"If she commits suicide, it will be on all our heads."

[ccharles000]

From MedEIndia's Gender Row Runner Semenya Placed On Suicide Watch (emphais added):

South African runner Caster Semenya, who is at the center of a gender row, has been placed on suicide watch amid fears for her mental stability.

The Daily Star quoted officials as saying that psychologists are caring the 18-year-old round-the- clock after it was claimed tests had proved she was a hermaphrodite.

...Lawmaker Butana Komphela, chair of South Africa's sports committee, was quoted as saying: "She is like a raped person. She is afraid of herself and does not want anyone near her. If she commits suicide, it will be on all our heads. The best we can do is protect her and look out for her during this trying time."

South African athletics officials confirmed Semenya is now receiving trauma counselling at the University of Pretoria...

Uncivil society...uncivil media...uncivil people...what's happened to Caster Semenya sucks so much raw eggs. She deserved -- and deserves -- so much better from the collective us than what she's received.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/12986/if-she-commits-suicide-it-will-be-on-all-our-heads

[Dorian Gray]

1. This poor girl

I feel terrible about this shit-storm that surrounds her. I hope she is able to seek counseling and such that will help her through this. Take away the gender identity issue... she's also lost the ability to compete.

[Dulcinea]

63. I feel sorry for her.

I hope she can compete again when this is settled.

But I have to say that if a girl hasn't menstruated by age 18, & apparently she hasn't, a trip to the gyn. is in order. That should be a big cause for concern, even in the case of an elite athlete. In so-called "normal" women athletes, periods stopping are a warning sign.

Dulcinea, runner for 25 years

[bobbolink]

113. I'm afraid you are placing too much confidence in "seeking counseling"

Anymore, it almost only relies on drugs.

[ejpoeta]

2. wtf is wrong with people!! someone just wanted to try to delegitimize someone

because she won and they didn't!! shame on anyone who would do something like this. she worked hard and won.... whoever is behind this bs.... instead of trying to tear others down, just WORK HARDER NEXT TIME!!

[carpe diem]

3. she has been poorly served by the different sporting organizations

involved, particularly in her home country...her family themselves said she was always mistaken for a boy and when she started running, her coaches and organization should have anticipated questions being asked because there have been situations like this before in track and field...they may not have wanted to be rude at the time, but avoiding the obvious only made it worse when she started winning races...

[BoneDaddy]

4. It is a legitimate question

whether or not you do not like the circus this has turned into.

Where does a hermaphrodite fall into competitive sports?

I am not justifying the firestorm of nonsense that she has been plagued with, but I think the issue bears consideration. Shame that the issue couldn't be dealt with in a mature adult fashion but it is certainly thought provoking.

[comtec]

5. In whichever category shi feels most comfortable associating with

or at least identifies closest too.

i have always thought the idea of a male and female competition a bit on the sexist side.

Part of me understands that men and women perform differently, but then again... we're supposed to be above this kind of gender crap aren't we?

[mopinko]

6. gender crap

can't really include transcending biology. minimizing it, yes. eliminating it? no.

[BoneDaddy]

8. Men and women perform differently period

whether or not you like it or approve of it. It simply is a non-issue, the difference between men and women athletically at that level.

How is male and female competition sexist?

I have no problem with her identifying with whatever gender she chooses, but given her biology (which is beyond her control) it obviously gives her a distinct advantage when competing against women.

[unblock]

13. it's sexist because, of all the ways to divide people, we chose gender.

why not divide people based on height, for instance?
that would make more sense in, say, basketball than gender.

boxing divides people based on weight, which makes a lot of sense, even though that can be gamed. of course, they divide based on gender as well.



yes, men and women, perform differently due to different biologies.

but someone who is 5 feet tall will perform differently than someone who is 6 feet tall as well, also due to biology. i'm not aware of any sport that provides for a separate division for short people.

i would argue that in basketball at least, divisions based on height make more sense than division based on gender.

[Gwendolyn]

15. When was the last time you saw a short basketball player?

Or a 90-pound shot-putter? 300-pound gymnast? Of COURSE body structure has a lot to with success in athletics and the different sports select competitors based on specific criteria. But that has nothing to do with the disparities between the sexes and there is no way females can compete on an even level with men in most sports. It's utterly funny to suggest it.

[BoneDaddy]

17. Yes

well said and there doesn't have to be a moral or judgemental aspect of something that just IS. It would be like arguing why men are not having more babies. It is simply a physical reality.

[unblock]

22. it just "is" that short people don't do well at basketball against 7-footers?

why not have a separate division for short people?
isn't height far more relevant than gender to basketball performance?

i'd take a team of well-trained 6'7" women over a team of well-trained 5'0" men any day.

[BoneDaddy]

25. I see your point, but that would be an unfair sample

We are talking about professional sports where the gap between men and women is much larger.

And sadly enough women's sports does not generate as much interest, and therefore, money.

[Gwendolyn]

26. No gender is completely relevant.

You wouldn't have a team of 5'0 men competing. They're between 6'6' and 7'0 tall. Women don't get to that height. Nor do they have the same power. You just don't seem to get the basics. Men have more power/height in general due to the fact that they carry more muscle mass than women do and are built differently. It's an unfair advantage in most cases.

[unblock]

30. how are physical differences based on gender "unfair" yet differences based on height not?

[Gwendolyn]

37. It's about peak performance, not "fairness."

People watch sports competitions to see the best of the best. Competitors are selected based on numerous criteria, including the body structure/physiology which will produce the maximum result. Lol, why can't you see that? Nobody wants to watch people who are slower/weaker/shorter/less graceful when they can look at bodies that are bigger/stronger/faster/etc.

The differences in gender are quite marked and since males tend to be bigger/stronger/faster etc... you would have virtually no women on the teams. Then you'd have to institute some kind of affirmative action thing for female athletes just to make sure there was a "fair" quota of them representing each sport. That would bring down the level of performance. Who wants to watch below par performances? You might as well shut off the tv or forget those expensive tickets and just go catch some neighborhood softball pick up game.

[unblock]

43. again, peak performance, but not when it comes to women?

so your argument is this:

no one wants to see short people playing basketball because there are tall people in a different division who can play better
BUT
people DO want to see women play basketball even though there are men in a different division who can play better.


i agree about the popularity and economics implied by such a statement, but i don't understand how you can't see any sexism/heightism/weightism underlying that popularity and economics.

society is fine with a separate league for women even if they're not the "peak performers" but society couldn't care less about short or lightweight people for identical reasons.

[Gwendolyn]

54. Women athletes ARE peak performers.

They compete against other women because that ensures the competition is fair and exciting. Women's competitions are not as popular as men's, but there is enough to promote and invest in it. Your beef seems to be that you want individual weight/height classes for ALL sports so that the people who want to watch short basketball, and 300 pound gymnastics can get their thrills too. I guess there just isn't enough interest in it for either male or female sports fans. Sorry. :)

[unblock]

66. i'm not arguing the economics, i agree that women's sports are commercially viable

in a way that "short" or "lightweight" sports would generally not be. and i have no beef with that, although i do have a beef that athletics is all about "peak performance". it's also about competition and victory and fan-building and merchandising and entertainment. people want to see entertaining slam dunks in basketball. if it were all about competition and athletics, they would have raised the basket a couple of feet long ago.

all i'm saying is that there's inherent sexism in carving out a separate division for women, but doing no such carving out almost any other criteria. i'm not saying it's right or wrong, i'm just saying that there's something inherently sexist in our culture that makes first divide up the people on the basis of gender, of all things (especially, given the o.p., how murky that definition can be) and then decide that the peak performers within that category should have a separate division.

i'm surprised you don't see any sexism in that. i'm sure you can imagine a rather different society that cared a lot less about gender distinctions, but made a big fuss about height distinctions, breaking out sports based on height instead of gender. doens't that say something about societal attitudes toward gender and height?

[Gwendolyn]

79. No, I DON'T see the sexism in it.

What I see is the LACK of sexism in that woman have the SAME opportunities to excel and win in sports, on the same equal competitive level that men do. If we were sexist, we wouldn't bother with women's sports at all.

[Maru Kitteh]

67. Under your own criteria the 5'0" men would be competing against 5'0" women

And with equal training the men are going to win EVERY SINGLE TIME. Even with lesser training they're likely to pull off a respectable win the majority of the time.

It seems you might not be aware of exactly why males, and those with naturally masculinized biology, enjoy an insurmountable advantage over genotypal females, so I'll try to explain some of the reasons here in brief.

Testosterone increases bone mass all over the body. - Let's say you need to pull an engine out of a large truck. You can hook the strongest motor in town up to a pulley to lift that motor out, but it will never work unless you have an adequately strong beam to hook it to. Same is true of the human muscle. The denser, larger, stronger bone of the male supports greater strength. Bone density can be increased through load-bearing weight over time but if you take one typical genotypal male and one typical genotypal female of the same size the male will always have an advantage.

Testosterone increases exponentially the number of mitochondria naturally present in every skeletal muscle fiber in the body. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of a cell. This means that pound for pound, muscle tissue found in the masculinized body will be much stronger and enjoy greater endurance than the same muscle power of a like genotypal female.

Testosterone also increases the amount of available glycogen stored in a the muscle cells of the masculinized body, so more fuel is available for use than in the genotypal female body.

Testosterone has a direct effect on cardiac mass and cardiac output. The greater cardiac output and mass mean that the masculinized body can deliver more oxygen rich blood to the muscles and carry away waste products faster and more efficiently than the heart of a same-sized female.

Speaking of blood, testosterone even increases the amount of hemoglobin attached to each red blood cell pumped by the heart, so each and every red blood cell delivered carries more molecules of oxygen to the muscle tissues.

There are even more examples of how increased testosterone, especially when present throughout development effect a quantifiable advantage for masculinized individuals, but these are probably the most relevant.

[unblock]

72. thanks for the biological detail

i do fully appreciate the natural, biological advantages of maleness when it comes to competitive sports, all other things being equal, and even perhaps all other things being slightly unequal.

my point is that there are many ways to divvy up all of humanity and make similar arguments based on biology, physiology, and genetics. the fact that we don't split out population into "tall" and "short" people and have two categories of sports based on that says something about our society. similarly for "heavyweight" and "lightweight". the fact that we DO split out based on gender also says something about our society. that's all i'm saying.

i'm not, by the way, suggesting that splitting things out on the basis of height or weight ALONE would be any more "right" or "pc" than splitting out based on gender. any such split says something about how our society thinks of people in groups.

we don't have "tall" and "short" divisions in sports because that's not a distinction that has particular meaning in our society. people don't care to see the best basketball player in the under 5'7" league. but people do want to see the best basketball team in the womens' league because people care about women as a group.

now it's pretty self-evident that tall people have a huge advantage in basketball, but the strong physiological arguments for creating divisions based on class to create "fairness" and more even competition are overwhelmed by the fact that society doesn't care to break people out by height in that way.


by the way, divisions based on height AND gender would also be an interesting concept and would say something about our society were we to see that as something popular and commercially viable. my point was that we're a sexist society, and as such we think to divide based on gender and try to be sensitive to being "fair" to women. hence the womens' basketball league. but we aren't a heightist society (at least not in quite the same way) so we don't care to be fair to short people.

[Maru Kitteh]

93. OK. Let's run with this.

Your post kind of goes from here to there and back again so let's just discuss it top to bottom.

You say you understand the biological advantage that androgenic action confers, so that's a great starting point. I hope that means that we agree at least that equivalently trained genotypical males will (barring atypical circumstances) almost nearly always perform at a higher levels than equivalently trained genotypical females of the same height and weight on a physical level.


On your second, third, and fourth paragraphs what I hear you saying is that you don't understand why we don't further divide our sports into short and tall categories, light and heavy categories, and that our practice of having womens and mens sports divisions constitutes some kind of statement about our society, even while you agree that dividing sports by the other categories is not likely to be more just.

I argue here that if it were more just to divide sports by those other categories, we would see manifestations of such, and indeed we have. Boxing categorizes by weight because in that sport, weight is a distinction with a difference - but the reason why you will not see boxing matches between 200lb male boxers and 200lb female boxers is that the females would be eliminated immediately - and quite possibly at great detriment to life and health. The physiological advantages conferred by maleness are purely a product of biology and evolution. They have no regard for current attitudes and ponderings about gender.

In your fifth paragraph you make the assertion that there is some kind of physiological basis for dividing people and sport by class. I find this to be a bizarre assertion, as the physiological potential of your body remains the same no matter what your current sociological status may be. A fourteen year old kid born into a working-class family has the same physiological potential whether her family wins the lotto this week or looses their house.

In your sixth paragraph, you assert that the reason why we have separate mens and womens sports is because we are a sexist society. A agree we are a sexist society. Sport, however is the one area where we have made an effort to ameliorate some of that. We have separate divisions for male and female sport specifically because we do value the effort, skill, and contribution of the female athlete. The abolition of gender specific sport would have the immediate effect of eliminating all but a very, very few women from advanced sporting competition. Such an action would necessarily devalue the female athlete.

[unblock]

94. sorry if i'm not being clear

i do agree than maleness conveys, pound for pound, inch for inch, certain athletic advantages that become quite compelling when comparing peak performing men and women and that men would overwhelmingly outperform women in virtually all types of competitions.

i DO think that dividing based on height and weight would be more just, although i'm not saying that statement is not meant to ignore gender. i.e., subdividing gender divisions based on height and/or weight class would work, or using a point system to translate maleness into a certain point advantage do make things more comparable, e.g., pit 180-pound women against 150pound men and/or 6'0" women against 5'7" men. i don't know what the exact tradeoff would be, but you get the idea.

i agree that pitting 200lb men against 200lb women in boxing would be a bad and dangerous idea.

in my fifth paragraph of my previous post, i did not mean the word "class" to refer to "socioeconomic class". i meant height class (or weight class or some other class that has direct physiological relevance). i do not in any way mean to imply that class has anything to do with physiology.

finally, i agree that separate divisions may have overall positive effect. i've been saying that they're indicative of a sexist society, or perhaps more precisely, a society that has become very sensitive to sexist distinctions. i think separating sports based on gender is an effort to do the right thing and on balance it probably is best -- the positive opportunities and attitudes for women probably outweight the perpetuation of distinctions along gender lines (even if 100% relevant to athletics, risks spillover in attitudes toward different treatment based on gender in other areas where it is not so relevant). my point that it's sexist or indicative of sexism doesn't mean i want it banned or undone; i agree that pitting all athletes together would be worse than what we have now. but i do think that further divisions, or more comprehensive ones, taking into account more than just gender, would be more just -- and the fact that we don't do this (except in boxing, e.g.) says quite a bit about our relative attitudes toward sexism, heightism, and weightism and such.

[Gwendolyn]

100. Division based on height is not "just" at all.

Here's an example for you: two women compete in a bodybuilding show. They are both 5'4." The one with the light bone frame looks really good and carries nice muscle at 120. The other one with a heavier frame would look like absolute crap at that weight, emaciated and stringy, but at 133 she rocks like an amazon queen. How is it more fair to herd people into height classes when one might be a huge powerhouse, while the other is a little bird?

Reverse it to weight class, and you'll have disparities in height. Lol. Your hilarious idea of pitting people of same weights and heights against each other is just that, hilarious.

You keep starting off your posts saying it's good and fair to gender-separate, but then every single post goes back to some example of shoveling men and women back together. It's pretty obvious that you don't have much knowledge of physiology and the way individual body frames work in the sports arena, but you're trying to find some PC solution to answer your beef about shorter basketball players not making the professional leagues. You decry that society is not more heightist or weightist (apparently not knowing that "isms" refer to inferiority, but whatever) when the focus on those areas only contribute to discrimination. "Sexism" on the other hand, results in some positive outcomes.

What are your opinions about national teams and/or the Olympics? Is it just and right that we pit people from different countries against each other like we do in the incredibly popular Euro soccer matches? Doesn't that contribute to tribalism and nationalism? Shouldn't we abolish teams based on country origin and do the blue, red and green teams like we did in high school athletics? That would be much more "PC." And I mean, why should the Russians, or the Americans consistently get the greatest number of winning athletes in the Olympics? Why shouldn't Canadians or the Brits get some of those American athletes on their teams to even things out?

And why do we give scholarships to intellectually gifted people? Is it fair that through some fluke they were born with a high IQ and can sail through life, while the mediocre but exceptionally hard working student gets bupkiss? That sends a terrible message. Shouldn't there be scholarships for the middling among us instead? If you're concerned about height and weight fairness, why not ask the question about intellect at the same time?

Again, you just don't understand much about competition or physiology.

[BoneDaddy]

114. Holy crap

I could have spent a decade and would not come up with a better explanation...Right on the money and brilliantly said

[BlooInBloo]

50. My money is on the 5'0" men - in a blowout.

[unblock]

21. but that's the point.

fine, there's no way that women can compete against men in certain sports.
but there's also no way that short people can compete against tall people, or bantamweights against heavyweights in certain sports.

why have we have decided to divide people based on gender so women can compete but not decided to divide people based on height or weight (except in boxing) so short or lightweight people can compete?

if your argument is that certain sports select certain body structures, why is gender not relevant? gender is certainly a body structure that has some bearing on athletics. why make a distinction based on gender but not based on any other body structureal criteria?

what's funny is defending distinction based on gender but laughing at distinction based on other physical characteristics.


naturally, there are individual exceptions to these generalizations. in the case of short people playing basketball, spud webb at 5'7" comes to mind, though obviously height is a huge natural advantage, and i believe i recall a woman who was on the men's pga tour.

[Gwendolyn]

23. Nobody wants to watch competitors who are not suited for peak sports performance.

Do you want to watch 90-poundlings going for that powerlifting record in their weight class? Yawn. Or how about the 300-pound butterfly stroke swim meet? Nah. The people who are not suited for maximum performance due to physiology restrictions just don't draw a crowd. Why would they when you can watch a really exciting event where the competitors are totally suited to the sport and will beat those world records. And by having eighty different weight/height classes for every event it would just make the whole process of watching athletics like the Olympics even more endless than it already is.

[unblock]

28. and yet that's not true of boxing

yes, the heavyweights get the most attention, but there have also been legends in lighter classes such as sugar ray leonard.

and again, the same argument goes for women. there simply is no argument that justify dividing people up based on gender but not based on height or weight unless you look at the social/political/economic side of things (which is what opens the door for concerns about sexism/heightism/weightism). if your argument is that women can't compete at the level men can, then your "yawn" argument applies to women as well.

personally, i'd find 150-pound-and-under football far more interesting than women's baseball. but then again, i find baseball a good sport for a nap anyway....

[Gwendolyn]

44. It's not true for bodybuilding either.

But these are the few exceptions. The argument that women simply can't compete against men on an even playing level because they lack the muscle mass and height that men have is an excellent one and the only relevant one. You just want to keep ignoring that. No woman would ever win a gold medal again if they had to compete against men. So what would be the point of even trying? On the other hand, women can and do compete successfully against each other, and people love to watch because the competitions are well-matched and therefore thrilling. Of course, if you don't enjoy women's sports, then that's another matter and yes, that would elicit yawns. Flip the channel to men's sports. Seriously, no one cares about heightism/weightism/strengthism in sports. You might like to watch lower performance level "PC" sports but the majority does not.

[unblock]

53. the genders get different treatment because women lack the height of men, but SHORT people don't

lack the height of tall people??

a basketball league with a height limit or brackets such that everyone was of comparable height would actually make it a vastly more interesting sport. you'd actually need more strategy, coaching, teamwork, talent, and skill, rather than simply wingspan and reach. similarly, football with weight limits would prevent franchises from winning simply by shoving back the other line with their drafted/purchased extra muscle mass. again, it would mean more skill and talent and so on.

simply being bigger or taller is not an athletic achievement.


i agree with you that women, at the top level, rarely match the height and muscle mass. but how does that warrant a separate league for women when you could instead create a separate league based on height and/or muscle mass? yes, if it's when society want, fine -- but then, that' because society is fine with dividing things up based on gender but finds it absurd to divide things up based on height or weight or muscle mass. and that's where the sexism comes in. we always think of ways dividing based on gender but not based on other criteria.

[Gwendolyn]

81. You have EVERYTHING bass-ackwards.

Height, weight, power are only PART of the equation, and by far not the only criteria. Talent/natural ability/instinct, training, drive, reflexes count for much of, if not most of, an athlete's success in the competitive arena. A bunch of talentless, same-gender short players are no more fun to watch than mediocre tall ones. One's body structure is merely an edge, not the end all, be all, of a person's ability.

Again, for the zillionth time, even if you matched height and weight, women would STILL not be on an even playing field with men, and asking them to compete in an unfair arena like that IS sexist. Please see Maru Kitteh's thoughtful post AGAIN because you obviously didn't understand it, or ignored it to drive home your pointless point. The whole reason we HAVE women's leagues and separate Olympic events is because we're NOT sexist. We give women the EQUAL opportunity to compete and WIN. Women's leagues are a relatively new thing (as we've evolved to a less sexist society) whereas before they were relegated to crochet and pie-baking competitions because they CAN'T WIN consistently against men. You might want to watch a flick like A League of Their Own to get an idea of what sexism in sports really entails.

[unblock]

88. you're obviously not listening to me. please re-read my posts.

again, you're probably stuck on the usually negative connotation of the word "sexism". i'm not saying that it's bad to have separate divisions for women. all i'm saying is that it's indicative of the fact that we're in a sexist society.

i fully understand the physiology and recognize that women would be at a disadvantage competing directly against men, even controlling for height and weight. my point is not that they should be made to do so.

my point is that is says something about our society that we care to split up based on gender but not based on height when short people are similarly at a disadvantage. all the talent, training, reflexes, and so on in the world will not make a 5'0" basketball player succeed in the nba. yet we don't care one bit to be "fair" to short people. because we don't live in a heightist society, at least not in the way we live in a sexist society.

therefore we find it natural to have a separate division for women but unnatural to have a separate division for short people. you have a good point that women would generally be at a disadvantage in a division that had a height limit but mixed genders. but then, similarly, short people would be at a disadvantage in a division that had women only but permitted all heights. our society sees it as important to be fair to women, to have a women's league, but doesn't give a second thought to giving short people a division of their own to be fair to them.

how can that not say something about how our society sees gender distinctions vs. height distictions or weight distinctions? again, maybe you're stuck on the usually negative connotations of the term "sexism". i think it's indicative of a society that's sensitive to distinctions based on gender, and perhaps now trying to be more fair to women vs. having been less fair in the past.

but again it's indicative of a society that makes many distinctions based on gender, some appropriate, some not; and fewer sharp distinction based on other criteria such as height and weight. you can say you're being fair to the top performing women, but you're not being fair to the top performing short people or the top performing lightweights.

it may be sexist in a positive way for women if they have a division of their own.
but it's sexist in a negative way for very short men to be lumped in with very tall men when they might compete more appropriately with short women, or with other short men. athletically, short/light men are lumped together with big/tall men for no reason other than gender and that's sexist in a negative way. having many division so that more people could compete might be a good thing, not so much for spectating but perhaps for getting more people off their butts and actually competing, given the opportunity to be in a division of comparable body types.

alternatively, you could have just two divisions but where you took more into account than simply gender. maleness would count for a certain (large) number of points, as would each inch of height, as would each pound of weight or muscle mass or cc of lung capacity or whatever. over a certain cutoff, you're in one league, else you're in the other. this would be more fair to all. i'm not actually advocating this or suggesting that it's remotely practical or commercially viable. all i'm saying is that that would get away from dividing solely based on gender and therefore get away from my point that dividing solely based on gender is indicative of a sexist society.


and yes, i fully understand that there's many more genetic factors as well as a ton of effort and training involved in achieving top athletic capabilities. and by the way, there's no crying in baseball :)

[Gwendolyn]

89. Your focus on height and weight is unimportant in most sports.

Weight classes apply to combat sports only: wrestling, boxing, mixed martial arts in order to guarantee a fair "fight." Power lifting is in there too, for obvious reasons.

Most other sports do not require a specific weight or height in order to win. Gymnastics, swimming, baseball, archery, soccer, volleyball, skiing, speed skating, hockey are only a few of the sports where exceptional height does not trump talent/speed/training. Power is a different matter, which is why steroid use is rampant.

If you were to abolish gender-separated sports, you would either have to ask women to take massive quantities of steroids to match the power/weight class of men, or lower the bar for men. A female sprinter might be at her competitive best at 150 lbs while a male might do best at 180. Who gets penalized? Do you force her to take tons of androgens to pack on 30 lbs so she's now more lumbering and slow, or do you starve the male till he gets down to 150? At the present time, people are allowed to compete at their personal best. If the 160 lb male is as good as 190 lb male, why should he be forced into a lower weight class? That's punishing people by not allowing them to compete against their worthiest opponents.

Of course gender is important and we are reminded of it many times a day. Height and weight should absolutely NOT be factors in how we view people in society. We shouldn't specifically hire people based on their height or weight. We don't choose our friends based on height and weight, but gender does come into play. We choose our mates based on gender which is one of the most important areas in life. Do you just choose anyone for romance, male or female, as long as they make your height and weight preference? No. If someone prefers to have sex with a skinny person over a heavy one, we find it shallow. (On DU, you'll be flayed.) We also have different health concerns, and require different products to be comfortable. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with embracing and acknowledging gender differences.

It is unfair that shorter, talented people won't make it onto a professional level basketball team, but there are only so many spots open. A heavy-framed girl won't make it onto the gymnastic team when there are lighter-than-air ectomorphs competing for their spot either. There are all kinds of unfair limitations.

Of course, the shorter people could always revolt and start their own basketball league for the 6'0 and under crowd. :) No one is stopping anyone from doing so. Physically/mentally challenged people revolted and started their own Olympics.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

39. Mugsy Bogues. nt

[Gwendolyn]

55. Lol, well there're always the exceptions. This too is what makes sports fun to watch.

:)

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

57. I know my mom was 5'-4" and she seemed short to me as I got taller over the yers. This guy is

5'-3". That's just amazing to me.

[BoneDaddy]

16. Because men and women at that level of the sport

are very different. If men and women were in the same professional bracket in most sports, the overwhelming majority of performers would be men. That is not a sexist statement, it is a reality. Show me a sport where women dominate men. It simply doesn't happen and all the feel good gender thoughts will not make a difference.

[Gwendolyn]

Yes, you are correct. Women would be vastly under-represented.

Edited to add; I guess we were agreeing with each other at the same time! :)

[Gwendolyn]

19. oops... dupalicious.

[unblock]

24. i think you're stuck on the negative connotations of the word "sexist"

bottom line is that you think it's fine with making a distinction based on gender because it's a natural biological distinction when it comes to top-level athletics.

but you're not fine with making a distinction based on height or weight for similir reasons.

perhaps we should reframe the discussion and call it heigtist and weightist rather than sexist?

arguably, the distiction based on gender is giving a positive opportunity to women to overcome biology while passing over that same opportunity for short or lightweight people.

[BoneDaddy]

29. Beacause it is a descent into the absurd

just to make a point. Whether we like it or not, people are classified in different ways and based upon cultural upbringing, social mores and everything that goes along with this, a segregation occurs.

I remember a movie, I think it was called Easter Island and it was about the eventual war between the natives who had long ears and those with short ears. Talk about the height of insanity.

We can bandy gender back and forth all day. Whether this is some vistigal collective practice of separting men and women along gender lines as opposed to height or weight, at some point it just seems to become absurd. I am at that point, hehe.

[unblock]

32. ah, but that brings us back to the point, that the distinction is sexist

because of our social history and whatnot, we decided that having a separate class based on gender was a good idea.

but a distinction based on height or weight is absurd.

and a distinction based on race, once would have been considered appropriate and now (thankfully!) would be considered completely taboo.


if the distinction based on race would have to be considered racist, then the distinction based on gender has to be considered sexist. that doesn't mean it's not considered an acceptable form of sexism in our current society, but it certainly has some element of sexism.

[BoneDaddy]

33. Sigh

The differences between race and sex in professional sports is apples and oranges. You know better, come on now.

[unblock]

41. that's not so clear

although i'm VERY skeptical of research around biological differences between the races (mostly because the socioeconomic differences probably dwarf any genetic differences) that doesn't mean they aren't there. hey, there was a movie called "white men can't jump"! someone supposedly did a study and found that there was indeed a racial difference in jumping ability. again, i'm VERY skeptical because it's so easy for social/economic/selection errors to creep into such studies, but race is linked to other genetic things (e.g., sickle cell anemia) so i'm open to the possibility that it's linked to genetic characteristics that have a bearing on athletics.

if that's valid information, it's what you do with it that makes it racism. having a separate class based on race would be intolerably racist, mostly because the athletic relevance of whatever differences exist between the races is very much dwarfed by the societal/social/political forces relating to race. even if proportion of the races in certain top-level sports isn't representative of the population at large, we're not about to go back to the days of segregation.

whatever physical athletic distinction exists between the races are small and subtle compared to the physical distinctions between the genders and the short vs. the tall or the light vs. the heavy.

but the difference between height and gender in professional sports is apples and apples. the reason we are fine with dividing sports based on gender but not based on height has more to do with societal and economic forces than it does with athletics. that makes it sexist/heightist/weightist or whatever you want to call it.

[BoneDaddy]

65. You are now using a bad Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson

as a means to justify your argument. Thankfully you go on to point to a host of reasons (social, economic and selection variables) that point to why some sports may have more of one race than another.

I agree with your arguments. Pretty much all sports reflect a socio economic picture. Boxing, for instance, is a perfect example. The early powerhouses were of Irish and Italian descent (recent immigrants), then the picture changed when black athletes entered the experience and then Latinos. They often reflect the hard fight that oppressed people's experience and as a result it produces some of the best fighters. When sports are one of the few avenues out of painful environment, it will produce a tougher, more resilient individual. People from a more wealthy class or those who have multiple avenues to avoid "extinction" will produce less.

Now when it comes to gender, no matter how impoverished or tough an environment is for women, she may sail to the top among women, but still she will be no match for another male athlete. Certainly there are a few women who can run with men at that level but the percentage is negligible.

[a la izquierda]

97. My grandma would agree

when I was in high school, I was a 5ft distance runner; short and very thin. I also happened to be a very good javelin thrower. When I would place in meets, my grandma would get so aggravated that I had to compete against girls that were much, much bigger than I was.

[GaYellowDawg]

102. It's because...

... at a world-class level, women cannot compete with men athletically. Whether it's running, swimming, pole-vaulting, basketball, volleyball, bicycling, you name it - a world-class male athlete will outcompete a world-class female athlete every time. That's not saying that world-class female athletes aren't very, very good - they will absolutely dominate the average man - but they are nowhere near male world-class athletes.

If you competed on merit alone, the Olympics would be primarily male. Dividing events into male and female events isn't sexist. That's ridiculous. If that wasn't done, you'd be complaining that the Olympics were sexist because only men competed, because without that division, there would simply be no women there. That's not a matter of politics. It's a matter of biology.

Now, if you were talking about intellectual competition rather than athletic - that's a whole different story.

[backwoodsbob]

110. so you believe at the world level

there should be no womens and mens sprint races?

They should run together?

What has happened to this girl is awful but to ask that the females compete against someone who has male build is unfair

[rd_kent]

106. That idea works great for deciding what restroom to use

and I support making a personal decision for what make someone most comfortable. But were not talking about bathrooms, were talking about male/female sporting events. Not the same thing.

[colinmom71]

10. It is, and it may also be good for her overall health the question was asked...

I've read that those rare persons found to have her condition are at risk of the internal testicles turning cancerous at a relatively young age. If anything, finding this condition and removing those organs may preserve her life and well-being. But I'm glad she's receiving trauma counseling. She'll need some time to adjust and accept this new issue in her life. I hope she gets through this in a healthful manner.

But as far as I'm concerned, Semenya has been raised and self-identifies as a female. She is essentially anatomically such, and thus is a female. She should be regarded as such by the athletics board (sorry, don't know the name of her sport's governing board).

[Feron]

47. This site may help.:

http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/gendertest/gendertest.html

[gorfle]

61. Interesting site.

That is an interesting cite.

[cherish44]

7. This story is so outrageous

She didn't cheat, she had nothing to do with how she was born. Let her compete and do what she loves. Lots of people have physical advantages in certain types of athletics and there are women who have naturally high testosterone levels (from what I've read she's still in the range that is considered "normal" she's just on the very high end of normal). She trained for these races, she worked her butt off, it's not fair.

[peacebird]

9. Watched an amazing movie yesterday about a female mtn bike racer

She was born male, but had undergone treatment (don't know the proper term, but it was to make her gender match what she knew it should be)
Anyhow - this sweet, soft spoken young woman was a mountain bike racer, and incredibly (to me anyhow) some fellow racers put out petitions and tried to get the race governing body to prevent this woman from racing... I mean - good grief - as if she had such life altering surgery to try to win bike races?!?
I thought about this young runner - and all I could think was - why? Poor girl....

[comtec]

11. Jealousy pure and simple

They got beat, and they are bemoaning it, instead of using it as drive to get better!
We have truly become a country of whiners :(

[gorfle]

12. It has nothing to do with jealousy.

It has nothing to do with jealousy. It's about fairness.

There is a reason why even in the Olympics, with the absolute best of the best athletes in the world, women compete separately from men. The reason is because biologically, men are usually stronger than women, and consequently women would almost always lose to men in athletic competitions.

Given that, how fair is it to women to allow a person who is biologically male but has had cosmetic surgery to give the appearance of being female to compete with biologically fully-female athletes? I say it's not fair at all. It is basically the same thing as if you let a man compete in womens' events. Basically, nearly all of those women now have virtually no chance to win no matter how hard they train, because they are competing against a man who is biologically stronger than they are.

Yes, it sucks for people who are trapped in the wrong gender of body, and I fully support their ability to make whatever modifications modern medicine allows to make them more comfortable in their bodies. But the simple fact is with today's technology, it's all cosmetic. Allowing such people to compete with genders opposite what their actual biology is is as unfair as a male swimmer getting breast implants and competing in womens' swim events.

[redqueen]

38. I'm sure no one thinks she had surgery to win bike races.

The simple fact is that men have a physiological advantage over women in sports.

Most people think that allowing someone who has an advantage over other competitors to compete is unfair.

[SidneyCarton]

14. I pity Caster Semenya.

People are vile.

[tammywammy]

18. I do as well

To have this spread all over the news when you find out has got to be very difficult. Poor girl, I'd like to just give her a hug.

[BlooInBloo]

20. This in-between case raises the question: Should there exist men's and women's sports?

I had assumed that the division was more for the benefit of women than of men, but possibly the entire bifurcation should be done away with, because of a small number of in-between cases?

[NoSheep]

27. I think there should be qualifying standards. That is all. Like boxing and Marshall arts levels.

It's really that simple. Can you compete at this level? This level? Forget gender. Name the levels something other than with a number so there is no perceived hierarchy.

Ploot class.
Blonk level.

[BlooInBloo]

34. Including for college scholarships? Might want to think about the predictable consequences.

[NoSheep]

59. I didn't consider that...I'm not sure I see the "obvious".

[Rebubula]

35. Ahhhh....The Marshall Arts

Good to see Law Enforcement getting into the finer aspects of life....

[NoSheep]

60. Nice catch! Correction: "Martial" Arts. Thanks Rebubula!

[nc4bo]

46. How about using something similar as what drag races use....not sex based.

Various categories with qualifications for each category can be created for athletes.

In racing, just about any vehicle can participate in a race event from street car to nitro funny and there are winners in each category yet the fastest street machine will never race a nitro funny.

[deaniac21]

49. Driving isn't athletic.

[nc4bo]

64. I didn't say it was.

I don't know if there would ever be away in which females and males could compete fairly and just based on the physical differences between the sexes, males will always have advantage over females.

Transsexuals and hermaphodytes have complex situations that would require some very complex solutions in order for them to fairly compete in standard male/female events.

It's a shame to deny someone the opportunity to compete but not sure what a fair solution would be.

I feel really bad for them honestly.

[MindPilot]

75. Driving may not be but racing sure as hell is.

If you don't believe that, try it some time. And it is also one of the few sports where you can actually die.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

51. The actual question is "should there exist women's sports", and I think the answer is yes.

There are very few sports where the best women can compete with the best men.

Effectively, merging male and female sports would mean that all the top athletes would be men.

There would undoubtedly be women competing at lower levels, but whereas nowadays "top-level mens' sports" and "top-level womens' sports" both attract attention, support, coverage etc, if you simply have multiple levels of sport then only "top-level sports" will, and that will probably be almost devoid of women.

The only way to enable significant numbers of women to compete at high-level sports is gender segregation, and I think that's a price worth paying.

[BlooInBloo]

69. Makes perfect sense as far as it goes...

But it leaves unresolved the question brought up by this case: What to do with those who don't fall neatly into one category or the other?

[AngryAmish]

58. No women would play contact sports - especially combat sports

That would be life threatening.

(precursory language about most v. all and there are exceptions to everything here)

A 180 lb woman boxing a 180 lb man might get killed. Thinner bones, less explosive muscles etc.

[BlooInBloo]

68. Yes, I'm aware of that...

I think some of those who enjoy pretending there aren't any significant differences between boys and girls have never actually played sports, however.

[Leftist Agitator]

31. Suicide watch is immoral and wrong.

[ccharles000]

80. why?

[Leftist Agitator]

82. Because if she wants to die for whatever reason, it is her inalienable right.

The idea of "protecting someone from them self" is utterly abhorrent.

[anonymous171]

87. People who want to kill themselves aren't being rational. nt

[rd_kent]

108. Does that apply to the terminally ill who suffer in pain?

Care to use a smaller brush when painting next time?

[hunter]

36. Things won't be right until women play major league baseball and NFL football.

This is an awful story. Everything is wrong about it. Our world "civilization" is superstitious and cruel.

I hope Semenya finds a place where her achievements and talents will be celebrated and people recognize and respect her for who she is.

[LeftHander]

40. terrible...I hope she finds the courage to be herself.

My thoughts go out to her.

[kskiska]

42. Anyone remember Renée Richards?

Renée Richards (born August 19, 1934) is an American ophthalmologist, author and former professional tennis player. In 1975, Richards underwent sex reassignment surgery. She is known for initially being denied entry into the 1976 US Open by the United States Tennis Association, citing an unprecedented women-born-women policy. She disputed the ban, and the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor in 1977. This was a landmark decision in favor of transsexual rights.

(snip)

In 1986 Richards published an autobiography, Second Serve, which was made into the television movie Second Serve starring Vanessa Redgrave as the lead. In 2007 Richards published a second autobiography, No Way Renee: The Second Half of My Notorious Life. Each of these volumes was co-authored with John Ames.

more…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renée_Richards

[Soylent Brice]

45. K&R

[SoCalDem]

48. What she "deserved", was a trip to the doctor when she was about 13 or 14

and had not "developed", like her peers. Finding out about her medical condition would have been a good place to start, before she engaged in international sports, where gender-testing has been going on for a very long time.

It's a real shame that the official diagnosis was so long in coming to her.

Whomever was "managing" her career probably guessed what might be in play here, but may have thought they would ride the gravy train as long as possible.. they are the ones who took advantage of her

[Maru Kitteh]

52. The educated people who should have been looking out for her, her coach and physician

should be prosecuted and jailed. There is no plausible way they could have been unaware that something was wrong, even if they didn't know precisely what it was. It's abundantly obvious they were more concerned with their own gain and used her without regard for what the outcome would be for HER and HER LIFE.

I think they should be imprisoned for what they did to her.

[nolabear]

56. Poor child. I hope she has good people around her.

It's hard to imagine such a blow to the essential sense of who one is. The only thing I can think might be roughly analogous is finding out one is adopted that late in life. Add to that, the emotional load around sexuality and what you imagine your life will be like in the future and the doubt that you will be allowed to do what you've built your whole identity around doing, and it is like grieving a death...the death of the self. She can make it through this, but needs to be left alone by the public in order to do so.

[AuntPatsy]

62. i firmly agree...why do we need to fit into some mold when it's obvious that no such mold exists

considering the hundreds of differences that make up our human race...horrific what they are doing to that poor girl and think of those in our society that can relate much better than most of us...how does all this make them feel? It is way past time to fight the right radical evangelistic hold that this country is being strangled by day by day that demands one option and one only...

[Barack_America]

70. This could not have been handled any worse.

That poor girl.

I hope that she has someone who is truly devoted to her well being to see her through this.

[Crabby Appleton]

84. I agree completely. nt

[provis99]

71. why is everyone here calling Caster Semenya a girl?

Caster could just as equally be called a boy, and it is likely that a genetic test would show that Caster has XY chromosones like other hermaphrodites, indicating Caster is a genetic male. thus Caster should be competing in men's events, not women's, where he has an unfair advantage due to being a male. (At least if you buy the idea that sports should be segregated by gender; I don't).

[deaniac21]

73. Can you guess the number of females that would make the

Pittsburgh Steelers roster?

[foxfeet]

74. Linda Tripp.

[truebrit71]

78. ROFLMAO!!!

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[Crabby Appleton]

85. OK, name another one.

[foxfeet]

91. I got nothin'.

Edit: Punctuation. Duh.

[deaniac21]

98. What's her 40 time?

[foxfeet]

101. Faster than you'd think, if Bill Clinton is involved.

[Starry Messenger]

77. Because she identifies as a woman.

That is her gender. Calling her a gender marker that she does not identify with is incorrect.

[Critters2]

99. +1 nt

[RedCappedBandit]

104. Beat me to it. nt

[rd_kent]

112. So if Hussein Bolt decides to identify as a woman

he can compete with the women?

[RedCappedBandit]

103. Because *she* identifies as a female.

Where she should be competing is another discussion entirely.

[undeterred]

109. Because she has been identified by herself and others as female

for her entire life till now. Discovery of a difference in chromosomes or hormones is not going to change the identity she has developed.

[rd_kent]

111. Really? All sports should not be segregated by gender?

How would women do playing football? Or any other contact sport? Would they even make the team?

If we were to make all sports unisex, there would be very few female athletes. Is that what you want?

[Joe Chi Minh]

76. K&R

[glinda]

83. I feel for her

[omega minimo]

86. ((((((((((((((((((VIBES a candle light WISHES prayers PEACE on this PERSON artist ))))))))))))))))))

Many gifts yet, to give this torn world. :grouphug:

[LisaL]

90. Makes me wonder.

Hasn't she been examined by medical professionals prior to this?
If the rumors are correct, then she'd not be developing as a biological woman would.
Of course when she competed on the worlds stage, all of this is so public, and has to be devastating if she had no idea of her alleged condition. But whose fault is that exactly?

[AspenRose]

92. This is tragic.

:-(

[Lilyeye]

95. This is awful

It pisses me off how some in the media are making jokes about this. I can't imagine what this poor girl is going through.

[NotThisTime]

96. I said the day this was made known it never should have been reported and people should not have

judged her or those around her as knowing. Likely they did not know... I feel horrible for her. My friend's daughter just got similar news, she's in her teen's, it's terrible...

[undeterred]

105. Whose bright idea was it to announce to the world

her medical status without telling her about it first?

[tomm2thumbs]

107. I don't think anyone figured there would be a middle-ground answer like this

Folks figured she would be vindicated or found to be male and illegally running - not what eventually was reported. It is sad for her to have been pulled through this trauma publicly and discover something which she may have very well not had a clue about in such a world-watching way.

Glad they are providing care and that is hopefully something that will serve her well.