J.K Rowling attacks another cis female athlete implying she's Trans (via @muiren) https://sfba.social/@muiren/113559844889410473
This may shock you, but this cis female athlete, just like the previous cis female athlete attacked this way by Rowling, Imane Khelif, is a person of color, and comes from Africa.
Apparently for Rowling, you are only a woman until somebody thinks you're too buff and refuses to sign a form:
https://apnews.com/article/zambia-banda-womens-world-cup-79520a0f06bf1c91a18fbeacfdd2fbec
by J.K. Rowling would have easily dispelled such accusations. Zambia 
️ field.@rysiek
You are very misinformed on the nature of this controversy. It has nothing to do with being transgender. Please educate yourself before making harsh judgements.
I try to engage in a respectful discussion of a complex subject, so I will choose to take your request at face value, ignoring the obvious, while unwarranted, sarcastic undertone.
The controversy is about DSDs.
Particularly, about 5-alpha-reductase defficiency — a condition affecting male sex development in a way which leads to new-born boys being mistaken for girls, because of undeveloped extenal genitalia.
There is no suggestion of anyone being transgender in any of these cases, so the whole discussion of countries being LGBT-hostile is entirely irrelevant.
@rcz regarding the tone, I think that's only fair, I did the same with your patronizing tone after all.
Before we jump in, I asked the other two people mentioned earlier if they want to continue being mentioned, I'll re-add them if they confirm. Should have asked first, to be fair.
@rcz and let's do one more thing and remove the specific person from this, as there are going to be a lot of uncomfortable hypotheticals in this thread, I'm sure.
So let' say there is a person called Amal. She has been assigned female at birth, and since then has participated in sports all her life, with considerable success.
When she's twentysomething, suddenly there's a test showing the result you mention.
What gender is she, in your opinion?
@rysiek
There are multiple conflicting definitions of “gender” — I take it here to be a synonym for “sex”, but you're free to specify a different meaning.
If the test shows Amal is a XY person with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, that would mean Amal is male.
@rcz right. You added the chromosome thing, we'll get back to that.
So a person assigned female at birth, participating in sports for years upon years (meaning being close quarters in changing rooms with other women), is in your opinion now considered male.
Should Amal be allowed to participate in sports as a woman?
Should Amal be allowed to participate in sports as a man?
And, how come nobody noticed until now?
/re-adding @darnell after confirming he's okay with that
I've only added the chromosome thing for clearer context, as, as I said, 5-alpha-reductase deficiency only affects males anyway. But sure, we can get back to that if something isn't clear here.
No, in my opinion Amal should not be allowed to participate in sports as a woman.
Yes, Amal should definitely be allowed to participate in sports as a man.
I don't understand the last question. What has nobody notices until now? Amal has definitely noticed “something is off”. After being mistakenly assigned female at birth, Amal might have not noticed anything until puberty. But then, when menstruation doesn't start, and instead external male genitalia do belatedly appear, Amal definitely noticed that — understandably very embarrassing and confusing — development.
Really, you've decided to pivot to The Bathroom Issue instead of actually engaging with the actual issue we're discussing?
Do you accept that your understanding of this controversy as of two hours ago was wrong on the level of facts, and that you've now learned important additional facts changing this understanding?
Did this realization push you to actually make an effort to reevaluate your opinion?
@rcz but if Amal must switch from participating in female sports to participating in male sports, then it follows Amal must switch from using the ladies' room to using the mens' room?
Is it not the case?
Amal was assigned female at birth, went through her life as a woman, and then at twenty something is informed that she "is a male".
Apart from being "embarrassing and confusing" as you put it, it's a huge practical and personal safety problem for Amal in LBGT-hostile places.
Does it follow? Maybe. It's just a different discussion. We can have that discussion at some point also, bathrooms do have practical and safety-related issues and it's a whole topic. But why do you want to pivot from the topic we're actually discussing?
You asked me a series of questions on this sports issue, but what do you think?
We now know, and Amal knows, that Amal enjoys full sports-related benefit of male development, because this condition doesn't affect it. Amal still wants to take part in a women's kick-boxing competition.
Do you think it's fine?
@rcz @darnell I think it's fine, yes. I think Amal lived her whole life as a woman, and if she considers herself a woman, she is a woman.
I think somehow the "sports-related benefits" are only considered problematic in sports when it just so happens that a discussion of biological sex is involved.
Nobody is banning Phelps from competing with people who do not happen to benefit from similar physical quirks, for example.
@rcz @darnell I also know there are men with XX chromosomes, and I have not seen so far anyone suggesting that if that happens to be a man participating in competitive sports, he should participate in female disciplines only.
All of this, frankly, heavily reminds me of all the "scientific" ways people had used in the past, and sometimes still use, to defend racism and homophobia.
Do you think men that happen to have XX chromosomes should participate in female disciplines?
1. In case of our Amal, XY chromosomes in your opinion define a male person, and regardless of what's on her birth certificate and how she had lived her life till that point in time, she should be considered a "male", and only allowed to participate in male sports disciplines, right?
2. But male-presenting people who identify as men but happen to have XX chromosomes should still be allowed to participate in male sports disciplines, correct?
@rcz @darnell well, you did bring chromosomes into this before, and I said we will come back to them.
In your opinion, is there a medical test that can be performed to clearly and unambiguously establish whether any given person is "male" or "female"?
In your opinion, do men with XX chromosomes should be considered "female"? Why/why not?
@rysiek @darnell
I did bring chromosomes into the hypothetical scenario for clearer context, yes. I did not say chromosomes define sex. They don't.
BTW, I do also think there is a valid case for some XY people to be included in female sport category. 5-ARD is just not one of these cases.
I don't think there is a singular test to clearly and unambiguously establish sex. Chromosome testing is a fairly good screen, but there can be more diagnostics needed in some rare cases (diagnostics which provide information which those people need anyway for health reasons).
Men with XX chromosomes should not be considered female, because they don't follow female development path.
@rysiek @rcz @darnell This person just wants to shut people who are not gender conforming out of participation in anything, including public life.
Having factory-original female anatomy, being raised as a woman, being socialized as a woman, and living one’s life as a woman doesn’t matter, if your invisible chromosomes don’t line up. Every tiny, even involuntary and uncontrollable non-conformity is verboten!
You're misinformed (or lying). This isn't about “conformity”, and XY people with 5-alpha-reductase defficiency do not have any “female anatomy”.
@MisuseCase I'd appreciate if we kept it civil in my mentions though. It's not a good look and does not help.
@rysiek Okay. For you, not for that guy.
@MisuseCase I appreciate it.
With all due respect to you @rysiek
What @ rcz is doing is not civil.
Stripping away someone's identity using medical language is not civil behavior.
@eric I get what you're saying and I agree on a basic level. And I am glad you made that point. That's also one of the reasons why I introduced our hypothetical Amal, instead of discussing the living breathing person affected by this.
That said, I think it still behooves us to stay civil ourselves. Getting into a shouting match is not something I want.
Oh!
I'm not going to lie, I am taken aback that you chose not to tag me in a post discussing me personally, even after specifically making a point about how I earlier untagged some people I had never even had any contact with. Why would you do that? This looks like disingenuous engagement on your part, while pretending to have some moral high ground in terms of civility.
I'm very happy, as I think I've shown, to move the discussion to hypothetical people. I'm also doing my best to steer clear of ad hominems, which you are not. But if you have any more requests with regards to my civility, please do not hesitate to make them, I'll do my best to oblige.
In my view, this self-satisfied discussion here, ostensibly about my alleged lack of civility, isn't actually about finding a civil way of having this discussion. It is, instead, about replacing the discussion, in any form, with taking offense.
I have patiently answered your sarcastic questions, and I'm quite convinced you already know that your view at the start of this conversation (that the story is about “attacking a cis female” by “implying she's trans” because “she's too buff”) was substantially wrong.
Instead of acknowledging that (even though you did move the discussion in a different direction, to whether sex categories in sport are needed), what you did is to repeatedly try to smear my position, without slightest justification, just based on what it ”reminds you of”, as equivalent to racism, homophobia, misogyny.
No, you are not staying civil. Not even close.
You're just wrong, and desperate not to acknowledge it.
Thank you for this conversation, anyway.
@eric @MisuseCase@twit.social
@rcz well we don't agree here on most basic things. I still have more questions that I do want to ask.
I did not smear you, I did not use any ad hominems against you personally.
I did mention racism and homophobia explicitly, but only when you had specifically asked me what my position is. I answered your question honestly and without trying to beat around the bush. Should I have not?
I asked you about misogyny. Was that too far for some reason?
@rcz I did move the conversation towards whether gender based categories in sports are needed, because that is the underlying issue here. I would be happy to continue that conversation, as I believe we are getting close to the end of that tunnel.
The thing about "being buff" came directly from one of the sources I linked to.
Meanwhile you implied a specific medical condition as affecting the player, for which you have not provided any specific source yourself.
Do you have such source?
@rcz the reason I didn't re-add you was that my previous re-adding in this thread was a mistake. I should not have done that, and I made a note of that in the edited post afterwards.
You will perhaps also note, that in a different branch I reacted to someone name-calling you, asking them to stop.
Anyway, I will gladly reply to your other posts in this thread tomorrow, as today I am working under a short deadline.
If, that is, you're open to continuing this conversation, of course.
I did ask you what your position was, but if I'm asked what my position is on some issue, and I just add without any justification: “and by the way, your position on this issue reminds me of nazism, I don't know, just a thought” — then that wouldn't be explaining my position on the issue, it would obviously just be smearing my opponents moral character. I wouldn't do it.
I'm fine with continuing the conversation, and I'm absolutely fine with a slower pace, and I'll happily answer your specific question, but I do need to have something cleared up first.
In this thread, you agreed with @eric that “what I'm doing is not civil”, and you contrasted it with “staying civil yourselves”. I take issue with that. Specifically, you pointed to ”discussing the living breathing person affected by this” as an example when discussing me allegedly being uncivil. But now you're also specifically asking me to go back to discussing the living breathing players. And you are specifically asking about the facts about these people which do, as we discussed, relate to their identities.
So, can we set this record straight?
Can we actually have a civil discussion — on both sides — about this issue? And can we, after all, have a civil discussion involving facts relating to identities of real people?
@rcz I think we've been having a civil discussion all along.
However, I still I agree with @eric that stripping people of their identity – which is how I perceive insisting that a person who has been a cis woman her whole life now is to be considered "male" – based on a medical test is uncivil.
The only reason I came back to that particular person was because you returned to the "buff" thing about that person, insisting it was substantially wrong. I don't believe it has been shown to be wrong.
@rcz @eric instead of showing it was wrong – and again, I provided a source of where that came from – you provided a chain of assertions related to specific medical condition:
https://101010.pl/@rcz/113560367925215503
The shape of this was: if this case is similar to X case, and X case is similar to Y case, then the situation is so and so.
You yourself recognized that:
"There isn't much information available on Banda."
I don't see how that unsubstantiated chain of assertions shows I was "substantially wrong."
Ok. I conclude you do not interpret my position as “insisting that a person who has been a cis woman her whole life now is to be considered male based on a medical test”, because that would make my position in this discussion uncivil in your view, and you say we've been having a civil discussion. I'm not dwelling on that, but thank you agreeing the discussion is civil.
I wasn't saying you are wrong about this specific person's medical state — indeed, I specifically made it clear there isn't much information about that. I said you're presenting a wrong understanding of the controversy. I'll try to clear this up:
You said that Rowling implied the player is trans. This is clearly wrong. Rowling didn't imply the player was trans, and I think that was made clear fairly early on in the discussion. This was substantively wrong, because this initially pushed the discussion in the — as I'm sure you now realize — misguided direction of: “why do these stupid people not realize this person comes from a LGBT-hostile country” to a more productive discussion of DSDs.
To reiterate, this is mainly what I was referring to when talking about being substantively wrong: the discussion was clearly heading in this misguided direction.
Also, you said that “apparently” the criterion for Rowling is being “too buff”. This is clearly wrong. Rowling wasn't commenting on the player being “buff”, she was directly commenting the information about failed sex eligibility rules.
To be clear: I don't think we know what the specific eligibility rules were in this case, and I don't think Rowling knows either. I don't know if you're making the argument that she is out of line raising alarm if she doesn't know that, you didn't say that — but just in case you are, I disagree, and we can also discuss why I think this is justified in the context you correctly identified (previous similar cases).
I've disscussed the “Phelps argument” in some length here:
https://101010.pl/@rcz/112959498924669006
TL;DR:
We don't have categories for Phelps' quirks. We could have, and then we would expect Phelps to be in the category for people with these quirts and would very much exclude him from the category for people without these quirks. That's how categories work.
But the advantage due to Phelps' quirks was actually relatively small, compared to the *huge* advantage due to sex. We don't have categories for all advantages, but there are reasons we do have categories for some advantages.
And no, it's NOT true that ”sports-related benefits” are only problematic when sex is involved. We do also create (and police) other categories related to sports-related benefits, and do not let people with those benefits into categories without those benefits, for well-understood reasons. There are age categories, weight categories, disability categories. I wouldn't be able to get into a children boxing competition, because I do have a “problematic” sports-related benefit of not being a child.
But let's dig a bit. Let's introduce another hypothetical person, let's call him Bob. Bob is just a plain guy. He's quite sporty and also trains kick-boxing, but he is the only male kick-boxing enthusiast in the area, so he feels left out when the women have their competition. He asks if it maybe the next competition could be organized as open-category, so that he could participate too and kick-box with the women.
Do you think it's fine to let Bob into the ring with the women? Do you think, for example, that there are any safety reasons not to let men kick-box with women?
I think this is very misguided (and wishful thinking). There are still huge differences between sexes in muscle mass and strength, bone density etc., leading to serious safety concerns, even after controlling for these other categories such as weight, age and disability.
(Yes, there are attributes which should not, for good reasons, be used for categorizing sport,s such as race or self-defined identity).
@rysiek @darnell
What you proposing is more invasive testing which would still end up with Amal in the category with all the males. Why would you want to do that? Just to avoid the word “sex”?
I mean, think about it: age affects a lot of sport-related things, that's why we have age categories — so you could also measure those things instead of checking a person's age.
Sure, but why?
@rcz @darnell I'm glad we agree that how invasive the tests are should be taken into account.
You also said that in your opinion there is a set of tests that can be performed to clearly and unambiguously establish whether a given person is "male" or "female".
So: is it possible that some people who (based on that set of tests) are considered "female" would still have muscle mass and strength and bone density, higher than some people who (based on that same set of tests) are considered "male"?
@rcz @darnell in that case, if there are "female-testing" people who happen to have muscle mass and strength and bone density above some "male-testing" people, the "male" and "female" categories fail at that stated goal.
If, instead, the muscle mass and strength and bone density testing was used, it would *achieve* that goal more successfully.
Would you not agree?
@rysiek @darnell
Still, you're proposing highly invasive testing based on a hypothetical problem. You only proposed that there could theoretically be such people — who are these people?
There could be 8 year old boys who have the physique of 15 year old boys — it is possible! — which would prove a safety concern in children sports based on age categories. Do we now, based on that possibility we have now identified, say that age categories have failed, and do we seriously propose replacing them with extensive invasive testing across the board?
@rcz @darnell I don't know, I am not the one proposing invasive testing in sports in the first place.
Gender-related testing is pretty damn invasive. Especially in very public cases like Amal's.
And I would not be surprised if gender-related testing was more often applied to people participating in female disciplines, than male.
Would you agree that is pretty likely to be the case, based on the fact that the stated purpose is safety and fairness, and men are assumed to have a benefit?
@rcz @darnell and regarding the "who are these people" – I don't think it's unreasonable to assume they do exist.
If they didn't, that would mean that every single person that is, according to the set of tests you believe exists, "female" has muscle mass and strength and bone density *strictly lower* than every single person that is, according to the same tests, "male".
That would be an immensely surprising, remarkable thing.
@rysiek @darnell
Strictly speaking, it wouldn't mean that.
Not (a_1 > b_1, …, a_n > b_n)
does not imply
a_1 < b_1, …, a_1 < b_n
But this technicality hides a more meaningful point: it's not some unknown domain where we need to make wild guesses and assumptions what might theoretically happen. There is knowledge about specific developmental mechanisms and specific issues affecting them at various points, which we can use to analyze them and build sensible policies. What is the specific syndrome you are describing? What development led to it?
What you did in your hypothetical is to point to a (theoretical and unspecified) safety concern NOT related to sex, and complain that sex category didn't remove it. You're applying an impossible standard: you demand that when sex category is established, then no safety concern must ever present for any reason ever, even theoretically.
We don't expect that standard from any other measure.
Yes, sex testing would mostly affect female sport, that's true.
No, for nearly all athletes, except only for the very rare cases where more diagnostics after screening is required for health reasons anyway, it's a cheek swab. This is not invasive.
First of all:
> you demand that when sex category is established, then no safety concern must ever present for any reason ever, even theoretically.
No, I merely point out that the "sex category" is unnecessary if we're talking safety and fairness.
You mentioned three specific things – muscle mass, muscle strength, bone density – as the basis of why men and women need to participate separately for safety reasons. So I am using these. Any others that we need to consider?
> Yes, sex testing would mostly affect female sport
That means that there could be people who based on your set of tests would be considered "female" that might be participating in male disciplines. While having lower muscle mass, strength, and bone density.
Is it not unfair and unsafe for them to do so?
If you believe we should be testing anyone, why not test everyone?
And how is it not considered misogynist to make women jump through hoops men don't have to?
@rysiek @darnell
I'm not against sex testing in male sport. The reason I predict it would mostly affect female sport is I assume the main objective for tests is to catch cheaters (people who know they would fail such a test, but enter the competition if there is no test), and obviously there isn't as much motivation for females to cheat their way into male sport as it is for males to cheat their way into female sport.
We see that in the trans issue: there is a lot of discussion about how awful it would be for transwomen having to compete in male category, while transmen seem relatively comfortable competing in female category.
Even in your example, the female enters the male category just to be treated unfairly. Why would she do that to herself, if she can enter the female category?
But this assumption might be wrong, if we think that people just genuinely don't know. Then testing everyone in both categories would be correct, yes.
Also, I think these tests should be done early, when people start competing on low level — to avoid unnecessary public exposure and painful breakdowns of sport careers in which people already put huge parts of their lives. And also for people with DSDs it's just useful information in itself to be diagnosed as early as possible, if they already hadn't until that point.
(Side note: I very much try to steer clear of accusing you of things like misogyny, bigotry etc., while you venture into such accusations repeatedly. I'd really like you to stop that, it's not constructive.)
@rcz I have not accused you, personally, of anything. In this particular case I asked a question about misogyny, which I feel is a valid one, as in many other cases where women are forced to jump through hoops men are not, it is seen (correctly) as misogyny.
I appreciate you responding to that question, and the other two.
Should men who tested "female" in these tests be allowed to continue participating in mens' disciplines?
Should they be allowed to participate in womens'?
@lxo I appreciate you saying that.
However, I will make my own decisions on how to conduct myself in a conversation with a person I've known for about 2 decades on a topic I care about, as long as Radek is also willing to continue the conversation.
I am using Quiet public visibility setting, and that's so that nobody who doesn't want to follow it, doesn't have to. Fedi software also has affordances for muting a thread.
@rysiek @rcz @darnell @lxo the reason this is interpreted as prejudice is the assertion that someone raised as a woman, who identifies as a woman, and who has always been treated as a woman is actually not a woman, but a "man with underdeveloped external genitalia". Accepting that argument means accepting that trans women aren't women, which is obviously transphobic. The nuance isn't complicated.
@rysiek @darnell
Obviously, there are many differences due to the fact that we are sexually dimorphic: lung capacity, red blood count, height, arm length, hip width and q angle, tendon hardness, hormonal cycles affecting training etc.
Of course, I'm not saying these are all non-overlapping ranges, just like there are exceptionally strong 8-yolds and very weak 10-yolds, but the differences due to age still warrant separate categories.
And obviously, you don't “need” age categories if you replace them with elaborate system of testing and weighing all of those differences on some kind of a scale — ending up with the same categories but with additional steps.
@rysiek
BTW, when you first asked whether these differences can be measured, I initially thought it's about research.
It's much harder to measure these characteristics in individual cases, because you'd need to somehow differentiate advantage from effort. Someone can have weaker or smaller muscles than a trained adult male, because they are a female, or because they're a child, but also because they just don't train as much.
And I *assume* we would't want to categorize women and children, who put a huge effort in their sport, together with lazy and mediocre men, who could be top of male category had they actually trained, but didn't.
@rysiek specifically asked to avoid talking about living breathing individuals to be civil, let's stick to that.
The consequence of these tests is that male people will not get into female sport category. I also did point out that they should be made early in the career, to avoid unnecessary public exposure, broken lives and other unintended consequences other than the one objective of not letting males into female sport category (and, where relevant, vice versa). I'm all for any measures preventing any other side consequences for the individuals involved. In the ideal world, all of this information is private and nobody ever learns that someone was excluded from a competition due to a test except for people directly involved.
But *not* doing any tests *also* has negative consequences, much more direct and rather unavoidable, particularly for women in these competitions, and these also shouldn't be ignored, should they?