In the interview, her French trainer and biology professor stated that he referred her to a world class endocrinologist, who confirmed “she is indeed a woman, despite her karyotype and testosterone levels.” In other words, she’s XY and male testosterone levels. (They never made it clear what facts were relied on for the “she is indeed a woman” statement, but obviously it wasn’t her genome). The following exchange took place between the journalist and trainer/bio professor immediately after this statement about her karyotype: Some claim that XY profiles have a physical, muscular superiority over XX profiles. “People say that everyone should play sports. Everyone, except these people? Some suggest creating special categories, but even within a group of hypoandrogenic or hyperandrogenic people, there are differences among them. There is such a significant variation that categories cannot be established.” Her trainer also admitted they had to lower her testosterone levels to below male levels.
Intersex people exist. Why is this shocking?
The problem is with their categorization in sports, not with their existence. High levels of testosterone mean a significant benefit compared to other competitors in the same weight class.
If testosterone is banned as a doping substance for female athletes, then the rules create double standards for the competitors and that’s unboundedly a serious problem.
Intersex people shouldn’t be in the cisgender male competition either. If they are intersex they are in between male and female, and should have their own category for their safety.
Most probably yes. What you say is correct, but take into account that different genetic anomalies lead to intersex people with different characteristics, so that’s something that needs investigation. Surely they fit neither into male not into female categories, but furthermore they maybe not fit into a single intersex category either.
As for now though, basically for political reasons related to gender labeling, we have the current highly unfair situation.
I know that there is variation between intersex people but I feel that there wouldn’t be enough of them if they all had their own intersex categories.
The best solution would be to have one single intersex category, for the safety of the cisgender female athletes, but also for the safety of the intersex athletes.
And it’s ok if they don’t have enough competitors for all sports. Even if they were only able to hold competitions for the most popular sports, it still gives them a chance to compete.
It surely is a far better solution compared to the current approach.
Shocking news: some people have biological advantages in sports.
We are not talking about a general biologic advantage in this case, but for an advantage that arises from a substance that is banned as a doping substance for the rest of female athletes.
That undoubtedly creates double standards. Period. Either testosterone should get removed from the list of doping substances for all females or those who have abnormal levels (for any reason) should not qualify to compete in the same class with other female athletes. It’s totally unfair to have it both ways.
Everyone makes testosterone, and we all do so in different amounts. There is plenty of diversity in the amount of testosterone for female athletes with XX chromosomes as well. As long as she’s not doping, any advantage that her natural body has given her is fair game, as it always has been.
This amount of discussion about this poor woman’s body is honestly exhausting. I’m glad she’s filed a legal complaint for online bullying. Maybe we can get off her back and let her enjoy her well-deserved gold medal.
Understandable, but at the same time you would not want « regular phenotype » women to be excluded from professional sports because they are not competitive with intersex people. I mean that’s the reason why we have women categories in sport so that they don’t compete with men.
There are well established reference ranges of normal values for males and females and different age groups. It’s not a problem from a medical point of view to find out which people have abnormal values.
The discussion is not about this specific person. It’s not a personal matter. The discussion is about the rules. Either testosterone should be removed from the list of doping substances for every female athlete or otherwise those who are out of range should not be eligible to compete. The current rules promote blatant unfairness and that hasn’t anything to do with any specific person.