I hope this gets more attention in that it makes it clear that gender isn’t a binary. These women aren’t trans, they have some other intersex condition. Basically all human attributes fall on a spectrum, whether that’s height or weight, or things like various hormone levels.
Here’s my thing.
I’ve never been that tier competitive, but I’ve sparred in boxing, wrestling, and multiple martial arts, and have had actual fights.
I got weighed in, the opponent got weighed in, we fought. Nobody measure my testosterone, or my opponents. Nobody gives a flying fuck if a man has higher or lower testosterone, or why he has whatever level it is. You get tested for artificial junk.
Weight classes pretty much negate most of any advantage you’d have, even if you’re roided. Not all of it, but most of it, and that’s a way higher kind of dosage than a trans man would have, or the various differences mentioned in the article. Your conditioning is going to matter more than your hormone levels.
It’s, frankly, sexist. It goes right back to the old misogyny, just with a new face.
Also, while it isn’t exactly on topic fully, one of the worst ass kickings I ever got on the mat was from a woman less than half my mass. I was 240ish lbs , she was barely over a hundred. Whipped my ass all over the place. Kinda makes me dubious of any advantage given purely by what are damn minor differences in hormone levels. The kind of levels involved in the “conditions” the article covered, like androgen sensitivity are less than the gap between an average cis man and woman.
I just don’t buy the arguments made against athletes that have higher levels without external sources. It just doesn’t mesh with anything in my experience or reading. Yeah, if you’re roided up, that’s one thing, those buggers end up killing themselves with the stuff sometimes. But you just aren’t going to have that degree of affect with what the body produces
Essentially, exceptional athletes are so exceptional that other athletes want them disqualified. Yeah. That totally seems reasonable. The Olympics is about seeing the best athletes within the norm, right?
Edit: To be clear, this is sarcastic. Just making sure that’s known if it wasn’t obvious enough.
