Comments Thread For: Tony Bellew cuts through clutter of Imane Khelif controversy

[OLD JUD]

“I want to tell the entire world that I am a female, and I will remain a female,” said Khelif, whilst scratching her nuts and rubbing the stubble on 'her' chin..........

[pnut901]

I always thought that gender was binary, you are either M or F but that isn't so. Even though the vast majority are one or the other there's a lot of in between.

If you have a Y chromosome and testosterone producing testicles, even if you have female genitalia and those testicles are internal, you should not be competing with women who have no testicles. Women's sports should be exclusive to XX chromosome women, no testicles.

I really don't think this is that complicated.

I would agree with that , but here we don't know if that's the case or not , I have hnot seen the information that they have male chromosomes anywhere but here. I don't think that someone who transitions from a man to a woman should be competing against women in sports , especially combat sports. Neither should someone whose body produces the same amount of male testosterone as the average man. I imagine that there aren't that many cases of it , and even less cases where the person is also an athlete. If it comes down to it , it's more fair to exclude a handful of people than to disadvantage everyone who they compete against.
In the case of these two boxers , without test results , we just don't know what the deal is. Whatever the IOC rules are , they meet them , so I guess that's that barring a rule change.

[pnut901]

thanks tony for clearing this all up for us, tony got held back in every school year he was in & is still in 1st class in his local school

You reckon he still catches the school bus ,or does he drive himself to the fifth grade ?

[SteveM]

Why should chromosomes be the standard? Why not external *** organs, visible with the naked eye? Why not life history? Genetic testing didn’t even exist until the 1950s and women’s sports existed before that.

The most basic division in sport is men/women. As far as effecting a level playing field testosterone is the primary difference. It comes down to an unfair advantage at hormonal level.

Castor Semanya has no uterus and internal testicles. She has the female external s3x organ. She was raised a woman. She ran at 800m and won 2 Olympic gold medals.
Later it was ruled that she could only compete at 800 m if she had treatment to reduce her testosterone levels. She refused to comply.

So she chose to run the 5000m. Raised testosterone levels afford much less advantage at 5,000m or longer distances. She couldn't even qualify for the finals. Ergo, as I stated in my previous post, raised testosterone levels give Khelifa and Lin Yu-Ting a strong advantage; an unfair advantage some are saying.

[SteveM]

Should Nikolai Valuev have been allowed to compete against men? He was 7 feet tall and over 300lbs due to gigantism and a disorder that caused excessive growth hormone. You can’t possibly make any safety-based argument that Valuev was less of a danger to the average male heavyweight than Khelif is to women in her weight class (she is demonstrably not a great danger; she has a very low KO percentage).

You are right - he should probably have been banned too. KOs are less common in amateur boxing. They are not common in women's pro boxing. That she has any kind of KO percentage is women's amateur boxing is possibly an eye opener. Damage in boxing isn't only about KOs by the way.
Are you a boxing fan btw? You joined in 2017 and until now you have made 9 posts of which 7 happen to be on this thread.

[Roder]

The most basic division in sport is men/women. As far as effecting a level playing field testosterone is the primary difference. It comes down to an unfair advantage at hormonal level.

Castor Semanya has no uterus and internal testicles. She has the female external s3x organ. She was raised a woman. She ran at 800m and won 2 Olympic gold medals.
Later it was ruled that she could only compete at 800 m if she had treatment to reduce her testosterone levels. She refused to comply.

So she chose to run the 5000m. Raised testosterone levels afford much less advantage at 5,000m or longer distances. She couldn't even qualify for the finals. Ergo, as I stated in my previous post, raised testosterone levels give Khelifa and Lin Yu-Ting a strong advantage; an unfair advantage some are saying.

the Caster Semenya case doesn’t prove anything except that a committee tasked with making a binary decision about an edge case went one way instead of the other. They didn’t determine any consistent standard that could apply to other cases in running, let alone other sports.

The rest of what you wrote is just repeating your conclusion, not giving an argument for it.

[Roder]

You are right - he should probably have been banned too. KOs are less common in amateur boxing. They are not common in women's pro boxing. That she has any kind of KO percentage is women's amateur boxing is possibly an eye opener. Damage in boxing isn't only about KOs by the way.
Are you a boxing fan btw? You joined in 2017 and until now you have made 9 posts of which 7 happen to be on this thread.

I’m a boxing fan and a former amateur boxer. I have been lurking for a long time. I don’t post much, but the combination of strong and uninformed or poorly thought out opinions people have on this particular issue annoys me

[SteveM]

I would agree with that , but here we don't know if that's the case or not , I have hnot seen the information that they have male chromosomes anywhere but here. I don't think that someone who transitions from a man to a woman should be competing against women in sports , especially combat sports. Neither should someone whose body produces the same amount of male testosterone as the average man. I imagine that there aren't that many cases of it , and even less cases where the person is also an athlete. If it comes down to it , it's more fair to exclude a handful of people than to disadvantage everyone who they compete against.
In the case of these two boxers , without test results , we just don't know what the deal is. Whatever the IOC rules are , they meet them , so I guess that's that barring a rule change.

The IBF president stated at a press conference that both Khelifa and the S.Korean boxer tested very high for testosterone. Immediately he was attacked as an unreliable source because he is friendly with Putin and his organisation is supposedly corrupt. This has become the norm in today's society. Guilty by association. It's a poor substitute for good logic.

for bolded - this is exactly what it comes down to.

Second bolded - they err strongly in favour of inclusivity. But in any case, having banned the IBA as boxing overlord they deferred to the national boxing federations. The Algerian and South Korean boxing feds included the boxers in their women's teams so it was a fait accompli as far as the IOC was concerned

[4truth]

I would agree with that , but here we don't know if that's the case or not , I have hnot seen the information that they have male chromosomes anywhere but here. I don't think that someone who transitions from a man to a woman should be competing against women in sports , especially combat sports. Neither should someone whose body produces the same amount of male testosterone as the average man. I imagine that there aren't that many cases of it , and even less cases where the person is also an athlete. If it comes down to it , it's more fair to exclude a handful of people than to disadvantage everyone who they compete against.
In the case of these two boxers , without test results , we just don't know what the deal is. Whatever the IOC rules are , they meet them , so I guess that's that barring a rule change.

I don't speak on any case specifically as we are not privy to the specifics, nor probably should we be. I'm only speaking to what I think is fair or not fair. Clearly though, there is an ambiguity with these two boxers.

[SteveM]

the Caster Semenya case doesn’t prove anything except that a committee tasked with making a binary decision about an edge case went one way instead of the other. They didn't determine any consistent standard that could apply to other cases in running, let alone other sports.

The rest of what you wrote is just repeating your conclusion, not giving an argument for it.

Not true -

"Under regulations athletes with DSD were only allowed to compete in female track events between 400m and the mile if they reduced their testosterone levels.

In March (2023) World Athletics ruled that DSD athletes must now have hormone-suppressing treatment for six months before being eligible to compete in all female events."