We do not know what is between Imane Khelif’s legs. It is absolutely possible to be XY and be born with a vagina that looks and works like any vagina. They might even have rudimentary (but non-functional) female reproductive organs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_gonadal_dysgenesis
If that is true about Imane Khelif, she may not even have known about it most of her life.
Should all Olympians be genetically tested or just examined to see what’s between their legs? If the former, which event do the women with Swyer Syndrome perform in? How about people with both sets of genitalia? They exist. What about people who are XXY or XYY?
And if you think the latter- please do justify that sort of invasive examination for the purposes of athletic competition. Unpaid athletic competition at that.
Do we need a protected class? If yes, there must be standards and those standards must be either endocrine or genetic or both. Yes they should be tested. Anyone failing the protected class can compete in the open class. It’s really that simple.
What open class? There is no open class at the Olympics. So no it isn’t really that simple.
Really? They prohibit women from competing alongside men?? No thats not the case, women only sports is to prevent males with higher biological advantage from taking over the women’s competition.
Males are not taking over any women’s competition anywhere in the world. I know that you think that trans women are men, but even by that standard this idea is a total farce - there is one transgender athlete out of like a thousand Olympians at this year’s Olympics. There have been no major trans competitors in the Olympics despite being allowed since 2004. There is no dominance of trans athletes in sports at any level in any country on this planet. This is a phantom that you have invented in your head, it is totally illusory and does not exist - and because it does not exist, the only thing trying to fight this phantom can possibly accomplish is hurting women by excluding them from their own competitions.
there must be standards
Here’s a standard: if you live as a woman you’re a woman.
and those standards must be either endocrine or genetic or both
There is absolutely no reason to assert that this must be the case.
Do you really think it’s fair for a full blown man to fight women in the ring just because he identifies as a woman? Women will get very seriously hurt or possibly killed fighting someone assigned male sex at birth. I have no problem letting them do anything that doesn’t hurt others, but this is a case where I think we need to be more sensible.
Boxing has weight classes. As do most other martial arts.
The problem is not a 50kg men fighting a 70kg women in terms of injuries and power imbalance. And in that set up the women most likely wins. The problem is the typical situation of a 80-100 kg men smacking down on a 50-60kg women. And that is the image the demagogues try to conjure.
So if your full blown men is a 60kg feather to be able to compete against another 60kg women, the whole trope falls apart.
A man with the same body weight as a woman would still inherently have more upper body strength and higher ability to gain it as that’s just how men are built vs women. It’s still not a fair way of setting intersex classes.
IMO this reflects the conservative mindset that everything is black and white and that if they believe it then it will manifest itself as truth. Even if they have to force it to be so in a convoluted and hypocritical way.
What I think is that nature gives some people the mutation that could save humanity one day. The ability for XX and XX to make a XY if all the XY are unavailable. Mother Nature shows this is a rule in many of the other species on this planet.
Black and white is how both sides see it, but coming from different directions. Neither are willing to admit that there are nuances in anything.
Put simply, it was never really about transgender women, they were just used to create a psuedoscientific smokescreen around the same thing that misogyny has always been about: policing women’s bodies. If the patriarchy doesn’t consider you a woman, you don’t get to be one.
This is stupid. There’s no “far right” to purge women… the outcry is whether or not women’s sports are being treated fairly. The whole controversy about this boxing issue started when information was released that this female has failed gender tests in the past. Of course there’s going to be an outcry from people.
