In light of plans to introduce this policy and the particular circumstances surrounding some boxers that competed at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, World Boxing has written to the Algerian Boxing Federation to inform it that Imane Khelif will not be allowed to participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup or any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes sex testing.
Olympics testing sex means they will be testing women, and never men, it means they’ll come up with a test that requires different representatives of different competing nations to agree a woman doesn’t technically qualify as a woman despite her fully functioning uterus, and again they’ll be invasive and humiliating and poor countries will have twice or more disqualified athletes, they will go after women of color twice as hard, and the more extreme countries they send these women back to live in will treat these women horrifyingly bad.
In a way they do testing on men in sports all the time. They test for testosterone levels for one to see if the athlete is not utilizing Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs).
But I also haven’t read the article on the methodology they will be going to be utilizing.
Generally because the differences in male and female biology mean that ftm athletes are coming in at a disadvantage and only risk end up being hurt themselves by male athletes who generally have them at a disadvantage. Mtf athletes however, due to the aspects of male physiology that remain, have a higher likelihood of having an advantage over female athletes and also posing a danger to the other athletes. This is generally why most womens categories were introduced in the first place (female physical disadvantage).
Especially in martial arts and combat sports like boxing, which are already inherently dangerous, the physical safety of the athletes and protecting them must come above more ephemeral goals such as inclusion in my view.
As it stands with current day medical technology, there are limits to how close a transitioning individual can be changed to resemble the opposing gender.
Given how deep the differences are physiologically between the sexes with things such as lyonization I’m not entirely sure that it will ever be possible to fully transition a person outside of weird and ethically questionable future tech such as vat-growing a genetically modified clone and somehow transferring the consciousness of the person.
There are several cases in sports already where people who are born women and have a female phenotype and genotype, but have naturally higher levels of testosterone, who have been banned from competition.
The message they use is the they’re “protecting women” but it isn’t actually the goal. Often there aren’t any cases of transgender athletes outperforming their cis opponents, yet they still try to create these rules. It’s frequently actively harmful to many cisgendered women.
The problem with all of this is the “basic biology” crowd never learn that biology is really fucking complex. What they learn in grade school is not the totality of biology, yet they assume they must be experts and force their very limited and wrong views on other people. It’s bad and harmful and siding with them makes them feel all the more justified in their crusade of bullshit and misinformation.
I’m not particularly familiar with the politics of sports, nor am I particularly interested - as such I won’t comment on what their goals are. I am, however, very familiar with human biology and healthcare. 5 yrs of secondary + tertiary education familiar in addition to several years of work experience. You’ll unfortunately have to take my word for that. I don’t intend to dox myself with documentation.
With my outlook on the topic, it doesn’t seem like a “crusade of bullshit and misinformation”. Headline news, physiology and most importantly “data and medical evidence from an extensive range of sources and consulted widely with other sports and experts across the world” - as they claim. I don’t have time to personally look into that (sucks to have a life amirite) but am inclined to trust that they care for the athletes and have done due diligence. If you (or anyone else for that matter!) has material that disputes the validity of their work do feel free to link it in a reply. I and others I’m sure would be interested in reading such material.
Thanks.
Headline news, physiology and most importantly “data and medical evidence from an extensive range of sources and consulted widely with other sports and experts across the world” - as they claim. I don’t have time to personally look into that (sucks to have a life amirite) but am inclined to trust that they care for the athletes and have done due diligence.
Here’s the issue we have: you trust them because they put out a press release with this claim. I don’t, because it’s a press release. You want others to prove them wrong instead of needing them to prove they’re right.
I’m sure there’s some truth to the statement, but did they actively look at the points made by the opposition and weigh it all? There’s no claim for this here even, and even if there were I wouldn’t trust it implicitly. To be scientific you need to actively try to disprove your assumptions. If they still hold then cool, but you have to be critical.
At the end of the day, this is a business. They’re trying to make money. This is something that I’ll never just give my trust to. If they prove their claims then fine, but I’m going to assume all decisions are business decisions first, not the best decision for all athletes necessarily.
Thing is, my time is limited. I don’t have time to look into every single thing. No, this isn’t some empiric process on my part. It comes down to judgement.
On the one hand there is a well established organization (and several others actually, I did do a cursory internet search) backed by an army medical professionals, which will get sued into oblivion by these athletes if they are egregiously wrong. What they’re saying also happens to check out with my own knowledge on the topic and news that has circulated (both in regular papers and on occasion medical news).
On the other hand, there are a bunch of random internet strangers who, without citing any external sources say that the well established organization is wrong and lying.
So, which one would you be inclined to believe?
Again, feel free to drop in some material that you think disproves this, I would love to have a look!
You can’t disprove it. It’s a value call. Is it worth restricting players who should (in my opinion at least) be allowed to play for this? Are the trans (or higher testosterone cis) players actually that big of an issue, or is it a culture issue?
Here’s a case where cis-female Zambian soccer player was barred from playing. Did that do more good than harm? I doubt it. This is far from the only case where cis women are prevented from competing because of made up rules that make them ineligible. I’m sure it’ll happen in this scenario too.
You can though - at least to the extent that we in empirical science usually refer to “proving” or “disproving” (or rather, indicate or contraindicate a hypothesis). In this case it’d be studies/metastudies on injuries in different kinds of matchups (which can either show a statistically significant difference or not) or in performance of different athletes.
The case you linked here is regarding football, not boxing, which simply makes it a question of performance rather than also safety (as it is with boxing or other combat sports). The key difference in judgement here is the same reason that there are weight classes - simply wouldn’t be safe (or fair for that matter) to match up a 120kg vs a 60 kg athlete - the latter might literally get killed.
Performance wise, the most “fair” might be to sort athletes into leagues based on testosterone levels. It’s already known that higher testosterone levels tend to correlate with higher performance, so rather than imposing an arbitrary limit where only the athletes in the “sweet spot” just below the limit get to excel, grade them into brackets based on that. Women’s sports were established in the first place to give women a fair chance at competing, since male vs female competitions in the vast majority of cases end up very one sided.
What are you talking about? This is not about transgender at all. For those you could require a birth certificate. This is targeting women that are born as girls but, due to genetic anomalies, do not appear as such on genetic tests. Many (most?) would never discover the genetic anomaly during their lifetime.
At least from what I’ve read previously, these rules changes are primarily related to incidents where female athletes have been severely injured when competing against mtf athletes - but it’s long been a contentious issue. As is often the case, when rules are changed/implemented they end up being broad and catching others in the crossfire.
It’s unfortunate that it’s ended up being necessary. However, there are many professions where people can’t work due to genetics or health (eyesight, cardiac issues etc.) and athletics in general is already a field highly affected by genetics. C’est la vie…
For Christmas’s sake, boxing is a combat sport. The whole point of combat sports is to incapacitate your opponent via violent means. Do you actually think safety is the real concern here? If it was, you’d think the focus would be on better equipment, rule changes, rule enforcement, etc., not the (largely irrelevant) existence of a Y chromosome in an athlete’s genome.
Do you actually think safety is the real concern here?
…yes, in fact combat sports are usually more safety conscious given that they constantly have to deal with the issue. One slip up and zip, someone’s dead.
Again, mtf or any transgender issue can be solved with birth certificates. It doesn’t require genetic testing. Genetic testing is targeted at humans that according to all our traditional laws and practices are treated as female, yet may potentially be banned from female sports.
Some countries permit people to have the gender on their birth certificate changed after transition, which unfortunately renders your suggestion moot. Also from the wording in the article I think the testing will be applied to male athletes also.
Testing for chromosomes in this day and age is also quite simple and rather cheap. The main issue really is how privacy is handled. Personally I wouldn’t want to have to be subjected to a gene test for a job.
[citation needed]
…from the article
… to ensure the safety of all participants and deliver a competitive level playing field for men and women.
…which has examined data and medical evidence from an extensive range of sources and consulted widely with other sports and experts across the world.
This decision reflects concerns over the safety and wellbeing of all boxers, including Imane Khelif, and aims to protect the mental and physical health of all participants…
…and another citation for good measure.
That’s just World Boxing’s statement, it’s not actually substantiating any of their claims.
No, it’s not “just World Boxing’s statement”. Have a look at the author. If you take issue with the validity of the claims maybe try and contact him, he’s a medical professional with literal decades of experience in this exact field.
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No both happen, people just have a much bigger problem when an assigned man transitions to woman.
Source?
I had a sex test done recently. The results were negative.
Genitalia: unremarkable
Hold on. Wait a minute.
It’s cold and I need fluffing.
“THERE WAS SHRINKAGE!”
Nice; how much sex do they need to have to pass the test?
It isn’t about the quantity. Its about the quality.
at least fifty thrusts
So like 5 theherk sex units.
Unlikely, but it would be hilarious if some self-proclaimed alpha male found out the hard way that he is in fact intersex.
And those tiny number of edges cases need to be highlighted to show it does indeed happen. With biology, there is rarely ever truely binary. Biology is too mushy.
The only kind of sex testing I am okay with, is making sure condoms and sex toys work properly by actually using them on myself.
Alright, this one still fucks! Congratulations! Noe get out there and punch somebody!
Should I be wearing a condom on my fist when I punch Nazis? I don’t wanna catch whatever they have…
Brass knuckles are ribbed for your pleasure.
Looks like I need to post this again.
Thanks for sharing. I never seen it before.
Alpha bros gonna be real upset that the Typical biological male is a the pink end of the spectrum 😂
Dang. It’s almost like determining someone’s sex is hard to do.
Do you have a higher res copy that isn’t so difficult to read?
I don’t, but I can provide an article with the infographic included.
This might work:
That’s a nice infographic, but must we not draw a vertical line somewhere on that spectrum to say what is allowed in women’s sport? It seems unreasonable to allow everything on the spectrum as women’s sports would be dominated by people from the male end of the spectrum.
Sure, but do you think that’s the test they’re doing? Are they testing for the various SRY mutations? Multiple X chromosomes? Multiple Y? Genes that impact hormone regulation?
There are certainly issues with sport categories that are designed to be for something other than the elite in their field, but I don’t expect nuance from the same groups that banned a boxer because she wasn’t sufficiently attractive.
Sure, but do you think that’s the test they’re doing?
I mean they state right there what kind of test they are doing (but perhaps you didn’t read it or missed that part?):
all athletes over the age of 18 that want to participate in a World Boxing owned or sanctioned competition will need to undergo a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) genetic test to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility to compete.
The PCR test is a laboratory technique used to detect specific genetic material, in this case the SRY gene, that reveals the presence of the Y chromosome, which is an indicator of biological sex. The test can be a be conducted by nasal/mouth swab, saliva or blood.
So they are testing for the presence of the Y chromosome. Not sure if that covers any of the questions you asked there but presumably no. But again, we must draw the line somewhere and “presence of the Y chromosome” doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable way to determine that line - at the very least it sounds like a very unambiguous way to draw the line. But I am not an expert so I won’t speak with any confidence about this.
So this test probably won’t catch someone who is XY, but missing the SRY gene. I’m not sure if it will detect a mutated SRY gene, and I don’t pretend to be an expert. I also can’t be sure if thos test will catch someone who is XX with an SRY gene, which is also a thing, nor if it will catch XX/XY mosaicism. And those are the easy ones.
The fact of the matter is, internationally competitive athletes are a group of 0.1% or less, and people with abnormal sex genes, let alone abnormal genes in general, fall into the 0.5% to 1% category. What do you think the overlap is in two groups of outliers?
Edit: Extra reading. Note the 24 genetic variations (that we know of) that count as intersex.
What do you think the overlap is in two groups of outliers?
Well, seeing as people with abnormal sex genes may have an advantage in competitive women’s sports, you would actually expect to see a significant amount of that “outlier” group in the group of top athletes, as there is a selection happening. You’re right that if you chose independently at random from people who are top athletes and people who have abnormal sex genes, the overlap would be incredibly small. But sports is not a random selection at all. At the top of sports, even the smallest advantage means the difference between winning and losing, so even small variations (like those caused by abnormal sex genes) may give significant advantages (perhaps even “unfair” advantages).
And to that, I’ll reiterate my second paragraph previously.
There are certainly issues with sport categories that are designed to be for something other than the elite in their field, but I don’t expect nuance from the same groups that banned a boxer because she wasn’t sufficiently attractive.
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Just because the words are too big for you to understand doesn’t mean what they’re describing isn’t real.
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Because numerous people around the world have been using cutting edge research for decades to study these things, observing their effects in actual people, means that I honestly don’t give a fuck if you “buy the idea”. Your feelings, opinions, and armchair assessments on this topic are worthless.
There is no idea to buy. Those are observed conditions on real bodies
When modern scientists accept new understandings of things that is the science
We’re not in the 50s anymore, we now understand more than we did then.
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What specific element is pseudoscience?
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So, hormones don’t exist?
Intersex people don’t exist?
Trans people don’t exist?
And what, we’re all either 100% male or 100% female and there is never a grey area in biology?Don’t make the conscious decision to remain ignorant, you’re keeping yourself back.
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Yeah but that’s why they’re beliefs, and not science
stfu
So, you are arguing that SRY inactivation does not occur?
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Swyer means an XY female, as you are agreeing to now.
What is your definition for female?
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World Boxing has written to the Algerian Boxing Federation to inform it that Imane Khelif will not be allowed to participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup or any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes sex testing.
Phew, that was close, they almost had to pick a pronoun.
Sex testing should be allowed but any time someone calls for sex testing and gets it incorrect the boxer 2should get one good punch in on them
They’re gonna discover the same thing they did in the Olympics that made them stop testing.
It was making people uncomfortable how many of them had the wrong sex assigned at birth.
Women and men who had lived their entire lives as one sex realized they actually had the chromosomes for the opposite sex.
There were stages and layers of sex testing within Olympics history, and every time they got mis-classifications they weren’t expecting.
We figured out by the 50s that a gender binary was not imperically proveable. Too many variables that varied seperate from each other and often conflicted with each other.
That word is empirically - by experiment or observation
What? Really? Didnt know this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_verification_and_intersex_athletes_at_the_Olympic_Games
The history of sex testing for sports is really interesting, for me it’s interesting because despite almost 100 years of the practice not a single “male imposter” has ever been found.
And I was mistaken. Like another comment on this post says they just stopped testing in men’s sports.
That is really interesting
The irony if transphobia founders over cis gender dysphoria will be breathtaking.
what does this sentence even mean
Foundering means failure or defeat. It’s originally a nautical term for sinking IIRC.
Cis gender dysphoria would be what a cis person feels when they get kicked out of their assigned-at-birth gender, like is being described. Cis being the opposite of trans.
If anti-trans activists can’t handle gender dysphoria, a major challenge which trans people face, that’s ironic.
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“Bad lay, can’t box.”
You joke but this sort of shit does tend to lead so sexual harassment at the very least.
I’m not sure how the WBO is still recognized as a legitimate operation. They’re horribly corrupt already and this is just another opportunity to fix fights rather than any commentary on current politics.
Just like penis inspection day in gym class
Ah good times. I wonder why coach needed to take pictures though.
Wtf are they gonna do? Check if there is a vagina? Uterus? DNA? If you are insensitive to testosterone but with SRY (the gene responsible for sexual differentiation during fetal development), you end up AFAB, but without uterus. Is this woman enough? (You even lack testoserone)
You could read the article, it states it’s a chromosome test. Not that I agree with this, but its a bad look to react without doing the bare minimum
They are going to find out chromosomes are super complicated. There are XY AFAB cis women and we don’t actually know how common they are because we don’t test for it.
Pretty sure there’s XX AMAB as well. But what are they going to do with XXY or XYY?
FTA:
The PCR test is a laboratory technique used to detect specific genetic material, in this case the SRY gene, that reveals the presence of the Y chromosome,
So it seems as though the test will basically be
if y_chromosome: return Male else: return FemaleI assume in both XXY and XYY, those would be classified as male under their criteria.
The best thing with that is that there is a possibility to have the SRY jumping to a X chromosome. They are fucking dumb
“Where test results for boxers that want to compete in the female category reveal Y chromosome genetic material and a potential DSD, the initial screenings will be referred to independent clinical specialists for genetic screening, hormonal profiles, anatomical examination or other valuation of endocrine profiles by medical specialists.”
Seems to me like they were already aware when writing this Press Release, they mentioned the policy on DSD:
Athletes that are deemed to be male at birth, as evidenced by the presence of Y chromosome genetic material (the SRY gene) or with a difference of sexual development (DSD) where male androgenization occurs, will be eligible to compete in the male category.
Athletes that are deemed to be female at birth, as evidenced by the presence of XX chromosomes or the absence of Y chromosome genetic material (the SRY gene) or with a DSD where male androgenization does not occur, will be eligible to compete in the female category.
PCR testing for the SRY gene, according to the press release linked at the top.
Meanwhile in the near future: world boxing to end needless sex testing to save costs.
