The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics

[Avfc96]

2 hours ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

Looks like that Algerian lad is going to win the Women's Boxing. 

Absolutely scandalous that the Algerian boxer was allowed to compete. 

[jimmygreaves]

16 hours ago, Lichfield Dean said:

Yeah, it's very awkward once you get into this area. Having XY chromosomes doesn't mean they aren't female. I know some people like to do this "I know what a woman is" nonsense but unfortunately for them nature doesn't always fit their blinkered world view and there are various chromosomal disorders out there, and definitely there are some where girls can have XY chromosomes.

Obviously I'm not saying this is the case here, but you know, this kind of thing isn't always a 100% black and white test (albeit I guess rules have to be decided upon somehow).

Of course this then opens the wider questions about gender disorders and cases like Caster Semenya.

I don't think it's very awkward or complicated at all. Having this kind of condition disqualifies you from competing against women.

It's extremely rare and in these circumstances unfortunate for the people concerned.

The boxing authorities have already come to the same conclusion.

The IOC could have easily avoided all this.

[Chindie]

The boxers thing is awkward because it's not actually clear what the issue is, and it's tied up with inter-authorisation board political bollocks. It appears the board that decided they failed to meet criteria (bit won't declare what) to fight, has been dumped by the IOC for the Olympics due to Ukraine (the IBA being Russian), and they both meet whatever criteria IOC has for someone to compete as female. 

Without clearing it up it's a shit show. We don't know if they have any number of intersex/chromosome conditions, or just naturally elevated testosterone, or they're doping, or they're just naturally masculine women.

It's worth noting that the Algerian fighter has been beaten by people that are unambiguously female before also.

[desensitized43]

This Algerian boxer thing is absolutely awful. The scenes and pictures of the poor girl who’s crying, presumably having trained her whole life to get to that stage to go out like this is very poor from the IOC.

A ten second google search shows that it is technically possible for a woman to be born with all the female “equipment” and present as an XY chromosome (Swyer syndrome) so yeah. Not sure what you’re supposed to do with individuals like this but surely they need to protect the integrity of the competition and the safety of the other athletes.

[Avfc96]

1 hour ago, jimmygreaves said:

I don't think it's very awkward or complicated at all. Having this kind of condition disqualifies you from competing against women.

It's extremely rare and in these circumstances unfortunate for the people concerned.

The boxing authorities have already come to the same conclusion.

The IOC could have easily avoided all this.

This. 

[tonyh29]

4 hours ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

Looks like that Algerian lad is going to win the Women's Boxing. 

he's against the Hungarian women who is from my wife's home town in Hungary next 

tbh , all the remaining competitors would be better off withdrawing and then it will show it for the farce that it is 

[Davkaus]

What frustrates me is that the elite athletes (and prisoners) make up such a monumentally tiny proportion of the population that it should really be irrelevant to the broader discussion about trans rights for the general public, same with prisons, but it's so damaging when something so public and so - on the face of it - unfair happens, stuff like this becomes the focal point of the broader conversation.

 

[Chindie]

Well, the thing with the boxing is we don't know what Khelif's situation is, and that will dictate how the sport deals with it. If it's a case like Semenya, intersex/DSD, then it probably has a similar result. If it's hyperandrogenism for other reasons then you open a grim question even wider...

[delboy54]

Another issue here though is not the fact that a person whom is genetically a man can be defined as a women and therefore compete against other women in say the 100m sprint (and win), but as a boxer will have all the physical advantages to be able to beat the living sh$te out of the "real" female opponent and the potential of long term damage that can cause.

[Avfc96]

56 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Well, the thing with the boxing is we don't know what Khelif's situation is, and that will dictate how the sport deals with it. If it's a case like Semenya, intersex/DSD, then it probably has a similar result. If it's hyperandrogenism for other reasons then you open a grim question even wider...

But this is very different from Semenya's case, regardless of why it has happened and this is due to the nature of the sport involved. The women boxing could suffer some serious injuries.

As I said earlier, absolute disgrace that the Algerian boxer was allowed to compete in the first place.

[Chindie]

17 minutes ago, Avfc96 said:

But this is very different from Semenya's case, regardless of why it has happened and this is due to the nature of the sport involved. The women boxing could suffer some serious injuries.

As I said earlier, absolute disgrace that the Algerian boxer was allowed to compete in the first place.

I don't disagree that combat sports have their own issues.

The issue though is more complicated. There's lots of reasons why a seemingly female person might have elevated testosterone levels. In Semenya's case, she has internal testes. That's a fairly simple one to define where things sit. But there's also conditions that cause it that can occur to someone that is otherwise entirely and unambiguously 'female' - polycystic ovary syndrome, various tumours, etc etc. Which then opens the door off defining what female is on blood testosterone levels, which is a massive can of worms of which there is no good answer.

[jimmygreaves]

57 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I don't disagree that combat sports have their own issues.

The issue though is more complicated. There's lots of reasons why a seemingly female person might have elevated testosterone levels. In Semenya's case, she has internal testes. That's a fairly simple one to define where things sit. But there's also conditions that cause it that can occur to someone that is otherwise entirely and unambiguously 'female' - polycystic ovary syndrome, various tumours, etc etc. Which then opens the door off defining what female is on blood testosterone levels, which is a massive can of worms of which there is no good answer.

If the competitor has xy chromosomes they can't race/fight competitors with exclusively xx  chromosomes. 

It's not a difficult issue.

Edited August 1 by jimmygreaves
Got yy mixed up with xx. Maybe it is complicated...

[lapal_fan]

Alice D'Amato got 4th when the final 3 bastards placed above her.

I didn't even know of her existence until an hour ago.

Attraction is weird innit.

[Avfc96]

Seems like the end of the road for Murray in the Olympics as well as his career. Think this will be one comeback too far.

[Chindie]

4 minutes ago, jimmygreaves said:

If the competitor has xy chromosomes they can't race/fight competitors with exclusively xx  chromosomes. 

It's not a difficult issue.

It is difficult. There's situations where it can be less complicated, although even then there's issues with how you deal with it, but there's ones where it can be very complex - if someone has testosterone elevated above expected levels but is otherwise 'female' in every way, what do you do? They simply have a natural advantage that is above the usual expectations. 

We don't know what Khelif's situation is, we only know she was banned by a board that is no longer on charge of boxing for missing a criteria, which they won't disclose, and she's fought at the Olympics before and lost. In fact she's lost to quite a few women. 

It isn't necessarily easy.

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

On 31/07/2024 at 12:21, TreeVillan said:

I mean this is from the Guardian. Guardian Link 

'...International Boxing Association, whose president, Umar Kremlev, told the Russian news agency, Tass, that DNA tests had “proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded from the sports events”.'

It's worth pointing out that the details of that test are very vague, she passed all tests performed by the IOC, the IBA is not recognised by the IOC due to corruption scandals, the IBA has moved much of it's operations to Russia under the current president, it's only sponsor is Gazprom which supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the president is a close ally of Putin.

They might have a slight motivation to spread disinformation to undermine the legitimacy of rival organisations, such as the IOC which has banned Russia and Belarus from competing.

[KentVillan]

I think it’s bang out of order to keep calling this Algerian boxer “he” when she has been raised as a woman since birth in a country where sex changes aren’t allowed.

There are people who are legitimately “intersex”, and it’s a separate issue from transgender sex changes, hormone therapy, non binary gender identity etc, and yet people who find the latter unpalatable are using her as a target.

End of the day, boxing is a dangerous sport, people get punched hard in the face. Often a lot harder than this Algerian boxer is capable of punching anyone. So let’s not pretend it’s about protecting anyone.

There is definitely a legitimate debate about fairness, and whether the authorities have handled it correctly … whether the rules need fixing. But that doesn’t mean it’s ok to insult the Algerian boxer who has done nothing wrong.

[Panto_Villan]

It's also worth remembering that most male Olympians are likely to be genetic freaks compared to the general population, and you do occasionally get men who are freakishly well-adapated to their sport even compared to their peers. It can't have been much fun competing against Usain Bolt in his pomp, or whatever monstrous swimmer happened to be winning all the medals in any given decade. You'd have been at a physiological disadvantage no matter how hard you trained.

So if the Algerian boxer did naturally have freakishly high testosterone compared to other women, should they be barred from competition? Even if it's due to a (non-intersex) medical condition? It's a hard one. I don't think any man would be banned from competition if it turned out he had a medical condition that gave him elevated testosterone, so why should the woman?

Obviously if they are intersex, it's a different story - but even then it's not cut and dry. 

Edited August 1 by Panto_Villan

[Stevo985]

13 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

I think it’s bang out of order to keep calling this Algerian boxer “he” when she has been raised as a woman since birth in a country where sex changes aren’t allowed.

There are people who are legitimately “intersex”, and it’s a separate issue from transgender sex changes, hormone therapy, non binary gender identity etc, and yet people who find the latter unpalatable are using her as a target.

End of the day, boxing is a dangerous sport, people get punched hard in the face. Often a lot harder than this Algerian boxer is capable of punching anyone. So let’s not pretend it’s about protecting anyone.

There is definitely a legitimate debate about fairness, and whether the authorities have handled it correctly … whether the rules need fixing. But that doesn’t mean it’s ok to insult the Algerian boxer who has done nothing wrong.

Some people seem desperate to portray it as a bloke pretending to be a woman

[Chindie]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

Some people seem desperate to portray it as a bloke pretending to be a woman

Gender criticals. They're scum.