[dispin]

> https://schwarztech.net/snippets/oh-look-misplaced-transphob...

This is a very misleading blog post. All evidence revealed so far indicates that Khelif is a male who was erroneously assumed to be female at birth due to having underdeveloped external genitalia.

In particular, a leaked medical report states that Khelif has a disorder of sexual development, specifically 5-alpha reductase deficiency (5-ARD), which is consistent with this.

This isn't that uncommon an occurrence: most famously, Caster Semenya - another male athlete who competed in women's sport - has this condition. In fact every medal winner in the women's 800m at the 2016 Olympics was male.

[kstrauser]

> In fact every medal winner in the women's 800m at the 2016 Olympics was male.

Proof or take it back. I don't believe that for one second.

[dispin]

https://www.ocregister.com/2021/07/30/francine-niyonsabas-ol...

> World Athletics testing found that Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui all had the 46,XY karyotype and produce levels of testosterone in the male range.

https://www.olympics.com/en/olympic-games/rio-2016/results/a...

[kstrauser]

Yes, and? That obviously doesn’t make them men by itself.

[dispin]

Do you have an alternative explanation for these test results, other than the three athletes being male?

Keeping in mind that we know for a fact Semenya has 5-ARD, because this was revealed in a ruling published by the CAS.

[kstrauser]

Genetics isn’t as tidy as you seem to think. Many people with 5-ARD are born with functional vaginas. Personally, I call someone born with a vagina, who was raised as a woman, who identifies as a woman, who presents herself to the world as a woman, a woman.

I have no knowledge, nor interest in having knowledge, of the shape of any of those athletes’ genitals. That also means I have zero reasons, even specious ones, to doubt their sex.

It turns out the world is a lot more complex than we thought, and a lot of stuff we use to take for granted isn’t actually true. “XY is male” was a reasonable guess when we only had information on a few test subjects. Now that genetic testing is widespread, we know that’s not a hard and fast rule.

[dispin]

It's worth taking a step back to consider why we have separate categories for male and female sporting competitions, which is: the significant physical advantage that male development confers on an individual. If sports were mixed-sex, males would dominate almost every competition. So we have women's and girls' sports separate from males, to recognize and celebrate female athletic excellence.

With that in mind, it should be obvious why exclusion of male athletes from the female category is necessary: for fairness, and in contact sports like boxing, also safety.

The reason that males with 5-ARD have testosterone levels in the normal male range is that they have testes which produce it. They go through male puberty and thus have bodies which, in a competitive sports context, have the physical advantages conferred by male development.

These males have no female organs. Some develop a perineal pouch which may be mistaken for a vagina, but it isn't a vagina in the female sense - not anatomically nor histologically - and certainly isn't functional, given that the function of an actual female vagina is copulation and childbirth.

Whether they're raised as if they're female or believe themselves to be women isn't relevant in the context of competitive sport. The reason they should be excluded from the female category is the same as any other male: the categorical advantage from male development.

This is why it's so controversial that every medal winner in the women's 800m at the 2016 Olympics was male, and that two males took gold in women's boxing in the 2024 Olympics.