The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes | Hacker News Reader

The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes

nytimes.com

31 pointsAvshalom46 comments

From my understanding, the sole reason that many sports are sex-segregated is because women can’t compete at men’s levels in those sports.

Why else have a male soccer and female soccer (other than historical reasons that could, nowadays, be abolished)?

Female-only sports exist to favor women. Parasports exist for a similar reason. If you can’t prove to be part of either group, one would just have to take your word for it.

If a random guy said “I’m a woman,” would that have to be enough?

> If a random guy said “I’m a woman,” would that have to be enough?

yes:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/transgender-teens-outrun-track-fie...

Wow did not realize these open gender policies have resulted in such outcomes. I guess the only option is to remove men/womens altogether and have them complete against all sexes.

Another option is to have a separate category for them or many seperate categories.

I think generally all competing against all is the logical conclusion to this mess. Biological males competing against females isn't fair, nor are biological females on male hormones. Making a trans category could be seen as insulting/outing, I think, and probably wouldn't have many competitors.

So outside of examining and testing every single person, seems easier to just have them all compete together. Have weight classes where it makes sense to.

That would mean the end of competitive sports for women. For many women and girl athletes, it would mean the end of their ambitions, the canceling of a lifetime of rigorous training and hope. Just so a few men who can’t compete against other men can bring home trophies.

Everyone wants equality until it affects them negatively then, it seems.

Being a smartass aside, I don't think it will be the end of competitive sports for women. I think we'll see new sports emerge, which would be pretty interesting.

There's essentially no sports where women can compete on the same level as men. The differences go beyond strength.

For a man and woman the same weight: Men have stronger bones, much higher oxygen capacity, faster reaction time, better motion tracking, higher fatigue tolerance, better aerobic endurance, higher pain threshold.

An interesting development would be co-ed professional sports with teams that have a fixed number of men and women. I think this is the best we could hope for as far as equality in sports

But you end up back in the same position. You have a 5 person team requirement, 3 men and 2 women. Where do you put trans?

In the gender that the transitioning person identifies with.

It absolutely would 'end' current competitive sports for women.

This would be the equivalent of ditching your current paying customers for maybe potential future even-smaller-segment customers.

You’re comfortable asserting that transgender women are “men who can’t compete with other men” and that there are individuals for whom the whole point of undergoing sexual reassignment surgery is to “take home trophies”? That’s quite a dedication to sports you’re proposing in which a person would be willing to have their genitals altered permanently to win an athletic contest. Do you honestly believe that’s the motivation?

Edit: referring to actual transwomen who’ve had surgery, etc. Just being able to declare that you “identify” as a woman and that’s that is the height of insanity.

The issue is that many allege that one doesn't need surgery so long as they identify as their respective gender. Saying "I identify as a [gender]" is enough. There are clear differences between the biological sexes which drastically impact physical performance in athletics. Look at the texas high school wrestling champion, the under-15 boys team in dallas beating the world champion womens soccer team, etc.

The whole thing of just needing to say you identify as a woman is 1000% bullshit and in fact the pushback against such stupid things is causing a lot of problems for “real” transpeople.

When I speak of transwomen I’m referring to people who have had surgery/hormones. To me if you’re willing to get rid of your penis that’s dedication and unlikely to be a ploy to win medals in track and field.

You are still going to have a biological advantage. Bone structure, muscle mass, endurance, reaction time, oxygen capacity

These are things that persist even after chopping your penis off or taking hormones - you can't undo the changes that your body went through during the developmental phase.

Someone male who was on female hormones literally their entire life since maybe age 0-2? Ok, you have a case. Otherwise it's just incredibly unfair for women to compete against.

Yeah read my comments a little more carefully. I have stated that I 100% agree that women need a separate league to compete in. I was advising the poster I replied to originally that he will get a lot better results stating the facts without the really gross “transwomen are men that are losers” angle. It’s really hard agreeing with y’all when you are assuming I’m disagreeing and arguing against a point I didn’t make.

If you really care about women’s leagues then it’s probably best not to frame the issue as “transwomen are male losers.” You will not win support with that approach.

> If a random guy said “I’m a woman,” would that have to be enough?

The whole point of the "testosterone level below 10 nmol/L" was to provide a solid line on this so that the answer would be "yes, with caveats".

10 nmol/L of testosterone is right at the lowest level for a male and is WAY higher than normal for a female.

Quoting an article about the IAAF study (https://sportsscientists.com/2017/07/testosterone-performanc...):

> Among the 1332 females, 24 had T levels above 3.08 nmol/L (remember this is the 99th percentile in a previous study). Of the 24, nine were diagnosed as having a DSD. Nine were found to have been doping, and six were “impossible to classify”

Translate "impossible to classify" as "doping, but we can't prove it so we'll get sued if we say it."

There's a saying that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Likewise, I propose that the best argument in favor of having these categories is five seconds (/minutes/hours/days depending on the sport) of watching a mixed group of 'elite' athletes (of all genders, disabilities or lack thereof) competing with each other.

Ross Tucker from The Science of Sport has written extensively on this issue. It's worth reading to understand the medical and performance issues.

https://sportsscientists.com/thread/caster-semenya/

Eliminating separate divisions for women, as many here advocate, effectively means shutting women out of many competitive sports. How is that that a good thing? My daughter, in high school, knows that she cannot compete with the best male volleyball players and has said so. Why shouldn't she be able to compete?

I am curious, if you divided by weight tiers do you think there would still be a significant athletic advantage for men over women in sports like sprinting?

You don’t have to guess about these things. Just look up the stats. Without sex segregation, there are no competitive sports for women.

I agree 100%. Unfortunately you severely undermine your argument by referring to transwomen as “men who can’t compete with other men and want to take home a few trophies.”

I am frankly irritated by identity politics but your approach of misgendering transgender athletes and asserting that anyone would go through all the pain and disruption of transitioning to another sex and getting permanent surgical modifications to their bodies because they are “Men who can’t compete with other men” comes across as disgusting and dehumanizing. As if transwomen are craven losers who have thought of this crazy scam to win in athletic competitions. You’re going to make people who agree with your main argument re: women needing their own leagues “back away slowly” because you’re spouting really disgusting misconceptions about trans people in the process.

No what I am thinking is that the top tier of male athletes is probably significantly heavier than the top tier of female athletes, probably there is a height difference too. I might be wrong but it seems if the goal is just to make sure people competing against each other are within the same tiers of athletics, there may be other ways to do that.

But I have not really done any research on how the top men under x pounds compare to the top woman under x pounds, so their performance might not be comparable

Maybe it's time to stop separating sports competitors into binary genders.

We already separate people into performance levels - why not do that irrespective of 'gender'? People would still be able to be 'top' of their performance level, it just wouldn't be called a 'woman' level or 'man' level anymore.

There's the reality that there's considerable althetic differences at the highest levels.

By not grouping at the source you'll end up with almost all women being strictly lower in the rankings, which is undesirable for obvious reasons.

Not to mention the deluge of articles decrying sexism when reality is getting in the way.

If people really want to differentiate between men and women for some reason I can't understand they could still say themselves 'top person identifying as a woman'. Just don't make it part of the official system so other people can ignore it if they want.

You could be the 'only woman in level 4 sprinting'.

And wouldn't it be better for women - if they're able to push beyond other women and also compete with men? There would certainly be men in lower tiers than the top tier women.

I don't see how it would be better for women. If Serena Williams is in a league 3 levels below Roger Federer, playing with no name male players [1], what would that do to her star-power, endorsements, contracts?

[1] http://www.tennisnow.com/Blogs/NET-POSTS/November-2017-(1)/T...

You don't choose to be born man or woman the same way you do not choose to be born with 10% shorter constitution, or with just an average one. Why do, say, basketball leagues not differentiate between short/average people (those who cannot reach the hoop, as originally intended) and tall giants, who can touch it by holding out their hand, and why isn't a hoop moved out of reach for the latter ones?

I mean, it is not a question about basketball, it is about why gender is so important, when there are tens of parameters that may matter for a particular game. Sports is (should be at least) valued for an effort, skill and hard work first, builtin params last. This entire system is broken at the core, and gender is among the last of problems here.

>We already separate people into performance levels - why not do that irrespective of 'gender'?

I'm not sure that this is possible while affording women a chance to compete.

Men's physical advantages over women lend them a huge advantage in sports. We rarely see men compete against women, so the degree of the difference might not be very clear.

Consider that, in 2017, the US Women's national soccer team (the best female soccer players in the US, who went on to win the world cup in 2019) was defeated by FC Dallas (a team made up of the best 14 year old boys from Dallas, TX). If there are eleven 14 year old boys in Dallas who are better than the best female soccer players in the world, how many grown men are there in the US who are better than the best woman? Thousands? Tens of thousands? With that in mind, how would you arrange a soccer league, arranged by performance level, in which women were able to compete in meaningful numbers?

> With that in mind, how could you possibly arrange a soccer league, arranged by performance level, in which women were able to compete in meaningful numbers?

I don't really understand your question. We can have as many levels to our leagues as we want. As many women can play as they want. Maybe all the women will be in lower tier leagues, maybe some will be in the higher tiers. Why's that a problem? They're still getting to play the sport with opponents around their level.

Isn't that the point of playing a sport? Playing a game with people who can challenge you. You can still play at the highest tier your ability will support. We can televise a lower tier if we want to. You can still support and follow a lower tier. What's missing from this model in your mind?

This is like saying we should abolish under 15s sports leagues and just mix them in with the adults.

Well... why not?

If I'm a terrible player at the moment who can I play against? If I could play against the 14-year-olds I might be able to get a game.

Why not let everyone play according to their ability, not matter what their age or 'gender' or whatever other discriminations we can think of?

The dangers in some sports when people are at different levels is great. Football, hockey even baseball can result in death.

This obviously can't work for any kind of contact sport. This can barely work for even non contact sports.

> We can have as many levels to our leagues as we want. As many women can play as they want. Maybe all the women will be in lower tier leagues, maybe some will be in the higher tiers. Why's that a problem? They're still getting to play the sport with opponents around their level.

The issue is if that you do so, practically all the women would be playing in a league nobody cares about. They would be dramatically under-represented at the top of their game. Separating people by sex allows to have world class performers of both sexes.

You are just going to go back to the same issue where the only top performers are men, and then there will be outcry as to how it's not fair.

> I don't really understand your question. We can have as many levels to our leagues as we want. As many women can play as they want. Maybe all the women will be in lower tier leagues, maybe some will be in the higher tiers. Why's that a problem? They're still getting to play the sport with opponents around their level.

My point is that if you add more leagues, you're just adding more spots for men to fill up. You're not doing women a favor by replacing a program of three men's teams and three women's teams with 8 unisex teams. You might just end up with 8 men's teams.

> Isn't that the point of playing a sport? Playing a game with people who can challenge you. You can still play at the highest tier your ability will support.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the standard practice for high-school and college sports is that only one team, the 'Varsity' team, goes to the playoffs. One team per school. The B team doesn't get to compete beyond a short, standard season against other local B teams. There is certainly no playoff for the E,F,G team where women will end up. The Varsity team gets to compete to be the best. Everyone else is playing for fun.

Under the current system, the best women in a sport are on the Varsity team. They compete in playoffs. Women get to be the champion of their district/region/state/country at tennis, at soccer, at the 150 yard dash. They get to compete in stadiums full of fans, they get to stand up on the pedestal and receive their medals and trophies. It sounds like you want to introduce a world where women don't get to play real competitive sports. Where no women are on the 'real' team, in the big games under the lights. A world where no women are champions.

Ironic that you state this in the midst of the US Open. If there was no Women's tour, would the world have ever known who Serena Williams is? Or how brilliantly and powerfully she plays? What about Martina, Chrissy, Billie Jean, Steffi, and so many more?

You can still follow and appreciate lower tiers in the leagues if you want to.

You could still say 'Serena Williams is killing it this year in Level 14 tennis' if you wanted to.

What is so special about these people that means we should know about them compared to someone of another gender, or no gender, that plays better?

That's the whole point... who watches "Level 14" anything? She certainly wouldn't be at the US Open, playing in Arthur Ashe stadium, and most likely would have given tennis up as a full-time pursuit 2 decades ago.

> What is so special about these people

if you don't know, then I feel sorry for you.

>People would still be able to be 'top' of their performance level

World champion second tier doesn't quite have the same ring to it though

Another option someone else proposed was to replace the current binary "Male" and "Female" divisions with something like "XX” and "Open". The XX division would be limited to athletes with no Y chromosome and low testosterone levels. All other athletes would go to the Open division.

I don't know whether that's a better solution but it might be worth considering.

There are a few sports where sex / gender really are irrelevant, like shooting.

We already have this. It's called the women's division.

Because women, on average, are weaker than men, and if you group them together you simply exclude almost all women. If that's acceptable to society fine, but we'll quickly have 50% of the voting population protesting such measures. Gender segregation is something created by women for women.

> We already separate people into performance levels - why not do that irrespective of 'gender'?

In what way is a testosterone limit of 10nmol/L not exactly a "performance level" like "100lb weight class"?

Just add "Y" and "no Y" to the criteria. We can handle having competitions with age, weight, ability, and formerly gender.. Just add Y chromosome, and then no prejudice, or assumption, and nothing to take offense to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com