even at age 40.

Why not make the woman and male categories based on a simple genetic test.

If you carry the Y chromosome you can not compete in women's events.

Simple.

This kind of oversimplified non-solutions are precisely why the issue became so complicated. A person without working testosterone receptors can carry a Y chromosome and not have any advantage over a person without it, on the contrary it would have disadvantages, so the rule can be demonstrated as unfair.

Sports officials were used to just outsource a lame pseudoscientific report to get away with simplistic rules that did not actually reflected reality, from concussions in football to "adequate" hormone levels.

That won't work now, real scientist have no problem proving that the artificial parameters can't separate people with or without unfair advantages, so the rules can be rejected scientifically. And in the void comes the chaos of more badly sustained, conflicting, self-defeating rules.

Semenya has male chromosomes. The blood testosterone level of the average person with male chromosomes is about 10 times greater than that of a person with female chromosomes.