RE Semenya: Is LetsRun.com "continuing a dated, bigoted conversation about gender in sports."

Troglodytes wrote:

The best way to get quoted on her twitter is to misspell "it's" and "your's". Her followers will eat that up. The elite left thinks that any misspelling or grammatical mistake is a good enough reason to dismiss any argument.

A bunch of geniuses, these folk.

As opposed to the genius brosjo who have the grammar and spelling skills of a particularly dimwitted pre-schooloer.

YBMB wrote:

As opposed to the genius brosjo who have the grammar and spelling skills of a particularly dimwitted pre-schooloer.

Yes, that's unfortunate. They're websight really would benefit from an editor.

Rojo, this would be a great opportunity for you to contact an expert, rather than appealing to the lrc message boards.

You seem to rely on Tucker for perspective on a bunch of issues, when the reality is that he, and others like him, do a good job at some things and not so good at others. Tucker is a physiology Professor. It's unlikely he knows much about doping policy (it shows, btw) and you'd do better to speak with a sports lawyer or political scientist.

The Semenya situation is similar; you get a very limited perspective is the people you go to are physiology Profs. This area isn't my specialty (doping in sport is) so I'm not up on who the experts are. But the research skills you were taught in university and that you use as a journalist should help you find an appropriate expert. You could also speak with someone who knows a fair bit about a number of different issues in sport - try Dave Zirin, Jay Coakley - they'll point you in the right direction.

Good luck! If you do some research you'll get a sense of the whole issue. I suggest doing the same regarding doping (I recommended names to you years ago, but so far you continue to rely on experts in other fields).

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Reaganomics wrote:

I don't know how I'm being bigoted on this. I simply have a view point on thist hat she disagrees with. In my mind, I'm tyring to save women's sports.

Knowing that LetsRun.com is an influential voice,. I offered her a chance to present her side of the story. She declined. Can someone explain to me what I'm missing

How many names do you think Rojo regularly trolls the boards under? I think this is at least the fourth time I've seen him out himself.

"Reaganomics" is obviously not rojo; all that he said was copy/pasted from rojo's official post on the first page. I think Reaga meant to add something but messed up his post and just quoted rojo instead.

What scientists frequently point out in this context, but what many who discuss this issue ignore, is that it is very difficult to come up with a single, straightforward bright-line rule as to who is a man and who is a woman, without being at least somewhat arbitrary and potentially unfair to someone.

But straightforward, bright-line rules are often necessary nevertheless. What is needed is some sort of utility analysis, though even that involves choices. Do you seek to minimize the negative impact on those most severely hurt by the rule? Or do you seek to maximize the total benefit to everyone, even if that would result in a few being very severely hurt? Does it make sense to compensate those who are negatively impacted? There are other possible utility models, too.

In the end, competing values must be weighed and choices must be made. But they can be made without name-calling, posturing or political gamesmanship.

I'm curious, does Caster Semenya have any major sponsors? I know that she's been wearing Nike kits, but does she have a contract with them?

It will be interesting to see which brands view intersex athletes as a "cashing in" opportunity, and which avoid sponsoring these athletes altogether.

"...your arguments are continuing a narrative that is out of date and unproductive to the larger conversation on gender in sports."

Rojo - I think this sentence highlights some of the differences in view points. The mystery journalist is framing her article as one about "gender in sports." This is not about gender identities and all of that stuff. It's about a person's biological sex and the fact that Semenya has internal testes.

And can somebody explain to me how naturally occurring testosterone within one's body allegedly doesn't lead to performance benefits?

I pretty much agree with the above. LRC is potentially going to be part of (far from the most important part of but still definitely part of) a massive story that could transcend sports. I am not sure how big a story this is going to become, but given the climate we are in, I could see it becoming massive. Sticking with the truth as you see it, which is that the testosterone clearly gives an unfair advantage that will hurt women's sport, while being extremely respectful and sensitive to Semenya and others, is the way to go. Any insensitivity or anything that could be interpreted as anything close to derogatory speech will immediately render your opinion invalid in the eyes of those who most need to hear it. I respect you for keeping a respectful tone so far, and I hope that it has been from the heart and not just because you feel like you have to.

Also, it has become even more obvious to me than before that there is one guy who is repeatedly posting "Semenya is a MAN and it is disrespectful for you to call her anything other than that" and various similarly worded arguments under a bunch of different handles. There might be more than one, but one guy keeps using the same writing style, tone, and language under a variety of handles. I'm sure other people have noticed that, too, or assumed that the vitriol was coming from fewer people than it appears, but I'm just sayin'.

Was this quote by rojo respectful where he suggested that someones medical condition should be made public for potential husbands?

"I've been told that you don't want to "out people" but I don't get that argument. We as a society need to move beyond that. Semenya did nothing wrong. She has internal testicles. So what? If you were about to marry a Jelimo, and you were her husband, wouldn't you want to know if she had internal testicles or not?"

http://tinyurl.com/jkggsnp

+1

Choices have to be made in life. People will be upset and left on the fringes. This is an unfortunate but necessary part of sport. Where we draw the line is up for debate, but there has to be a line if we want to continue to have separate male and female divisions.

If sexual identity is fluid, then no line can be drawn to separate men and women. It's all blurred. Seriously, what percentage of male characteristics must one have to no longer be female? According to these nutjobs, the answer is ZERO. By taking this position, they are actually advocating for no separate divisions in sports. At this point, I'm all for it, just so this journalist and the rest of the useful idiots like her will be the persons responsible for the complete collapse of women's sports, not those of us with common sense and no agenda. What an accomplishment that will be. Good for you!!!

Sometimes, the absurd must happen before the truly dense are able to understand the obvious.

If Caster is a woman (I don't concede that), she would actually bring more attention to women's sports if she raced men. It's obvious Caster is holding back in her races, and there is no glory in crushing your competition while not giving it your all. If she is just that much more athletically gifted than her competitors, test the limits and see how much faster you can run. As it is now, Caster is taking the easy way out.

Oh well, If these transgender nazis have their way, Caster will be racing men soon enough.

I haven't gone through everything he's written about it, and I see where you're coming from that there is a slightly negative tone to his argument there, but I see where is coming from as well - I think he was trying to say that it's not something to be ashamed of but that it's something that needs to be disclosed when it comes to life-changing decisions like whom to allow in the Olympics and whom to marry, given that health status is something many people place a high premium on when it comes to choosing a partner. Perhaps it could have been worded better.

In general, it seems that in their editorial writing LRC has made a great effort to be respectful. That's just from what I've seen, and I'm sure there is stuff I have not seen and correct me if I'm wrong, but only through a combination of realism and compassion can progress be made, and the LRC writing has, from what I have seen, contained both.

Well, I think we can safely put this to rest:

There is absolutely not any dated, bigoted conversation on here, right...

dingle wrote:

Was this quote by rojo respectful where he suggested that someones medical condition should be made public for potential husbands?

"I've been told that you don't want to "out people" but I don't get that argument. We as a society need to move beyond that. Semenya did nothing wrong. She has internal testicles. So what? If you were about to marry a Jelimo, and you were her husband, wouldn't you want to know if she had internal testicles or not?"

http://tinyurl.com/jkggsnp

I just read the whole post in context, and I actually agree with you that outing people is not a great road to go down and that the way he phrased support for outing people in that instance was not great. However, I think that post overall was fantastic and exact the kind of message that needs to be sent by the LRC editors and people who believe that Semenya and other intersex athletes should not be competing with women. I'm not going to label him as disrespectful because of that one poorly worded part.

What I think would have helped make the outing section less offensive would be a full explanation of the fact that sport is inherently about people's bodies, and in efforts to keep things fair in this era of rampant performance enhancing drug use, the bodies of elite athletes are not subject to the same kind of privacy that we all wish to grant citizens as a whole. When injecting something into your body gives you an easy boost in performance, we consider what you put in your body to be the business of those you are competing against. Similarly, if you are born with something very much outside the mainstream that is already in your body, then an argument could be made that that is the business of your fellow competitors and the governing bodies of sport as well.

I can agree that in their editorials they have made an effort to be more respectful, but I think in the forum posts some of their personal prejudice does shine through. It is admirable that they are trying to deal with that (personal prejudice). The demonstration that biology of sex is more complicated than we thought challenges much about how we have been raised.

The science here is a fundamental challenge to how we have structured sports for the past century so it is expected that we accept what the science says and don't get stuck on our preconceptions.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Well, I think we can safely put this to rest:

There is absolutely not any dated, bigoted conversation on here, right...

There certainly is dated and bigoted conversation here. But sometimes people need to talk things out. If everyone who disagrees is quickly silenced, then progress becomes tougher.

I have hope that the painful divisions that we are feeling in this American political season will eventually lead to greater healing and reconciliation. We now see how much anger and resentment we still have to deal with in our country, and if it doesn't come to light, it can't be healed. I have the same hope that after an initial period of division and growing pains, the situation with Caster Semenya and other intersex athletes will allow people to better understand and accept each other and strive harder to be inclusive while still being fair to everyone in so far as that is possible in this world.

LOL fvcking called it.

By the way guys, she is reading this thread.

Let others deal with it. wrote:

Yes, rojo, let others deal with the issue. Semenya has been checked by medical doctors, and is still allowed to compete. It is not up to letsrun to pretend it can force a change to the medically determined gender decision.

Give it a rest rojo. If you right the problem will be solved by real medical experts in the future, but that seems highly unlikely.

Medical drs have nothing to do with her being allowed to run. All they did was confirm her failure to meet the regulations. They are the ones who sentenced her to oestrogen treatment. So stop with the medical drs rubbish

Its the social engineering that has flipped the switch.

She meets none of the criteria for competition in the women's ranks. She has balls.

Women's athletics have effectively ended. You may as well run an open competition.

old guy 70 wrote:

As someone stated in a previous post.

Why should 99.99% of the world's female population be put at a disadvantage in order to be fair to the remaining .01%? (I'm sure the percentages are not exact, but can't be far off)

This is a classic example of "political correctness" run amok.

I used the same argument against the Affordable Care Act.

Now I'm paying double