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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   34129 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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A Carnival of Bad Sports Opinions

I'm sure by now everyone has seen the 43-second fight between Khelif and Carini. Full 43 seconds here and the money shot in slow-mo here.

What a ludicrous display. The bigoted opinion most supported by this farce of a fight isn't anything about Khelif's genital arrangement or chromosomes, it is that women's boxing shouldn't be in the olympics if this kind of crybaby shit is going down in there and no one is immediately calling it out. I spent some of my teen years being a weak, wimpy boxes (coincidentally at about that height and weight!) and this is just not how a fight goes when you realize that your opponent is much stronger than you and get scared when you realize you don't have a chance. You shell up and avoid leaving yourself open, you get on your bicycle and run away, you throw tentative tight jabs while keeping your hands up to keep them on the outside, if they get inside you immediately clinch to avoid further punishment. I was a teenager bad at boxing and working out with a lot of grown men much better than me, I was frequently in this position. What you don't do is what Carini did. You don't attack, extend yourself, drop your hands, get tagged, and tap out. I'm not an expert on Olympic boxing, but I've never in my life seen any male fighter, from the level of muay thai smokers up to the pros, surrender like that for no apparent reason. If a male fighter tried that, I would assume it was fixed.

Carini may have been outmatched, but she easily could have fought the round out defensively, run away, survived to the bell, and thrown in the towel between rounds. Minimal shame in that. I'd even be a little less judgmental if she truly took a dive and faked a "phantom punch" and just dropped to the ground to take a KO loss. But to give up not even halfway into the round after taking one punch, when she was clearly fully functional and unhurt? It makes a mockery of boxing. The majority of the felt force of that punch wasn't even relative to the strength of the boxer, it was the near perfect angle given by Carini with her hands low and her chin out.

One of Khelif's former opponents Irish boxer Amy Broadhurst has stepped up in her defense. In one of the funnier twitter exchanges I've ever seen, a random user asks Broadhurst how she would feel if she had to fight Khelif; Broadhurst has beaten Khelif in the ring multiple times in international competition. Here's footage of Khelif looking significantly less manly when someone has the guts to stand and bang. The mick keeps her hands up, gets inside, and punishes Khelif, who clearly gets gassed from the punishment taken from the stronger Broadhurst. This presumably settles the old North Jersey debate over whether Irish or Italians are tougher? Watching these fights I probably drop my opinion on women's boxing, Broadhurst is willing to tank a hit and get inside and go to the body hard, and wins the fight handily.

This is, in my mind, one of the great unsung tragedies of the rise of the trans movement. A woman, born female in a country where homosexuality and gender transition are illegal, raised as a woman, but born tall and with a face and body that is undeniably a bit masculine (especially by global and eurocentric standards), is now under constant suspicion of being secretly male. I have no idea what intersex condition Khelif might or might not have been born with, and no public statement has been made that confirms any testosterone testing. The presumption must be, absent testing, that a girl raised as a girl is a girl. There is probably an inappropriate level of testosterone at which a female competitor should be removed from competition or forced to suppress the level, but we still have yet to see evidence that Khelif is in that category. Further, there is a moral hazard created by normalizing edge cases, in that a competitor will accuse their opponent of gender-violations. Some of the more insane red-state laws allowed any parent of a competitor to require testing of any opponent, which I have to imagine would be abused constantly to try to demoralize one's competition by having a weird judge examine your vagina before the big game.

The takes on the "Defend Women's Sport" side of the debate have been degrading in quality, as TERFs like Rowling have risen in prominence. My problem with the pro-trans "there's no difference" side has long been that not one of them has any knowledge of or enthusiasm for sport. I feel like we're seeing more of that from the TERF side here, with the idea that Khelif is just SO MUCH STRONGER that Carini was forced to quit for her own safety being parotted across Twitter without any evidence. I'm embarrassed for my side of the debate, if this is made a serious test-case for trans bans it is going to harm the cause for reasonable restriction in sport.

At the end of the day, I don't really object to transwomen competing in women's sport, I object to them winning. If they lose, then clearly it was no big deal. It's only if they win that it presents a problem, we got the science wrong. Given that binary, it would benefit the trans movement if they avoided trans women in sport altogether. But alas, here we are, in the carnival of bad sports opinions.

ETA:

https://apnews.com/article/angela-carini-imane-khelif-boxing-63e9dbaa30f1e29196d4162c72c2babf

Poor girl. Doesn't deserve some fat asshole from Pennsylvania going off on her for something she says she regrets.

A woman, born female

How did you arrive at these facts? The IOC never tested her sex, they only checked her passport, but you don't fight with your passport. Similarly, she might have ambiguous/female-looking genitalia, but that is not enough, because boxers don't fight with their genitalia.

Given the circumstances, I think it's quite likely that Khelif is biologically male with a DSD like 5-ARD, just like Caster Semenya before her. In fact, I'd be willing to bet on it. Are you?

Carini may have been outmatched, but she easily could have fought the round out defensively, run away, survived to the bell, and thrown in the towel between rounds.

That would not have called attention to the inherent unfairness of being paired up against a male opponent.

It makes a mockery of boxing.

You know what makes an even greater mockery of female boxing? Allowing males to compete. If you want to avoid a situation like this, you should be calling for Khelif to be sex tested and (if male) banned, not for Carini to take a beating from a (likely) male.

The fact that you think the woman should just suck it up and let the man demolish her shows that you don't care about the integrity of the sport at all. You just want to watch men beat up women, and have a grudge against women who won't put up with that.

The fact that you think the woman should just suck it up and let the man demolish her shows that you don't care about the integrity of the sport at all. You just want to watch men beat up women, and have a grudge against women who won't put up with that.

This appears to be a very uncharitable reading of the OP and not what he said at all. Do not project bad faith sentiments onto other posters.

On the back of revelations that the IBA banned Khelif mid tournament some time ago and that Carini has now issued an apology, the IBA is gifting Carini a US$50k payout as if she had won a gold medal..

This is after the IOC recently discredited the IBA for banning Khelif 'without due process mid tournament':

These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process.

“According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO. The IBA Board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also say that the IBA should ‘establish a clear procedure on gender testing’.

“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.

Nothing about whether Khelif has XY chromosones. Entire statement is 'the IOC developed guidelines and followed those guidelines therefore it's irrelevant what genetics Khelif has as all people have the right to compete'.

Edit: The IOC has fired back at the IBA with shady accusations like 'it's unclear where the money is coming from'

Who is running the IOC's media account? It's worth going through all the statements by IOC against the IBA recently.

So wait, the IBA is still around even though it isn't recognized by the IOC because of accusations of corruption, right? Is the IBA giving money to all the medal winners even though it isn't involved?

I thought they're saying IBA is no longer recognized as a result of this drama. Accusations of corruption are pretty rich here.

No the IBA recognition was yanked years ago as a result of totally unrelated accusations of corruption related to their relationship with Gazprom.

The IBA is just getting involved in this to troll the IOC. Which, hey, great opportunity.

This is after the IOC recently discredited the IBA for banning Khelif 'without due process mid tournament':

Huh? The IBA statement clearly says both of them had a right to appeal at an independent arbiter:

For clarification:

  • Lin Yu-ting did not appeal the IBA’s decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), thus rendering the decision legally binding.
  • Imane Khelif initially appealed the decision to CAS but withdrew the appeal during the process, also making the IBA decision legally binding.

What do you call that, if not "due process"?

Due process involves a lot more than just the right to appeal though. If your local cops picked you up off the street, for no reason, faked evidence, threw you in jail after a trial you didn't get to attend, kept you in solitary until finally the Supreme Court granted you an appeal,it would be hard to describe that alone as giving you due process. Indeed the Supreme Court might decide your due process rights had been violated as part of the appeal regardless of whether the cops thought they had followed them.

That doesn't mean the IBA didn't give due process, but the ability to appeal to CAS can't be in and of itself said to show the IBA followed due process otherwise. Likewise because CAS is based in Switzerland its decisions can be appealed to the Swiss Federal Tribunal but CAS itself might have failed to follow whatever counts for due process in Switzerland, either on purpose or by mistake.

Again it's not evidence they didn't follow due process, but it isn't evidence they did either.

If a male fighter tried that, I would assume it was fixed.

Are you saying you think the fight was fixed? It's possible. It would hardly be the first time that a boxing match was fixed. It's a famously crooked sport!

But. Isn't it also possible that she just got scared and wanted to run away? That's a very normal reaction to getting punched in the face! Especially when you've been hearing all these rumors about how your opponent has some weird medical condition that gives them an unfair strength advantage like steroids.

In these arguments about trans athletes and women's sports, people always compare the hard physical stats like how much weight they can bench press. And sure, that stuff matters. But the personality matters too. Women are much less aggressive than men. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that, in an extremely stressful situation, she might resort to the "flight" response rather than the "fight" that a boxer is supposed to have. There's probably a reason that women's boxing is such a niche sport that hardly anyone watches or partakes in, and it's weird to use at as some measuring stick for either nationalistic pride or women's/trans rights.

Carini's reason for giving up does remind me of certain forms of competition, but it reminds me specifically of competitive gaming, particularly speedrunning and e-sports. In speedrunning, resetting the moment you make one fairly significant mistake is normal (never mind that it could mean starting a whole run over if you aren't doing segments), and in e-sports-oriented games (like MOBAs or FPS games), the idea of ditching a ranked game when things go south early is common enough that many games have their matchmaking systems designed to punish early-leavers.

The difference is solo vs opposed. In a speedrun race between people it would be poor form to quit early.

This doesn't necessarily extend. In Starcraft for example, resigning when it's clear you won is actually good form, and in fact one of the worst BM moves ("bad manners") is to as Terran lift up your bases (they can fly) and float them to the corner and force your opponent to hunt down each and every one of your units for the win (sometimes your opponent might not even have flying units yet, and must produce them just to finish you off). In a few other 1v1 games it's also seen as wasting everyone's time if you don't resign when it's clear you have lost (I dunno about chess, but in some e.g. online card games this is the case)

Still, in either chess, Dota 2 or Magic: the Gathering it is evidently commonplace to concede a game that's considered unrecoverable, in professional settings.

That's because all those games have an element of snowballing that makes it more difficult for teams that are behind to come back. If in football, you got an extra player every time you scored a goal, it might well not be worth continuing to play when you're 0-4. After a certain point, a chess or MtG player can be certain that there's no move or card that can turn the game around.

That's true. Does boxing snowball?

My naive impression is that boxing does have an element of attrition, and that after a few rounds of throwing and taking punches, your ability to continue doing so diminishes at a somewhat-more-than-linear rate.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that some games let you call a team vote to concede, because if a game is going lopsided early enough, everyone involved might agree not to waste any more time.

Regarding sources and their dubiousness - apparently Khelif was disqualified by IBA, led at the time by a Russian CEO, right before the finals of the championship where she had previously beaten the Russian athlete, with this being the sole statement by IBA regarding this. Apparently, this is the only source of information on her alleged intersex status.

I don't know the first thing about boxing, but yes, I thought it was very very BM and bad faith for this lady to give up like that, whether the fight is fair or unfair. Leaving aside the question of whether Khelif should compete as a woman, boxing is not supposed to be fair, there is lots of physical variance between competitors. The safety issue is a joke, male boxers take punches way way harder all the time, and if you give a shit about safety , boxing shouldn't even exist as a sport.

As for CAIS women, I think the case for not letting them compete as women is pretty good but not airtight. But Khelif isn't trans and shouldn't be described as trans.

There'd be no problem allowing CAIS women to compete as women, because androgen insensitivity means despite the presence of testosterone, there's no male-like enhancement of performance. I strongly doubt Khelif has CAIS.

Hmm. I think I read that she had high test but no DHT. I guess that's totally the opposite of CAIS.

Khelif likely has 5-alpha reductase deficiency. This enzyme turns testosterone into dihydrotestosterone which is required to produce male external genitalia.

This doesn't; however, prevent the body from producing and using testosterone to otherwise masculinize the body and brain. People with this disorder are often raised as girls; then, when they undergo male puberty, with it's massive surge of testosterone, they usually realize the truth of their biology and start identifying as men.

Someone with this disorder still has actual testicles that produce male levels of testosterone and is by any reasonable definition of maleness or manliness a male/man.

I'd guess Khelif grew up in a backwards environment where people didn't know about such things and Khelif and those around them didn't want to admit to the incongruence between the assumed sex and the reality in front of them.

My understanding is that DHT is critical for the development of many traits that are strongly associated with men, including baldness, body hair, and penis and testicles. If you want to claim that having a penis and functioning testicles are not essential parts of maleness you may certainly try, but I would find it very unconvincing. There is a reason we call it a "manhood"!

5αR2D is an intersex condition. People with it have some parts of maleness but not others. They do have functioning (though often not sperm-producing) testes, which produce the testosterone which (partially) masculinizes them.

Note that people with CAIS also have functional (but not sperm-producing) testes. But in their case, the testosterone does not masculinize them. Neither chromosomes nor testosterone tell you everything.

Male pattern baldness, BTW, isn't at all essential.

If this theory is true, there is a penis and there are testicles, the testicles are certainly functional in producing testosterone, they might even produce sperm.

I'm not really sure your point here?

Khelif isn't as manly as most men, but still manlier than plenty of men I've met.

I don't get what you're not getting. There's a pretty good case for not letting Khelif compete, since she has highly elevated testosterone levels, leaving aside this stupidity about how "manly" she is or whether "I have a penis, you just can't see it" is actually a convincing argument.

The argument is that Khelif is a male with a DSD; XY chromosome and male testosterone levels. Due to the DSD, he was raised as a girl, but this should not imply he ought to compete in competitions reserved for women.

The presence or lack of an external male sex organ is relevant to his DSD but not his competitive classification.

That's the argument you should engage with.

According to boxrec.com Khelif is 37-9 with 5 KO's. I would expect a fighter with full male testosterone to dominate the sport if they were a skilled fighter, or have an unusually high share of their wins come as KO's if they were an unskilled fighter who managed to occasionally land an exceptionally powerful shot. Khelif seems to be good but not great with an average KO rate. Contrast this with Caster Semenya who was setting records in the 800m no one had touched since Soviet women set them in the 80's.

It's possible Khelif has some sort of intersex condition and a testosterone many standard deviations above normal for a woman but not at male levels. She seems more like a tricky edge case about where the line should be set than a clear cut example of someone who should not be allowed under any circumstance to participate.

I don't know what her life has been like but I doubt being an intersex woman in Algeria is easy. She probably has experienced considerably more sex discrimination than your average western feminist trans inclusive or exclusive (unless her parents are incredibly rich and she was in some sort of bubble). Regardless of whether on not she should be permitted to compete I think there's something unseemly about declaring her a violent misogynistic man victimizing women as so many on twitter have done.

Her wiki article says she collected scrap metal to afford bus fare to her early boxing gym, and her father opposed her competing on the basis of her being a woman. It's very possible she has some sort of intersex competition; that's a thing the IBA disqualified her for but the IOC declined to. It certainly doesn't sound like her childhood in rural Algeria was privileged and a bucket of laughs, and she definitely seems to be an edge case.

Uh, didn't Carini get TKO by an individual who is not transgender but has XY chromosomes despite a female body(this is an intersex condition)? It's reasonable to cry foul about that. Imane Khelif has a rare condition which a very high percentage of top female boxers- and certain other athletes- have.

The discussion of "sometimes intersex people don't get to compete in sports for the same reason transwomen don't compete in the girl's league" is one we can have.

She did not get TKO in any normal sense of the term, nor do we have any reliable information as to the status of the other boxer. She got tagged by one good punch and gave up.

I don’t understand what point you are making. You’re upset Carini gave up too easily and feel this degrades women’s sports. You’re upset people are questioning Khelif’s gender despite evidence that there are legit questions there. You feel that because Khelif has lost to a biological woman that their sex is irrelevant.

Is it that you want the anti-trans side to wait for Prime Mike Tyson to transition and kill a few women before raising any objections?

It's that I'd like both sides to rely less on their political assumptions and priors and actually watch the damn games.

In Track and Field we've been forced to watch dominant male-bodied athletes cruise past their competition and been told nothing to see here. Now we're seeing a mediocre competitor treated as "Prime Mike Tyson" by the anti-trans press, who simply refuse to actually watch the damn fight and examine what is happening. I'm sick of being told "Who are you going to trust, me or your lying eyes?" Sports questions require answers that come from examining the outcomes of the sport, not from internet shibboleths.

In the discussion of women's sports, there's a meme that women athletes are overmatched by male athletes: Womens' national soccer team vs 14-year-old boys and Serena Williams vs Male tennis players are two instances that pop up with some frequency here.

In the Trans sports debate, there's a meme that allowing trans athletes in combat sports is a super bad idea, because biological males overmatch females in this way.

It seems relevant to the discussion to ask how dominant a particular trans athlete is. If they've been defeated by biological women, then obviously their particular advantage is not as overwhelming as the standard male vs female athletes meme would suggest. A lot of the description of this event is pretty clearly claiming overmatch. If this competitor has lost to normal female competitors before, then I don't think overmatch is supportable.

This is the wrong standard for combat sports. A contestant being both 40% stronger and objectively bad doesn’t make the event safe!

Not so simple, a person having advantage in muscle mass, bone density, strength and speed can lose a match if they lack the skill. But they may improve still.

https://boxrec.com/en/box-am/899786?allSports=y

Check her box record - the losses are heavily concentrated in the start of her career. Her last loss is in 2022.

I was thinking about and imagining what it would look like if someone like myself just up and started boxing... but in women's leagues. I'm a decently-trained gym-goer, with regular levels of those various male physical advantages, but I've never boxed in my life. How much training would I want to do before competing? ...would I still get thwacked by some women for the first several matches? It's sort of weird and fascinating to think about.

That's valuable data. My point is that "this competitor is a man, men have an unfair advantage" should cash out in observable lopsided results, so appealing to the results should trump raw priors. My impression is that it generally does, but more data either way is a good thing for my confidence in that argument.

ETA:

https://apnews.com/article/angela-carini-imane-khelif-boxing-63e9dbaa30f1e29196d4162c72c2babf

Poor girl.

Yeah... blink twice if you need help, Angela.

Looks like they've forced her to bend the knee.

I just want to know: how much of a biological advantage is too much, such that it's unfair to have people who don't have that advantage compete against people who do have it. That's the motivation for having some kind of testosterone limit for women's competitions right? That it would be unfair to have those women with less testosterone compete against those with more. I can't help but Notice this ostensibly general objection about biological fairness seems to only exist in the context of how much testosterone women's bodies produce. Is it fair for other men's swimmers to have to compete against Michael Phelps with all his biological advantages? What about Usain Bolt? Are the advantages Khalif might have due to her biology greater than the advantages others have due to their biology?

Short answer: There is no such thing as too much biological advantage in male sports. There is in female sports, because...

it's unfair to have people who don't have that advantage compete against people who do have it. That's the motivation for having some kind of testosterone limit for women's competitions right?

that's the motivation for the entire existence of separate women's competitions at all.

You're making the mistake of trying to look at men's vs women's sports in the same way. They are fundamentally different things.

Is it fair for other men's swimmers to have to compete against Michael Phelps with all his biological advantages? What about Usain Bolt? Are the advantages Khalif might have due to her biology greater than the advantages others have due to their biology?

The crucial difference is, there is no higher level of competition in which Phelps or Bolt can compete. The best male athletes are also simply the best athletes period (looking at raw physical performance*). They aren't only competing against men, they are de facto competing against the entire human race, without qualifier. Their natural advantage is not just against other men, it's against everybody. This is not the case for Khalif; her advantage is against women, and is in fact the very one that led to the creation of separate women's sports in the first place.

The more accurate way of looking at things probably isn't "Men's sports vs Women's sports", it's "Sports" without any qualifiers for biological advantage (this is where all the men compete, and have always competed), vs "Women's Sports" (which has qualifiers). Phelps is (or was) the fastest swimmer on the planet. Katie Ledecky is the fastest swimmer on the planet that has a specific biological disadvantage. This is why discussion about what exactly constitutes an "unfair biological advantage" is 100% fair game for women's sports, and doesn't make sense for men's sports. If there was a woman swimmer who was faster than Phelps, she would get credit as the fastest swimmer in the world, but this only goes one way; the 8th place male swimmer doesn't get "credit" for beating all the women's times.

As an aside, I'll point out that this qualifier for women-only competition is a GREAT thing for sports. The whole reason we can have stories like Katie in our society, and boys and girls all reaping the same great benefits of sport, is because this biological disadvantage was something uncontroversial that everyone understood straightforwardly.

Also, to be clear, my rant here is less about the specifics of this particular situation (I really couldn't care less about boxing), and more about rebutting your conflation of Phelps/Bolt vs women with high T.

*Caveat, there are probably some forms of physical competition in which women have a natural advantage over men, in which case all of this logic still holds.

I have just thought of a beautiful solution to balancing the fights in the face of rare gender configurations.

Boxing would be patently unfair because some humans are twice the size of other humans. Instead of shrugging, or making one category for people above 90kg and one category for people below that, we have some elaborate system of weight classes.

We could just do the same for sex hormones like testosterone, instead of just dividing the population into low-T and high-T.

Now, you might object that this will explode the number of classes, but actually it would be the opposite, because we can just project (weight, T) to a single axis, "advantage", because having higher weight is comeasurable to having higher T using some complicated empirical function.

No more checking what junk someone has in their pants or chromosomes. And if some guy argues that having two extra pairs of testicles transplanted is just part of his gender identity, you can just let him compete, but he will be facing regular-T men twice his weight or whatever.

I for one think we should gene sequence and hormone test all athletes then do complex regressions to figure out who most overperforms expectations for their genetics, hormone profile, age, sex, socioeconomic upbringing etc.

We could just do the same for sex hormones like testosterone, instead of just dividing the population into low-T and high-T.

That's not how testosterone works. The biggest differences come from puberty. Having low T as an adult doesn't change what happened physiologically during puberty.

At the end of the day humans are supposed to be sexually dimorphic. One sex is supposed to be bigger and stronger. The weird edge cases like 1/5000 intersex people, or trans people who can't accept their biology should just accept competing with men or do anything else with their time.

The answer to this question just goes back to the reason women's leagues were made in the first place. I personally don't really care that much what women do with their league, include or exclude trans people, none of my business. But the reason these leagues exist at all is because women want to be able to compete and know that in an open league none of them would rise to the top because men at just much stronger. If it's true that trans women being introduced into these leagues would make it so that women can not make it to the top then it's perfectly reasonable to draw the line such that women are on one side and trans women are on the other.

How far do you take this? Would a league be justified in excluding black women, on the grounds they would be too dominant? What if Russian women were really good at some sport? Should they be excluded for being too good? I expect the rejoinder here is that black women and Russian women are women in a way trans women are not, but that is precisely the point I and others dispute!

  • -11

justified in excluding black women, on the grounds they would be too dominant

If there was some racial group of women that somehow had man equivalent strength then I think and argument could be made. I'd imagine such a thing would have a lot of trouble practically because racial lines have a bad history of being drawn with malicious intent but in the hypothetical space I don't have a fundamental issue with it. Natal women is a naturally category and drawing it there rather than a genderless weight class has obvious winners in losers, natal women win, very light natal men lose and this is fine.

You would be perfectly justified in setting up a basketball league for only Asian women(insert other sports league for a group that's almost definitionally going to have trouble getting to the top in it).

Do you believe that there is no difference between trans and cis women? Like how is 'cis women only' dependent on 'trans women are not women'? I certainly don't believe that trans women are women, but I also don't think that that's the basic issue in 'no trans women in women's sports'- whether trans women have physical advantages as a class is. And it doesn't seem in dispute that they do.

And it doesn't seem in dispute that they do.

Certain commenters on this site absolutely do dispute the claim that trans women as a class have a major physical advantage over cis women.

I expect the rejoinder here is that black women and Russian women are women in a way trans women are not, but that is precisely the point I and others dispute!

My definition of "woman" is "adult human female", a standard that black women and Russian women obviously meet and that trans women just as obviously don't. I'm curious what definition of "woman" you're operating on, and how circular it is.

I think if you could actually demonstrate, with evidence, that black women or Russian women dominate other women in all sports to the degree that men dominate women in all sports, then maybe there would be a good argument that they should be in their own league. But I doubt that this is the case, and I doubt you think this is the case.

Do you think leagues should be sex-segregated at all? Or should men and women compete in the same league?

If you believe that leagues should be sex-segregated, then why?

Let me ask another question: right now, because of the relative rarity of trans women, evidence that trans women have a "male advantage" in sports is statistically inconclusive (though the anecdotal examples keep piling up). So for now, defenders of trans women in sports can say "There isn't any proof that trans women have an advantage," and point at trans athletes who don't win every single competition.

But suppose in 20 years time, we do have conclusive, statistically compelling evidence that trans women do, in fact, have a significant advantage over women in sports. Would that change your position at all? Or do you think women just need to accept that trans women can enter their leagues and thrash them?

How far do you take this? Would a league be justified in excluding black women, on the grounds they would be too dominant?

If the sport was competitive suntanning.

I can't help but Notice this ostensibly general objection about biological fairness seems to only exist in the context of how much testosterone women's bodies produce.

I thought I'd seen someone on the Motte making this silly attempt at a "gotcha!" argument before, and what do I know - it was you! Rather than rephrasing my point, I'll just reiterate exactly what I said to you the last time you made this lame argument:

Weight classes. Age classes in sports leagues for children (under-11s, under-12s and so on). Separate divisions for wheelchair-bound marathonners and on-foot marathonners.

If you think it's unfair to pit a heavyweight against a flyweight, a 17-year-old against a 10-year-old, or someone who can roll down a hill against someone who has to use their own feet like a sucker - congratulations, you understand how female athletes feel when asked to compete against male athletes.

You didn't respond to my counter-argument then, but now however many months later you're trotting out the exact same argument again almost word-for-word, treating it as self-evident that there is no other aspect of the sporting ethos which displays the remotest concern about fairness and pairing like athletes with like, except when trying to make trans people feel excluded.

In this case, Carini and Khelif were competing in the welterweight division. Simple question - would it be fair to expect Khelif to fight against a heavyweight opponent? If I was hypothetically concerned about athletes trying to circumvent weight class guidelines, couldn't you just as easily argue that I don't really care about fairness in sports and I'm just using this issue as another stick with which to beat overweight people? Sincerely - why couldn't a heavyweight "identify as" a welterweight? Why couldn't one have a "weight identity" known and knowable only to oneself, wholly distinct from the "biological mass" which was "assigned" to you? (FAHAWI - "forcibly assigned heavyweight at weigh-in"?)

If a featherweight was asked to compete against a heavyweight, the appropriate response from the featherweight is "that's completely unfair, he's twice my size". If the boxing commission replied "no you don't understand, this heavyweight is taking a regimen of drugs which reduce his performance to within two standard deviations of the expected performance of the typical featherweight boxer", the appropriate response from the featherweight is still "that's completely unfair, he's twice my size".

Please stop with the juvenile argument that no one really cares about fairness in sports and are just using the issue as a stalking horse to persecute trans women. It's tiresome and trivial to refute.

My point then and now is that it's not obvious how much of an advantage Khalif actually has. She was eliminated in the Olympic semi-finals in the Tokyo Olympics. She lost the welterweight IBA championship in 2022 to a cis-woman. The idea that she has the kind of advantage over other women the same way a heavyweight has an advantage over a featherweight is exactly what's in dispute. It is not something you can just assume, as your comment does.

  • -11

My point then and now is that it's not obvious how much of an advantage Khalif actually has.

No, your point then and now is that anyone claiming to care about fairness in sports is doing so in bad faith as a stick with which to beat trans women. I resent this characterisation of my opinion that it's unfair for unambiguously male athletes to compete in female sporting events. I remain agnostic on the question of whether Khalif is unambiguously female, unambiguously male, or a female with a DSD which gives them a competitive advantage.

Then let me clarify. I do not think literally everyone who talks about fairness in sports is only using it as a stick to beat trans women. But I do think there are a lot of people out there who do see fairness in sports as a stick to beat trans women.

  • -11

Sure. Doesn't mean they're wrong though - that's Bulverism.

And please stop doing this unbelievably dumb thing of saying "wow, isn't it interesting how this debate about fairness in sports only comes up in the context of allowing trans women to compete? I wonder why that would be!" The very existence of weight classes, age classes etc. demonstrates, with zero room for ambiguity, that you are simply wrong.

Right now the only reason this debate only comes up in the context of sex-segregation in sports is because sex-segregation is a contested category, while weight classes are a settled matter: currently there's no broad social movement demanding that heavyweights to be permitted to compete alongside welter- or feather-weights, on the grounds that they "identify" as a body mass different from their objective bodily mass. Any heavyweight who demanded such a thing would rightfully be laughed out of the room; but when a six-foot tall swimmer who has never been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and who has been competing as a male for years, suddenly "discovers" that he is actually a woman (barely even hiding that he is doing so to fulfil an autogynephiliac sexual fantasy) and demands to be included in female sporting events on that basis - for some reason society at large (and sporting bodies in particular) react with "of course, right this way sir ma'am".

When the transfats in sports movement arrives (when, not if), I want it known both that I foresaw it, and that I promised in advance to fight against it just as stridently as I am currently fighting against the "right" of unambiguously male people to compete in female sporting events.

I just want to know: how much of a biological advantage is too much, such that it's unfair to have people who don't have that advantage compete against people who do have it.

I live in a society where high school football is a very big deal.

Now the law in Texas says that, theoretically, any high schooler who wants to play American football can do so. There not being enough interest for a girl's division, that means that girls who want to badly enough, and whose parents have taken leave of their senses, get to compete on the boys team. This is discouraged but it happens. There are periodic news stories about a- usually junior varsity, these girls tend not to make the cut for a varsity team- high school football team forfeiting a match rather than expect their players to tackle a girl. Functionally football is an open sport, and I think most men's sports are like this in general- as long as there's no doping, anyone who wants to compete in that league gets to. Women's athletics is the restricted one.

Women's athletics is the restricted one.

"Production" and "Open". It's possible to beat Open competitors with Production equipment but Open is its own division because the equipment is specifically designed to be more capable (and less practical).

Ex-men are trying to win Production division by bringing Open hardware into Production via a bunch of bad-faith arguments and the judges are too captured by politics to notice the intent. So it goes.

Are these actual categories of football equipment, or is this a metaphor? The usage here reminds me particularly of competitive shooting, or perhaps also auto racing.

Yeah, these are competitive shooting divisions.

But then that's the thing- the reason they're like that is that sure, you can get an advantage by buying the meta gun, but you can't strap a bunch of other bullshit that doesn't fit in the general spirit of the category and then claim it's balanced (yeah, I'm sure that high-end 2011 with a comp and a dot identifies as a stock Glock 17).

I guess the difference is that even if I had a 2011 I don't want to compete against people running stock Glock 17s, because it's not really even a measure of skill at that point, it's also a question of how hard you can game the gun itself (because in that division, if you're the first guy to come up with putting a red dot on your handgun you deserve the win you're going to get by doing so because that's what that division is for).

It's poor sportsmanship to be intentionally trying to break the categories, which is the reason the entirety of the men's division isn't doing this even though at the end of the day they're passing up another chance to win. And once you lose that concept you don't have a game any more.

I feel like the solution is usually to have a bunch of categories/divisions (see Le Mans racing and 2-Gun shooting), though maybe this doesn't work so well when it comes to humans vs. machines.

though maybe this doesn't work so well when it comes to humans vs. machines.

If you don't have the ability or the willingness to give poor sports the boot it's not going to work regardless.

Notice this ostensibly general objection

It's not a general objection. It's specifically about eligibility to compete in the women's division.

Are the advantages Khalif might have due to her biology greater than the advantages others have due to their biology?

That's not the question. The question is whether the advantages Khalif might have due to her biology are due to her biology being male.

That's not the question. The question is whether the advantages Khalif might have due to her biology are due to her biology being male.

Incredible that none of Khalif's family, or government, or various sporting organizations she participated in could determine this fact for the first 24 years of her life!

  • -10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imane_Khelif

She was disqualified from the women's world boxing championships last year on gender grounds.

And she was permitted to compete in the same competition in 2022. Did she become a man between 2022 and 2023?

Perhaps she did, but notably, she had beaten a Russian athlete shortly before being disqualified by a "separate [from testosterone screening] and recognized test".

I just want to know: how much of a biological advantage is too much, such that it's unfair to have people who don't have that advantage compete against people who do have it.

And I just want us to stop playing postmodernist deconstruction games. You're not going to get a rigorous formula for that, you shouldn't expect to get it, and I even doubt if you would accept a question like that if it was used to deconstruct something you care about.

Maybe the spectacle was the point. By tapping out in such a manner (i.e. one that allows an easily disseminated 10 second gif) it draws so much more attention. Consider that this might be strategic by a woman who has skin in the game both literally and in the sense that a man is probably going to medal in a woman's sport. Or maybe she straight up simply feared for her own safety.

Taking this and maligning women athletes is uncharitable and silly.

It might have been so, but if so it was a mistake. She'd be much better off refusing to compete in principle, which has happened before. Walk into the ring and then announce it before the fight. Or see out the fight.

She'd be much better off refusing to compete in principle

What's this based on? From a purely cynical perspective "woman crying after being beaten on by alleged man" is much better at pulling for heartstrings than "woman doesn't to compete". There'd be none of the photos or videos being shared now, none of the same level of outrage.

Myself. If she'd refused to participate I'd respect the decision and my default is against male participation in combat sports, and athletics generally. I was very anti Caster Semenya, for example. But watching the brief fight it was clear that I was being told something that didn't make any sense.

Let's grant that something odd was going on. Would you agree that, as the ancient saying goes, most people don't know shit about boxing?

The goal wouldn't be to convince someone like you.

Fair point!

The bigoted opinion most supported by this farce of a fight isn't anything about Khelif's genital arrangement or chromosomes,

A woman, born female in a country where homosexuality and gender transition are illegal, raised as a woman, but born tall and with a face and body that is undeniably a bit masculine

According to NBC among other sources, Khelif has male (XY) chromosomes: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/imane-khelif-boxing-win-olympics-gender-eligibility-rcna164662

In my book that is obviously, by far, the central issue.

That source frames it as "officials alleged," it's not confirmation.

Want to place a bet?

How can someone with so little competitive drive that they immediately give up and start crying after a single punch (and it's not like it was so hard she fell straight to the mat or anything) even make it to the olympics in the first place? Like, you're a boxer, for chrissakes, you're still standing and your jaw's not broken, get the fuck back out there.

A woman who thinks a man is beating on her, that's who. If she has ever sparred against one during training (and why wouldn't she), Carini knows that against a legitimate male boxer (good, but not necessarily a contender) who is trying to win (even in her weight class), her options are a quick tapout and getting smashed up in potentially life-altering ways. On hearing that Khelif was XY, Carini could have concluded that she was facing a legitimate male boxer. That would probably panic her* in a way which explains her failure to fight properly before taking the big punch and rapid surrender after it.

Broadhurst, on the other hand, assumed that Khelif competing in womens' boxing implied that she was not, in fact, a legitimate male boxer (she may also not have known that there was a question about Khelif's biological sex at all), fought like someone who wanted to win and belived she could, and demonstrated that Khelif boxed like a girl.

* Real-estate guru, youth football coach and Libertarian speaker John T Reed wrote a number of articles about why you need to minimize the ability gap (which in size-based youth sports is approximately equivalent to the age gap) in youth contact sports because athletes will panic and freeze if they expect to be hit by someone a lot more dangerous than them. Unfortunately they don't seem to have made the transition to his current blog.

At some point you have to discriminate. I am totally ok with "only people with XX chromosomes and normally developed female reproductive system are allowed to compete in the female olympics" and "only people with XY and normally developed male reproductive system are allowed to compete in the male olympics" and "tough luck if you don't fit"

But yes - I am also pissed off at the ability of people to talk before learning all the facts.

Also my twitter found different angle - Racism. This is because the white girl got beaten. So this why is everyone reacting like that. Not the most hinged take I have seen.

I don't see any reason to forbid people with XX chromosomes from competing in the XY division.

The XY category can be open to anyone. If and when gender transition somehow allows a woman to kick Mike Tyson's ass we can revisit that question.

The XX division can be restricted to only chromosomally and hormonally normal women. There can be a maximum amount of testosterone, which can be established at the same time as the authorities check the participants for performance-enhancing drugs.

This seems like the fairest option, involving the fewest unnecessary changes.

In practice, most trans men will fall afoul of doping rules to compete in the men's league.

Probably because a lot of dudes will have reservations to hit or body slam a woman when it is not a combat situation? Both sexes are fine with segregation, and being exclusionary is not such a terrible thing and we won't be excluding many people anyway. We may open a third category in which it is anything goes.

Putting this binary issue aside, perhaps the Olympics need more mixed-gender sports. Maybe add in floorball, mixed badminton, korfball?

At some point you have to discriminate.

Why? We should just put everyone, including women, in a single open category and be done with it. Nicely solves all the problems.

Women's Sports exists much for the same reason the Special Olympics exists. It carves out a place for athletes with specific limitations to compete against others with the same specific limitations.

Then they belong in the Special Olympics with all the other carve-outs.

Women's Olympics is the carve out though. It just happens to be broadcast at the same time and place.

It just happens to be broadcast at the same time and place.

And is considered equivalent to. Olympic medal counts add together those won by Men and Women of some country, but do not add those won by disabled people.

Or there are some people who like to watch women's gymnastics

That is just the foot in the door. If women atheletes wear burkas they will not be relegated to the special olympics nor is olympics OK with promoting beauty which appeals to straight men.

It just happens to be broadcast at the same time and place.

"Just happens"? No, that's on purpose to make it seem like less of a carve out to mitigate the shame of needing such a carve out.

Ok, sure. Or there are some people who like to watch women's gymnastics and there is a market reason to have both on at the same time.

What is your point here? You accept that woman's sports are a carve out but demand they stay X feet or Y days away from a no-carve out sport?

No, I demand that they be explicitly recognized as a carve out for people who can't cut it otherwise instead of some kind of deserved response to perceived unfairness that some disadvantaged people are entitled to. I see the whole argument of whether or not to allow trans-women to participate as a red herring, as it ignores the fact that the choice of exactly which people who would badly lose in an open tournament instead get to stand up and pretend to be among "the best in the world" is arbitrary anyway. EDIT: If it is truly about "fair" competition, then there should be no problems facing off against trans-women or even men who perform at the same level. That there is a desire to exclude shows this is entirely about the resulting status.

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That logic taken to the extreme leads to "go away with separate sports and have 10000 people battle royale". Sport is a mix of showmanship, rivalries, sportsmanship, capabilities of the human body, and capabilities of the human spirit. To achieve optimal mix of those - we need rules even if they are somewhat arbitrary. And well - arbitrary rules means that some people are on the fence and some are on the other side of it. Also more even chances leads to better fun betting.

I think most "mens" sports events are technically open?

I vaguely remember some paralympics athlete with synthetic legs who wanted to compete against people with regular legs, but I don't know how it turned out.

Oscar Pistorius.

He raced in London in 2012, murdered his girlfriend early 2013, and was released on parole this year.

An eye for an eye...

I don't want to see Brock Lesnar sit on Mighty Mouse.

I'm convinced that 95+% of attacks on "white women" in progressive spaces are just laundering misogynistic attacks through a racial lens to let wokies say "Women cry to get their way" or "women are frivolous and stupid" without getting called out.

I'm not sure what my feelings on chromosomes are. My general default is that physical presentation (ie visible genitals) rule first along with organic social presentation (though this is less telling as trans ideology spreads), and any other medical testing for natural conditions is a little squicky. I suspect if we tested male competitors we would find higher than expected incidences of xyy syndromes, which lead to greater height and higher test levels. It would seem ridiculous to ban those men. I'm not sure how to translate it back.

I suspect if we tested male competitors we would find higher than expected incidences of xyy syndromes, which lead to greater height and higher test levels.

Of course, this opens up other possibilities. Other athletes might then convincingly argue that they are suffering from single-Y syndrome, and require additional testosterone to compete on a level playing field.

I'm in favor of allowing mild test supplementation.

I'm convinced that 95+% of attacks on "white women" in progressive spaces are just laundering misogynistic attacks through a racial lens to let wokies say "Women cry to get their way" or "women are frivolous and stupid" without getting called out.

While I imagine even progressives can get all-so-tiresome’d out from Women’s Tears, if it’s not okay to criticize someone in her capacity as “woman” but okay to criticize someone in her capacity as “white + woman,” I’m going to apply some Occam’s razor here and say this has more to do with the “white” part of the equation than the “woman” part.

Since white women are often some of the staunchest allies of progressive causes and idpol policies, if not one of their core constituencies, perhaps these are cases of leopards eating faces.

if it’s not okay to criticize someone in her capacity as “woman” but okay to criticize someone in her capacity as “white + woman,” I’m going to apply some Occam’s razor here and say this has more to do with the “white” part of the equation than the “woman” part.

I'm not understanding where Occam's razor comes down that way.

All the things White Women are criticized for in woke spaces are things Women are criticized for in TRP spaces. I tend to hold the view that these are accurate stereotypes of women, generally, regardless, so the simplest explanation is that the use of the qualifier "white" is meaningless, it is used to provide cover.

IIRC the "white women's tears" thing iirc started as a way for black women to bully white women who responded to "woke" bullying over race by crying/seeking sympathy. That was obviously not something that could be allowed. But it may have now become a license for misogyny.

I suspect if we tested male competitors we would find higher than expected incidences of xyy syndromes, which lead to greater height and higher test levels. It would seem ridiculous to ban those men. I'm not sure how to translate it back.

Isn't the standard response to this problem that the male category can just be the "open" category while the female category is specifically a carve out due to female deficiencies (i.e. disguised special Olympics)?

Does that fail as a solution here?

Cries of "misogyny" seem to just be ways to cast shade on those objecting to a real issue.

This is, in my mind, one of the great unsung tragedies of the rise of the trans movement.

'Real women' being hurt by the trans movement is not an unsung tragedy. It's the fife and drums of transphobia everywhere. Especially when it's coming from women.

Sports in general and the Olympics in particular have always had a large gray area when it comes to innate physical differences between competitors. Doesn't matter if its male/female or, thick or thin, tall or short. Instead of going into these differences in more detail the Olympics decide to live in muddy waters, which allows for incidents such as these.

In a broader context I find it hard to sympathize with anyone even remotely attaching themselves to this nonsense. People want things to 'stay the same' and not change whilst society around them is in the process of ditching whatever quaint conservatism they still hold on to. Whatever purity or sanctity is imagined to live within the Olympics is long gone or in the process of being removed. I mean, who knew the Swedes had such a knack for the long jump?

To an extent I agree with you. If seeing women getting hurt activates some almonds and folks want the display to stop, that's fine. But to pretend this is about sports or the sanctity of categories or whatever is just inane at this point.

I’d be fine with the idea of pure sports if these world class competitions were honest. But these are not honest contests in any measure. Drugs are fairly common, countries that basically pay living expenses (but not directly paying athletes) are common, and now that trans is becoming a thing we have potentially fake female athletes competing with natal women. I’ve yet to see anyone care that much. The sponsors get lots of money, the committee gets paid, various governments get to rally their people around their flag and patriotic pride. I just wish it we’re honest that these are basically professional sports. You can still do everything else and keep your pride. I’m not even against the stuff we consider cheating if we’re honest that this isn’t pure sports. Of course I feel the same way about D1 NCAA. Everybody knows that the NCAA D1 major sports are de facto professional minor leagues for those sports and were for the most part okay with Jermaine the running back getting a degree in football and free foood, housing and cars for a few years.

I just wish it we’re honest that these are basically professional sports.

I don't get it. Did someone tell you otherwise? The Olympics has been professionalized for something like fifty years.

Sports in general and the Olympics in particular have always had a large gray area when it comes to innate physical differences between competitors.

Fun fact: that argument works just as well for having trans people compete with men as it does for having them compete with women.

People want things to 'stay the same' and not change whilst society around them is in the process of ditching whatever quaint conservatism they still hold on to. Whatever purity or sanctity is imagined to live within the Olympics is long gone or in the process of being removed.

One thing missing here is an actual argument for doing things your way. Changing things for the sake of change doesn't strike me as particularly reasonable.

I mean, who knew the Swedes had such a knack for the long jump?

Not sure who you think you're owning with this one.

You're being antagonistic and argumentative to the point that you don't even understand what is being written. My guess is you saw the word 'transphobia' and your head went spinning.

One thing missing here is an actual argument for doing things your way.

What is "my way"? I don't particularly like the changes to western society, but I can observe that they have been and are happening. I can therefor also recognize that pretending that some 'sacred' bubble called 'the Olympics' can exist unaffected is dumb. Especially when most of the people who want the bubble to remain also cheer for the change in society.

Not sure who you think you're owning with this one.

The people who cooked shit in a pot and now don't want to eat it.

  • -11

You've been doing this thing for a while where you try to cloak your contempt and disgust for Current Thing and other users with a sort of dry observational tone that requires one to be familiar with you and read between the lines. You've mostly been getting away with this because Not Speaking Clearly is against the rules but often slides because it's somewhat subjective. But being directly antagonistic and insulting to other posters is much less ambiguous.

Your record is terrible and your most recent ban was not very long ago. You are banned for two weeks, and given that multiple moderators are leaving notes like "Escalate if he keeps this up," you are looking at a permaban in your future if you can't control yourself.

The people who cooked shit in a pot and now don't want to eat it.

This is still too edgy and cool for me to understand. Why not just write in a clear way?

I can simplify it. The Olympics and some sort of spirit of them have already been violated by globalism and modern immigration.

Every country wins, largely, by importing the ethnicity that is best at a certain sport, slapping a nationality flag on their ass, and calling it a day. Running isn't a competition between those with extensive national heritage; it's just Kenyans all the way down.

So if we've already eliminated the spirit of national competition, why not gender?

Even with a cursory watch of the Olympics, this seems ridiculous on its face. Most athletes still look very much like natives.

Picking a random Euro country, here are France's current gold medalists:

Their best performer, Leon Marchand, is as French as you can get.

How on earth is this the point at which you give up on a 100+ years institution that glorifies all of individual excellence, team work, and national pride.

I think a lot of the wehraboos are still salty about '36.

None of the track-and-field events - sprinting, marathon, long jump, etc. - have given out medals yet. Neither has basketball. Those are the sports that people are talking about when they point to the Summer Olympics specifically having lost a lot of its national specificity; that’s where you’re going to see a lot of people of obviously African ancestry competing under various non-African national flags.

Your point is valuable, though. Those of us on the racialist right often overstate the pervasiveness of the phenomenon we’re pointing to. There are, in fact, still a great many successful Olympians with deep ethnic roots in the respective countries they’re representing. We’re nowhere near the point where you turn on the Olympics and everyone is African, which is the impression one would get if one only follows Olympic commentary on right-wing Twitter.

Hear hear!

Carini may have been outmatched, but she easily could have fought the round out defensively, run away, survived to the bell, and thrown in the towel between rounds

I have little sympathy for the inclusive side here . When Lucia Rijker fought a man it seemed like the gulf in power surprised both of them (the man was then emboldened and quickly finished her). I can see why it'd be demoralizing.

But it was noted that multiple people were warning Carini not to participate.

I can see how she was mentally defeated/checked out before she stepped in there. The punch just confirmed what she was being warned about.

Khelif is 37-9 with 5KO's, 41 women have gone the distance with her and nine have beaten her. She doesn't win an unusual amount for a top boxer or seem to knock people out at an exceptional rate. Khelif has a 13% KO Rate, the last woman to beat her, Broadhurst, has a 14% KO Rate. The idea that there is some massive gulf in power between her and other top women's boxers is not born out by the numbers.

The idea that there is some massive gulf in power between her and other top women's boxers is not born out by the numbers.

Boxing is a combination of power and skill -- perhaps she (?) has been improving her skill level to the point where the power gulf becomes overwhelming?

I'd note that 'punching hard' is not necessarily as much of a focus in Olympic boxing, particularly the women's division I'd imagine -- winning on points is really the dominant strategy there, it's quite possible that a top female competitor is not used to taking a 'real' punch at all.

If only there were some way to figure this out like watching the fights.

Might be better to find somebody who's into women's boxing and ask them -- I don't really like it at the best of times myself, and wouldn't even know where to begin looking to see how this person was boxing three years ago or whatever.

The punch that scared the Italian off did look like a legitimately hard/well trained punch though -- maybe the Italian girl is bad at boxing and some other opponents don't leave themselves open enough to have something like that land, IDK. Presumably it's not the first time a (female) opponent landed their best punch on her though, given that she made it to the olympics somehow?

...I did watch the fights and offered analysis in OP...

I truly can't underrated why everyone is going off priors and theories and medical studies when we have the real thing right in front of us to be observed. It's like imagining German generals in 1916 still talking about the Schlieffen plan and the concentration of men/meter to carry on vigorous attacks.

Did you watch fights from 2-3 years ago to establish whether there's any difference in technique? I didn't see it in the OP.

Actually this gets at my main point of disagreement with your comments there -- everything you said would absolutely apply to a male boxer, but based on my impression of the little women's boxing I've seen at the olympics it's very possible that the Italian has never been hit that hard before -- which kind of throws your thesis out the window.

Have you ever had a woman hit you as hard as she can? IANAB, (and to be fair neither was she), but it's an absolute nothing IME; like, we could do this all day. Going from that to even an untrained male punch would be a shock to the system I figure.

Did you watch fights from 2-3 years ago to establish whether there's any difference in technique? I didn't see it in the OP.

Yes, I linked and summarized her fight against Broadhurst, unless that tape was taken down as well. I watched a few others, but that felt like too much linking for shit that it is readily apparent that no one watched, or possibly even read the summary of. Her fight with Broadhurst is representative, in that she is clearly the weaker fighter physically, getting bodied around the ring by Broadhurst.

Have you ever had a woman hit you as hard as she can? IANAB, (and to be fair neither was she), but it's an absolute nothing IME; like, we could do this all day. Going from that to even an untrained male punch would be a shock to the system I figure.

I've only ever sparred with women, never gone full speed. But I agree with you: a man obviously punches much, much harder than a woman. ((I will say training has a big impact on how hard women hit pads, but that is of limited value)) Which is why it is obvious that Imane Khelif is not a man: Hermano Khelif would have been muscling her opponents around, battering their defenses with a brutal level of strength. If one watches boxing at the amateur level one can see the pattern of how a fight between a physically dominant but less skilled fighter goes with a more skilled boxer. It doesn't look like Khelif v Broadhurst.

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Yes but her opponent has been competing against women for years with good-but-not-great results and an 11% KO rate. There's ample proof she's not some insane worldbeating physical force.

From the B&R subreddit, it appears the boxer is male intersex with internalized testes that produce typical male levels of testosterone. Similar to Caster Semenya and likewise raised as a girl.

I thought the boxing regulatory body said they weren’t confirming anything?

My source is my recollection of either the weekly B&R megathread from the last 18 hours or the dedicated boxer thread. My recollection is that the sourcing bottoms out somewhere reasonably reliable.

"Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women. According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition," Kremlev said.

Similar to Caster Semenya and likewise raised as a girl

Another case of pervasive misinformation; most people (including myself until very recently) think that Semenya really is a woman.

When you say this, do you mean that Semenya is not a woman because she is male intersex with internalized testes, or that she is a fully typical male? If it's the latter, can I ask where you've got that info?

The former. My assumption at the time was that Semenya was a female, not a male raised as a woman with a male specific DSD.

This is, in my mind, one of the great unsung tragedies of the rise of the trans movement. A woman, born female in a country where homosexuality and gender transition are illegal,

Like you, I kinda hate the whole conversation around this, but how sure are we of this? Everybody's screaming at each other with high amounts of confidence, and little evidence.

Homosexuality and gender transition are definitely illegal in Algeria. It's not an Iran situation where Persians are weirdly fine with transition as a solution to Homosexuality.

It's not technically impossible that it's a birth certificate identity fraud or Balls-at-twelve situation, but I'm pretty comfortable putting the onus on those looking to disqualify. The assumption should be that someone who was born as female is female.

None of which changes the outcome of the Carini fight.

Homosexuality and gender transition are definitely illegal in Algeria

Irrelevant. Figuring out whether this is a dude or not is a simple question, and should not require going into the legal status of homosexuality or gender transitions in Algeria.

The assumption should be that someone who was born as female is female.

I disagree, any argument that relies on trust in mainstream institutions in politically fraught cases is inherently flawed.

In any case I did not ask about assumptions and what they should be, I asked for evidence. It's downright absurd how both sides are Leroy-Jenkinsing into this, on the basis of absolutely nothing.

As for whether Carini should have given up so soon, I suspect the OP has never had the experience of a meaningful fight with someone several weight classes higher, which is likely the closest equivalent.

Is the argument not that many biological women in the same weight class have already defeated Khelif?

I should also note that I have sparred with guys much bigger and stronger, I was a wimpy 16yo training with grown male amateurs. Which is where my point came from, cover up run away and survive to the bell if you can't hang.

Many were the times the round timer went off and I had to tell the guy "Hey look I think we're going too hard for me."

I genuinely think that Khelif's opponent here worked herself into a bit of hysteria since there's ample proof that Khelif isn't some world-ending super hitter with her 11% KO rate in amateurs.

What evidence am I supposed to have if we're not trusting institutions? Am I supposed to go grope her? The evidence I offered was the analysis of the fights she was in, if you want to dispute that evidence it is on you to offer evidence that she is intersex.

What evidence am I supposed to have if we're not trusting institutions?

Just so we're clear, I'm talking about "benefit of the doubt" arguments, like yours above. There should be no assumption of "someone would have noticed by now" or "let's go with the passport / birth ceritificate". This is a very easily testable thing, and she should be made to take such a test (a chromosomal one, for example).

Am I supposed to go grope her?

You were putting the onus on the disqualifiers a second ago, are they supposed to grope her?

The evidence I offered was the analysis of the fights she was in, if you want to dispute that evidence it is on you to offer evidence that she is intersex.

The results of the fight do not prove anything one way or the other, so I have no idea why you even bring it up.

My claim isn't that this person is either male, female, intersex, or something else entirely, my claim is "we don't know", and my evidence for the fact that we don't know, is that no one can seem to come up with any specific evidence in either direction.

You were putting the onus on the disqualifiers a second ago, are they supposed to grope her?

There is a non-invasive test for having a Y chromosome (you just need a DNA sample, and before DNA testing there was a histological test for the presence of multiple X chromosomes which could be done with a cheek swab). The IOC used karyotype testing from 1958 to 1999 - it was abandoned after a small number of false positives of which the famous ones were cases of Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome - CAIS women have XY chromosomes and testicles which produce testosterone, but their body doesn't respond to the testosterone so they develop female external genitalia in utero and female physiology after puberty. Everyone agreed that in principle CAIS women should be allowed to compete as women because they don't have an unfair advantage, and people who opposed sex testing used this as a lever.

But the practical protocol of "include a karyotype test in the standard battery of medical tests that elite athletes undergo, and discretely make further enquiries about XY women" works if you let it. The problem is that you have to adjudicate borderline cases like Caster Semeneya, and in the rare genuine intersex cases people will hate you for good reasons whichever way you rule. If you say "no gatekeeping - anyone AFAB can compete as a woman" then you are giving the competition away to countries willing to modify birth certificates.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If she has overwhelming physical advantages, such that they are unfair to allow in competition, then it would show up in her fight with Broadhurst. It doesn't, Broadhurst bullies her around the ring. I've never heard of a hormone that doesn't work against the Irish. That's the most objective evidence we can have about unfairness in boxing: the boxing!

I guess I see your point that we could all refrain from any discussion on the topic absent personal knowledge, but the standard of proof has to place the onus somewhere, and there's significant moral hazard in a "believe all women accusers" standard. It seems morally obvious to me that the requirement should be on the party crying unfairness to offer evidence of unfairness. Given that the record in the ring is mixed at best and offers no clear support for disqualifying Khelif, additional evidence must be offered on that side.

I think there's limitations here in the sense that if a random average 5'3 male were to play in the WNBA they'd have a noted baseline advantage but they still wouldn't be the best player in the league due to height handicap.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If she has overwhelming physical advantages, such that they are unfair to allow in competition, then it would show up in her fight with Broadhurst.

The way this works is a lot more complex than you're describing, and the question of whether Khelif is a woman is very simple, that's why I asked for evidence, and you're doing everything you can to avoid providing for some reason.

It seems morally obvious to me that the requirement should be on the party crying unfairness to offer evidence of unfairness.

No. If you're going to say something like "Am I supposed to go grope her?" and act outraged at someone asking you for evidence, you have no right to demand it.

My request is simple - make her take a chromosomal test, and publish it. Until then, stop making confident claims about her being a woman.

That's the most objective evidence we can have about unfairness in boxing: the boxing!

Lance didn't win every race, doesn't mean he didn't dope. Card counting doesn't allow you to win every hand, but it still gives you an advantage. All that that Broadhurst's win reveals is the advantage of her opponent isn't insurmountable, not that it doesn't exist or that it isn't unfair.

  1. Basically everybody Lance competed against at the highest level was also doping.

  2. It radically changes the debate to say the advantage is routinely surmounted. It also undermines Carini's testimony that "she's just too strong."

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You were putting the onus on the disqualifiers a second ago, are they supposed to grope her?

They're medics in a sports eligibility testing org, they draw her blood and look at her piss in a lab. Yes, it is reasonable to expect them to grope her more so than a poster here.

They're medics in a sports eligibility testing org,

Ok, and what do they say?

What kind of evidence would convince you of either side of the argument?

The results of a specific test confirming XX or XY chromosomes, or presence of testicles / ovaries, for example. No, arguments to the effect of "some would have already done this and disqualified them by now" do not count.

You're presumably aware that the [organizations in charge of] official tests do not confirm anything on that matter, and you wouldn't trust them if they did. How exactly do you think /r/themotte should get our hands on unofficial tests?

Ok, if no one has any evidence either way, how do you justify a claim like:

A woman, born female in a country where...

You have no idea whether or not this is a woman, or whether they're born female, so just admit it. And before you try to say the onus is somehow on the other side, bear in mind you just made the argument for why they don't have access to that evidence either.

You're presumably aware that the [organizations in charge of] official tests do not confirm anything on that matter

That would be the issue we're having then - someone should confirm something on the matter, and until that happens, people should stop acting like they know anything about this.

and you wouldn't trust them if they did.

If you don't see a difference between unspecified "several testing committees" supposedly making a determination based on an unspecified test, and specific people making explicit claims based on specific tests and staking their reputation on it, I don't know how to help you.

You have no idea whether or not this is a woman, or whether they're born female, so just admit it. And before you try to say the onus is somehow on the other side, bear in mind you just made the argument for why they don't have access to that evidence either.

Doesn't that prove too much?

By this standard, no one on the Motte should ever be allowed to claim anybody's biological sex.

More comments

Her country and several testing committees would have to cover up the fact that she was born and raised male, all to enter a relatively mediocre (as I understand it - she's no undefeated unsurpassable champion) fighter into the women's Olympic boxing. What for?

Arguments from likelihood / unlikelihood based on disputable priors are lame. Just post evidence, please, this is not a complicated question.

Arguments from likelihood are extremely reasonable and in fact the best way of approaching this kind of debate where facts are thin on the ground.

They're not. They're just a way of saying "I should win by default".

It seems like nobody was aware of her being XY until the genetic test took place. I'd be very surprised if Algeria was just cool with her having gone through their entire womens' sport pathway if she'd been packing masculine equipment the entire time.

She undoubtedly gets a bit of an advantage from her hormonal profile compared to 'average woman', but practically everybody in the Olympics is going to have some degree of that going on. She's had a good-but-not-great amateur boxing career to this point with years in the ring, and the Italian woman quitting instantly to a woman with a 11% KO rate just doesn't seem at all logical unless there's literal hysteria going around here. I agree that trans athletes shouldn't be able to compete with women, but in this case I believe she's largely unaware of her own intersex status and the contest seems reasonably fair.

I'd be very surprised if Algeria was just cool with her having gone through their entire womens' sport pathway if she'd been packing masculine equipment the entire time.

I disagree here. When the goal is national glory and Olympic gold you will be surprised how many people will willingly turn blind eye or say inshallah.

And national federations do have incentives to both juice people and push any kind of anomalously developed people forward. A joke left from soviet time - when in power sports the Eastern European block female athletes were suspiciously butch.

— Why aren't you allowing our female weightlifters to compete?

— They have too much testosterone...

— Oh, really? How did you figure that out?

— Because of the hair.

— Where are they hairy?

— Around the testicles...

Is there any proof of the old weight room legends about East German female weightlifters transitioning to male after their careers ended because they had shot so much test into their bodies that they were mostly there already?

Probably a reference to Andreas Krieger, though that was shotput rather than weightlifting (and East Germany, rather than Eastern Europe).

That said, the East German stuff, specifically, was often done without the consent or knowledge of the doped athlete, so while it says a lot about what governments will do for an Olympic Gold, it's less helpful for talking about individual people.

Proof? Of course not. But FWIW, Communists entering biological men into women's sporting competitions as a means to pwn the West is a meme that significantly predates the current Trans movement

It's not a meme, the clip you linked was making fun of an IRL event where East Germany was doping women athletes with testosterone. FiveHourMaraton is asking whether or not they decided to transition afterwards, because of the side effects.

I was shown it in the 'please don't do steroids kids' lesson in high school health class but can't locate it.

Damn. I've always just heard it as a legend.

It seems like nobody was aware of her being XY until the genetic test took place.

My question goes both ways, how sure are we about the XY thing? TERF Twitter keeps citing the IBA tests, but they're cagey about the details for some reason:

Point to note, the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.

I even skimmed their minutes, and they just mention "one of the eligibility criteria", never stating which one it was.

I'm no expert, and there are apparently many more disorders of sexual development than I was previously aware of, but the XY thing is the only thing that makes sense. It's not like Algeria does karyotypes on newborn infants before asigning sex at birth. They just look at what's between the legs.

There are likely legal reasons that the IBA can't release the specifics of the test (medical privacy laws are a bitch), but they seem to be hinting as much as possible that this was in fact a DNA test.

God. If this turns out to be a hoax I’m going to be…mildly…something.

On one hand, a cloud of partisans referring to one test that isn’t actually public, possibly without even knowing their evidence sprang fully formed from Twitter. On the other, a different cloud who can’t make their most obvious argument—does she have a penis?—because it’d be exclusionary etc. etc.

I think that’s still unlikely, and that her chromosome results probably exist somewhere, but it would explain this shitshow.

Something something toxoplasma of rage... almost makes me nostalgic, because it's the classical type that we haven't seen in a while.

I don't even hold it against Twitter, but I am miffed that even here one can't ask a simple question like "how do we know this" without being covered in Reddit-tier slop.

On one hand, a cloud of partisans referring to one test that isn’t actually public, possibly without even knowing their evidence sprang fully formed from Twitter. On the other, a different cloud who can’t make their most obvious argument—does she have a penis?—because it’d be exclusionary etc. etc.

Now that you put it that way, I keep entertaining myself with "both sides are wrong" conspiracy theories. The test didn't show Khelif has XY chromosomes, but the glowies bullied the IBA to keep a lid on it because it conclusively proves that she has... ALIEN DNA!!!

The YouTube fight video has been yanked already. That was quick!!

It's on Peacock.

Dammit! I already wasted time chasing it around!

For ephemeral videos like this, it is best to use a YouTube downloader like Yt5s or SSYouTube and then upload it to catbox or litterbox.

The DMCA lawyers will always be better-funded and faster.

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