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When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

Xelor

Xelor

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Highest-level sports' most basic categorization is that of sex. Some sports, boxing and wrestling, for instance, define subcategories within the respective sex groups and others, like baseball, basketball and football don't. Others, such as figure skating, define categories based on sex and age, but demonstrated ability, at the highest level, the Olympics, obviates age.

Caster Semenya is a South African woman who competes in 800-meter foot races. She wins a lot, and people are upset that she's competing with women, however, was born with an anomaly that gives her breasts, a vagina, woman-like body hair, and testosterone levels typical of males; thus she's a naturally big, muscled woman. It really wouldn't matter in what sport she competes with other women; so long as she trains and they don't "juice," she's going to bigger, stronger, faster, etc. than other women who aren't also born as was she.

Well, now the IAAF has ruled that Caster must take meds, testosterone reducing ones.[SUP]1[/SUP] Astounding! After decades of declaring athletes must compete using whatever skills and abilities they can muster based on their condition of birth, the IAAF now deems Caster's birth condition makes her unfit to compete with other women unless Caster submits to medically induced testosterone reduction.

WTH? Seriously? Since when did we deem people born with physical advantages can't compete with their gender peers. Michael Phelps has uncommonly long arms and huge feet. LeBron James is just effing huge, which is is a major advantage in his sport. Were he a swimmer, he'd have a foot on every other competitor solely by dint of his height. Would sports officials declare he had to have height-reducing surgery? Have sports officials insisted Phelps have surgery to make his feet typically sized? Caster, like those men was born the way she is. The difference is that her edge isn't outwardly measurable/observable, other than by the results it yields.

What about how we deal with others born with anomalies? How does sports handle them? The answer is it depends. If the defect is overtly physical to the point that it requires they use man-made devices to compete, they compete in "special" categories, such as Special Olympics. If not, they compete in non-special categories. For instance, an autistic person who may not be able to tie his own shoe or do a host of other things, but who's fast, strong and has outstanding hand-eye skills, thus making him a fine tennis or golf player might well play in "plain old" professional tennis or golf. After all, sports is about being excellent at the game, not being "normal" or able to do anything other than play the game very, very well.

And therein lies part of the dilemma Caster's case raises. In the realm of "daily existence," Caster's anomalous birth circumstance makes her unable to do things the rest of us do. She's cannot procreate, for instance. Typically, we think of that as a handicap, and it is when evaluated against the bar of species perpetuation. In sports, however, her anomaly, as with James and Phelps' anomalies, is a natural advantage. Yet along comes the IAAF declaring, in essence, that she can't make the most of her circumstance and use her advantage, well, to her advantage.

What do I think? I think if the IAAF wants to adjust its rules, it should do so with an effectivity date determine by Caster's retirement from sports. I don't too much care what alterations they make; I just think they shouldn't make them so as to interdict specifically this woman's sports career.


Note:
  1. Caster has one remaining appeal avenue, a court in Switzerland having jurisdiction over all-things pertaining to international sports.


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Re: When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

another athlete in other sports that I know, had higher levels of testosterone than most women-she set records in her class at one of the military academies in such things as number of pull ups by a female cadet, etc. She was a world archery champion and a martial arts champion. She was never accused of doping but her testosterone levels did cause her some additional testing.

to me, this issue involving the track athlete raises some troubling issues. As one poster noted, Phelps has physical attributes that give him a big advantage in swimming, with no deleterious issues (in tennis, athletes like John Isner, Riley Opeika and Ivo Karlovic, get huge serves because they are all over 6-10, but they suffer, as a result, in other areas such as side to side mobility or handling balls hit right at them or heavily dipping high-rotation topspin shots).

I don't know if its proper to penalize this woman assuming her testosterone levels are a natural aberration
 
Re: When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

TurtleDude said:
another athlete in other sports that I know, had higher levels of testosterone than most women-she set records in her class at one of the military academies in such things as number of pull ups by a female cadet, etc. She was a world archery champion and a martial arts champion. She was never accused of doping but her testosterone levels did cause her some additional testing.

to me, this issue involving the track athlete raises some troubling issues. As one poster noted, Phelps has physical attributes that give him a big advantage in swimming, with no deleterious issues (in tennis, athletes like John Isner, Riley Opeika and Ivo Karlovic, get huge serves because they are all over 6-10, but they suffer, as a result, in other areas such as side to side mobility or handling balls hit right at them or heavily dipping high-rotation topspin shots).

I don't know if its proper to penalize this woman assuming her testosterone levels are a natural aberration
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TY for responding. Frankly, I'm surprised more folks haven't latched onto this topic. One's similar yet different have been popular.

Since you're uncertain, read the following: Androgen insensitivity syndrome. After reading all of it (it's short), do share whether you think Caster's having that birth anomaly imbues you with some measure of increased, even if not absolute, certainty one way or another.

I know when I consumed that information, it gave me pause; however, from my OP, you know where I finally landed.
 
Re: When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

Xelor said:
TY for responding. Frankly, I'm surprised more folks haven't latched onto this topic. One's similar yet different have been popular.

Since you're uncertain, read the following: Androgen insensitivity syndrome. After reading all of it (it's short), do share whether you think Caster's having that birth anomaly imbues you with some measure of increased, even if not absolute, certainty one way or another.

I know when I consumed that information, it gave me pause; however, from my OP, you know where I finally landed.
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I noticed this earlier, and simply abstained from replying right away because I've responded to more than one post from you today, I think, and doing so quickly might seem a bit stalkerish. Yes, I know that's not actually a word.

I absolutely demand that football athletes stop working out and get surgery to remove part of their lower vertebrae, to accommodate myself, making things more fair for someone like me, who was born with spina bifida.

That's utterly ridiculous, obviously, and that's exactly how I feel about controversy over someone who's unusually advantaged, physically. I mean, really, should we start penalizing basketball players for being too god damned tall? Athletic sports are a celebration of physical outliers. Sure, skill and practice play there part, but that's never, ever been the only factor at play.

I do, however, think that the next step in sports is to create a third category comprising of both males and females. I don't want to completely get rid of sports segregated by sex, at least not yet, but I would like to see more mixed-sex sports, and while such a thing would probably be slanted towards being majority male, I feel that such a woman would thrive in this category with no such controversy.
 
Re: When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

DH Kirkwood said:
I noticed this earlier, and simply abstained from replying right away because I've responded to more than one post from you today, I think, and doing so quickly might seem a bit stalkerish. Yes, I know that's not actually a word.

I absolutely demand that football athletes stop working out and get surgery to remove part of their lower vertebrae, to accommodate myself, making things more fair for someone like me, who was born with spina bifida.

That's utterly ridiculous, obviously, and that's exactly how I feel about controversy over someone who's unusually advantaged, physically. I mean, really, should we start penalizing basketball players for being too god damned tall? Athletic sports are a celebration of physical outliers. Sure, skill and practice play there part, but that's never, ever been the only factor at play.

I do, however, think that the next step in sports is to create a third category comprising of both males and females. I don't want to completely get rid of sports segregated by sex, at least not yet, but I would like to see more mixed-sex sports, and while such a thing would probably be slanted towards being majority male, I feel that such a woman would thrive in this category with no such controversy.
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****. I mixed up 'their with there'. I know the difference, but I'm horrible when it comes to mixing up homonyms. I tend to write what the words sound like in my head, and these words sound exactly the same. Spelling, in general, is a weakness of mine, but this especially.
 
Re: When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

Way off-topic:

DH Kirkwood said:
****. I mixed up 'their with there'. I know the difference, but I'm horrible when it comes to mixing up homonyms. I tend to write what the words sound like in my head, and these words sound exactly the same. Spelling, in general, is a weakness of mine, but this especially.
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FWIW:
  1. In the paragraph preceding the one in which you errantly wrote "there," your correctly writing "their" indicated you know the difference.

    I know the difference too, yet I'm pretty sure I've errantly penned one form of the "their, they're and there" homophone/heterographs.
  2. I'm not the sort who'll chide someone who (1) clearly knows the difference but goofed, and (2) there's enough context in the writer's prose to make unequivocally unambiguous what be the correct and intended word/spelling. As goes the "their, they're and there" homophones, it's rarely unclear which word should have been present instead of the one an author wrote.
  3. It's great to use technical terms because they have very precise meanings; thus they leave no doubt about what one means. However, when using technical terms pertaining to any discipline, be sure to use it correctly. Sometimes that means that despite however certain one may be that one is about to aptly use a given term, it may be wise to look it up to be sure, particularly if the term comes from a discipline that isn't one's own.

    For instance, though I know what you meant by "homonym," which is a linguistics technical term, I also know "there," "their" and "they're" aren't homonyms because they're spelled differently. The general term that fits your intended meaning -- pronounced the same but spelled differently and having different meanings -- for those three words is "homophone," which is a term for words that, regardless of spelling, have the same pronunciation. Heterographs are words having different spellings and different meanings yet they're pronounced the same. Of the three terms and outside of linguistics, one can probably get by with "homophone" and "homonym."

    I was taught the difference with the following instruction:
    • Homonyms look and sound the same but have completely different meanings."
      • "Too" is a homonym.
        • Too --> as in also
        • Too --> as in too many/too much
      • "Lie" is homonym.
        • To lie (v) --> as in to tell an untruth
        • Lie (n) --> as in the untruth one tells
        • To lie (v) --> as in to recline on a bed or sofa
    • Homophones share pronunciation, but may or may not be spelled the same. Thus all homonyms are homophones, but not all homophone are not homonyms. Which homophones aren't homonyms? The one's that are heterographs. In addition to the above two homonyms, the following words are homophones, the specific type thereof being heterographs.
      • Heir and air
      • Wave and waive
      • Too, to and two
      • Mask and masque
      • Lynx and links
      • Born and borne
      • Martial and marshall
      • Your and you're
      • Want and wont
      • Hew and hue
Do not take the above as ridicule, for it was written with neutrally didactic intent. I wrote it what intent and corresponding tone because I know damn well that you meant homophone/heterograph -- because given the context of your comment, there's not something else that makes sense and that you instead could have meant (see #2 above) -- even though you wrote "homonym."

Compare and contrast the tone of this post with that found in post 49 in a different thread, and you'll likely glean the difference between chiding and neutral didacticism. What drives my choosing to take one or the other of those two tones? If someone rebukes, rebuffs, and/or refutes my remarks as though they know what they're talking about yet it's obvious they do not and made no effort to disabuse themselves of their ignorance, should I deign to respond to such remarks (fairly often, I don't), my tone will be pejorative, chiding, contemptuous, imperious, or potentially a combination of all four.

Here is another example of it being clear, misspelling/misuse notwithstanding, what the writer meant (hue/hew).​
 
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Re: When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

There have been many, many ocassions, where I've had to pull up another window just to check if I am, indeed, using a word correctly in a sentence. My brother, who's ridicule often compels me to second-guess the words that I type, would be laughing his butt off right now if he was reading any of this.
 
Re: When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

DH Kirkwood said:
There have been many, many ocassions, where I've had to pull up another window just to check if I am, indeed, using a word correctly in a sentence. My brother, who's ridicule often compels me to second-guess the words that I type, would be laughing his butt off right now if he was reading any of this.
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You ain’t heavy.....
 
Re: When contest of natural traits: The IAAF and Caster Semenya and moving the bar "mid-game"

DH Kirkwood said:
There have been many, many ocassions, where I've had to pull up another window just to check if I am, indeed, using a word correctly in a sentence. My brother, who's ridicule often compels me to second-guess the words that I type, would be laughing his butt off right now if he was reading any of this.
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Red:
I "feel" you. I must do so too. Most commonly, I do it to confirm the transitivity of certain verbs. I cannot, as I type, identify any that I've looked up, but I can identify some common verbs that have different meanings depending on transitivity: "give" and "feed" are two that come to mind.

I don't know why transitivity is something I've found myself forgetful of re: certain verbs, but it is. Perhaps it's a subtle harbinger of things to come. In any case, it is what it is. So long as I don't get to the point that I refrain from checking, I'll be content enough.
 
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