Gender Essentialists Hate the Olympics

Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, August 10th, 2024 - 157 comments
Categories: gender, gender critical feminism, sport, women's sport - Tags:

The Olympics are a real persistent problem for gender essentialists: it’s a showcase for some of the most diverse forms a female body can take from the pint-size power of Simone Biles to the massive wingspan of 7-foot-3 women’s basketballer Zhang Ziyu.

Illona Maher from the U.S.A. Rugby Sevens team is one of those people who simply expects that no matter her muscle mass, she will define her version of femininity for herself.

“(Women) can have broad shoulders and they can take up space and be big. I’m getting emotional about this because I feel passionate about it,” Maher said in her video. She should. She’s been under relentless attack by gender essentialists at the Olympics.

“I want them to dream,” she said of her hopes to inspire girls to be athletes, “of being professional rugby players—professional athletes. That’s what I feel like I’m giving them. Even if this is my last rugby game, I hope that there’s space for them to grow and thrive and [that] they experience this [because] I got to.”

Women Olympians can have broad shoulders without being questioned about whether they are women.

Thank you Lisa Carrington.

In fact they can have quite massive arms without being questioned whether they are women.

Thank you NZ Herald for that Valerie Adams one.

And they can have massive shoulders, and arms, and exist at the top of their game in high contact sports, and still not be questioned about whether they are women.

Thank you Getty Images for that one of Portia Woodman-Wickliffe.

But gender essentialists can’t cope at the Olympics.

It’s two way in the attack. Male divers, gymnasts, dressage horseriders, and figure skaters in particular face the gay monicker no matter who they are. But the attacks are mostly against women for not somehow being women enough.

Women are really good at really high contact sports at the Olympics. Everyone else can back off and let them.

Algerian Imane Khelif has been vilified for frankly being good at punching in a sport that’s about being good at punching. She has identified as female since birth and lived her entire life as a woman, including throughout her sporting career.

She is not transgender. She did not go through puberty as a male and then transition later.

Her passport marks her identity as female. She meets the International Olympic Committee criteria for gender classification of boxers, and that’s the criteria everyone competes at the Olympics within. They are the only accreditors for that competition. Anything else is none of your business.

Khelif has had some previous international success but she has been beaten by nine women boxers prior to the Paris games.

There are no transgender women competing at the 2024 Olympics. Algeria didn’t send a transgender woman to the Olympics – it’s illegal there.

The pile-on by bigoted gender essentialists is simply bullying. Unfortunately it has taken Khelif to call that out as the bullying it is. Her previous opponent at these Olympics had used social media to present Khalif as a predatory beast. The gender essentialist bullies have been no better.

The Italian competitor who complained in the first place regrets it and has apologised. In an interaction with Italian publication Gazzetta dello Sport, Carini said, “The controversy saddened me, and I apologize to Imane Khelif as well. It had nothing to do with her; she was there to fight just like I was… I’m sorry for my opponent, too. If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision.”

Here’s a few that didn’t apologise for bullying her by accusing her of not being a woman or being a transgender person: Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, J. K. Rowling, Piers Morgan, and Elon Musk. J. K. Rowling described her as “a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head.”

The objective in boxing is to punch harder and more often than your opponent. Even her opponent figured that out if J. K. Rowling can’t.

Arguing that Khelif is anything but the woman she is, is policing a strict binary of gender that has no room for anything except reductionist femininity of the kind found in Afghanistan where no female can play sport any longer, or The Handmaid’s Tale.

The contrived controversy around Khelif is but a sign and symptom of much of the world’s deeply gendered bigotry and hate toward any woman who does not perform femininity. It’s found on both the left and the right and it’s simply bullying.

It is a testament to Khelif’s skill and talent that she has managed to withstand the intense international scrutiny to get to the finals of the Olympics. It’s the punching outside the ring that gender essentialists should stop.

Her coach sees what has happened:

“She has not surrendered to this campaign (of abuse). She has given them a lesson in ethics.”

How many girls in Algeria will shrink their own dreams because of the attacks Khelif has had to endure? Women athletes of colour from poor countries at the Olympics are vital role models. But that won’t be important to gender essentialist bullies, until they understand Khelif’s lesson in ethics.

Since Khelif is the person literally in the arena, she can speak for herself to address the hate: “I address my message to all the people of the world to adhere to the Olympic principles, according to the Olympic Charter, and to avoid bullying all athletes, because this has a great impact and is capable of destroying people, killing people’s thinking and minds, and dividing people,” Khelif told Algerian broadcaster, SNTV.

Socrates is said to have given the following advice before speaking (or posting on social media): Let your words pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?

Rather than piling in with the gender essentialist bullies, if we do post prematurely, and find out we are wrong, apologizing and deleting the false information is the right thing to do. Thankfully, whether silver or gold, Khelif has already won against all her opponents.

157 comments on “Gender Essentialists Hate the Olympics ”

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  1. tWig 1
    10 August 2024 at 11:07 am

    Thanks, Advantage, for this post. Here's the joint Paris Boxing/IOC statement on this controversy released on 2nd August. Rules cover the qualifying period and, to date, have been based on the passport sex of the competitor. The statement says the two athletes have been competing for years in their category at elite level, and were arbitrarily excluded in 2023.

    "According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by [one person] the IBA Secretary General and CEO [Chris Robertson]. The IBA Board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also say that the IBA should “establish a clear procedure on gender testing”.". The actual IBA policy is pretty basis, and was not developed following in the IOC Framework.

    The IOC statement also says: "Eligibility rules should not be changed during ongoing competition, and any rule change must follow appropriate processes and should be based on scientific evidence."

    The IOC made this statement on their successful appeal to validate disqualification of the IBA as an International Federation recognised by the IOC. The 2023 disqualification was supported at the time by NZ Boxing.

    The IOC has a clear Framework for Fairness, Inclusion and Non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations, for International Federations. It was developed after a 2-year consultation with "members of the athlete community, International Federations and other sports organisations, as well as human rights, legal and medical experts." This is a summary of the principles of the Framework (IOC statement on the release of the Framework in 2021). The Framework includes constant review. The IOC also funds research in the area of hormonal effects on sports performance, for example, see Trans research section in this article from one researcher involved in that research.

    The IOC has also worked hard to have fair representation of women at the Olympics and in its own organisation, taking up recommendations in its 2018 Gender Equality Report. For gender essentialists to say IOC is not working for fairness in womens' sports is just untrue. A legal, properly-consulted process for inclusion or exclusion of athletes on the basis of sex or gender identity with continual review is a practical and fair way of going about things. A debate based on speculation on the sex identity and hormonal history of two boxing athletes passed by the IOC just does not cut it.

  2. Visubversa 2
    10 August 2024 at 11:56 am

    Nothing "essential" about gender. You can make up as many of them as you want. What you cannot make up is sex.

    • lprent 2.1
      11 August 2024 at 3:50 am

      Not a particularly valid comment. Basically it is completely wrong if you're trying to say that sexes don't change in humans or amongst virtually all known animal species (and humans are just another animal as far as I am concerned).

      Genetic sex is completely flexible across time and genetic structures. Organs from that can change over relatively small amounts of time (very small to geologist or earth scientist).

      Genetic 'sex' is fluid across many animal species, including humans. I could give you many examples from species that change 'sex', to various types of outright hermaphrodites, to animals that just clone themselves naturally.

      Binary sexual genetics just happen to be one of the many strategies that genetic molecules use to reproduce themselves over time. The animal, plant, fungus, virus, prion, or bacteria that genetic molecules use to do that is mostly just a distribution mechanism.

      Humans are definitely not an exception. This includes both the physical at a genetic level, all the way to the regularity that sexual attraction to the same gender and really (genetically) weird stuff like preferences to lifetime celibacy crop up in such large percentages in human populations.

      The only thing that seems to be particularly unique about humans is their ability to fascinated by minor points of doctrinaire thinking and outright delusions about the physical world.

      Also their ability to not want to rely on evolution for change. I am rather expecting to see significiant shifts in doing exactly that within my remaining lifetime.

      • Psycho Milt 2.1.1
        11 August 2024 at 6:40 am

        Genetic 'sex' is fluid across many animal species, including humans. I could give you many examples from species that change 'sex', to various types of outright hermaphrodites, to animals that just clone themselves naturally.

        That is absolute bollocks. The fact that some species can change sex doesn't mean mammals can. They can't, and don't. And disorders of sex development in humans or any other species are disorders of either male or female sex development because those are the only two sexes, not some "gender sex is fluid" woo that wishful thinkers would like it to be so they can pretend identity claims count for more than sex.

        • David 2.1.1.1
          11 August 2024 at 8:22 am

          For the sake of brevity, what you just said.

          FFS we are talking about humans, not other species.

        • Tabletennis 2.1.1.2
          15 August 2024 at 11:10 pm

          Unbelievable to read this nonsense. Sounds like Mr Key at the time regarding the climate change scietific evidence who said in an ontervew "I can find scientist who will tell you the opposte".

          It's a real shame to see this opinion piece with so much disinformation that it might as well have been writtten with all the talking points of a climate change denier.

      • weka 2.1.2
        11 August 2024 at 10:39 am

        yes, there are forms of life that can change sex. Afaik Homo sapiens isn't one of them. Do you have an example?

        For clarity, the issue here is the binary sexual reproduction function in humans, female/male. It's not about sexuality.

  3. francesca 3
    10 August 2024 at 12:05 pm

    "A debate based on speculation on the sex identity and hormonal history of two boxing athletes passed by the IOC just does not cut it"

    Speculation?

    Two accredited laboratories deemed the two boxers to be ineligible for the women's competition.

    Khelif was invited to appeal to the CAS (Court of arbitration for Sport) She failed to follow up .The other boxer didnt even start the process.

    The boxers could give permission for the test results to be made public .As Khelif claims she is absolutely a woman , I don't know why she doesn't want this cleared up once and for all, and put an end to the "speculation".

    As for Carini apologising, I bet she did !! Pressure will have been brought to bear , and no doubt she wants to continue with her sporting career.

    If we are agreed that there's a necessity to have separate sex categories in sport(and it is sex rather than gender that determines the way a body develops physically to produce super charged muscle, strength, lung and cardiac capacity…all essential for top tier sport)

    then how do you propose that is enforced?How do we determine what a woman is?

    Or do we give up and dissolve the sex classes ?

    After all, if sex is not binary, we're all just human beings and we can do away with retrograde terms like male and female, they mean nothing apparently.

  4. Karolyn_IS 4
    10 August 2024 at 12:06 pm

    Male and female anatomies differ greatly in a number of ways that result in male advantage in many sports. Using the term 'essentialism' is misleading. You may as well say the differences between gorillas and humans are "essentialism".

    There are natal differences between male and female bodies that are relevant to sports, otherwise why have a women's category at all? It includes males having greater muscle and bone strength resulting in greater punching power, even when the height and weight are the same as that of some females.

    Males have greater lung capacity.

    It's the shoulder to hip ratio that is the difference between males and females as well as the weight distribution around the body. The broader hips of women create a hip-thigh ratio that differs from men, resulting in men running faster.

    I watch men's and women's rugby, and the differences between the men's and women's bodies and performance is glaring.

    Male advantage in many sports is far greater than that achieved by illegal doping. Yet while there's strict testing and protocols to prevent drug cheating, the IOC is against sex testing, even though there are valid, reliable and available tests.

  5. SPC 5
    10 August 2024 at 12:23 pm

    Is this about gender essentialism?

    Sure, because Olympics began with men and women competing at separate events and naked.

    However since they began competing at the same event, both wearing garments.

    Essentials for beginners.

    In the beginning, man was first born and son of a God called patriarchy, yet needed help to breed in his image. She encouraged him to heed another perspective, rather than just patriarchy. And thus he betrayed patriarchy. But religion provided a way back to God, via those men who returned to patriarchy and mansplained why their supremacy was both god-given and the inherent natural order – the importance of cultural narrative heritage in forming a social regime.

    The challenge to the gender essentialism of this social order first came from democracy – where those not of the religion of patriarchy could vote and then extend this vote to their help (females/former slaves). Thus the perspective of feminists, who said there should be gender equality – that women should be free to choose their role in society – became relevant.

    People began to talk about gender and sexual fluidity and being on a spectrum, but no one challenged the notion of there being two biological sexes.

    Or there being, two categories in sports.

    Religion and strength as an indication of gender

    In the 16th Century, after the Reformation, some Catholic women were referred to as having male gendered souls because of the strength of their faith. A recent Pope Benedict 16 considered this issue back in the 1980's – Prefect (but not yet infallible) of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (after DSM3 1980).

    It is true that the born male and through teenage years T aided growth proffers the transgender athlete with physical advantages. But once they are on hormones the advantage is less. To the point they would not be punching down when racing against CS, designated female at birth etc – and who resented T limitations to compete as an athlete.

    The issue here is not contesting the cisgender female identity of athletes. That is a culture war issue, and such wars are not the matter of the Olympic peace.

    Biological females can compete against each other as non binary or transgender men or cisgender.

    Fair competition rules however go beyond weight categories and anti-doping – it is pertinent to note that some cisgender women have the same advantages though puberty development as those born biologically male and who identify as transgender.

    For there to be Olympic peace there needs to be fair and safe competition.

    • Karolyn_IS 5.1
      10 August 2024 at 1:12 pm

      Testosterone suppression for males who ID as women does not remove their male advantage gained throughout their development.

      But the issue with Imane Khelif is not about being transgender, but about likely being male with a DSD that resulted in being mistaken for a girl at birth.

      Transactivists have mis-appropriated the notion of 'intersex' to justify their claims that sex is "assigned at birth" and can be incorrect. They take a big leap from this, to argue that gender self ID trumps sex, and/or they incorrectly claim sex is a spectrum and not binary.

      When the actual facts of DSD get the light of day and are more widely understood and reported in the media, the belief system on which sex/gender self ID is built, will start to crumble. Thus, gender ID ideologues are now working flat out not to allow legitimate sex testing at the Olympics, or any other sports competitions.

      Gender ideologues are a very well-funded lobby group and powerfully aligned (led by those in the US). Therefore it's going to take some time for the material reality of male and female sex differences to be widely recognised, along with the truth about male advantage in some sports people with DSDs who have been assigned female at birth.

      • SPC 5.1.1
        10 August 2024 at 1:41 pm

        Testosterone suppression for males who ID as women does not remove their male advantage gained throughout their development.

        Sure, and I said it made it less/reduces it.

        But the issue with Imane Khelif is not about being transgender, but about likely being male with a DSD that resulted in being mistaken for a girl at birth.

        Which is why I never said she was and mentioned CS.

        Therefore it's going to take some time for the material reality of male and female sex differences to be widely recognised, along with the truth about male advantage in some sports people with DSDs who have been assigned female at birth.

        This is already a known, thus the CS being excluded, it being contested at CAS and the legal appeals.

        https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/articles/cd188y15n4eo

        … gender ID ideologues are now working flat out not to allow legitimate sex testing at the Olympics, or any other sports competitions.

        Sporting bodies determine it and they hold their own competitions under the same rules as they set for the Olympics. As for 2028 and boxing it would depend on IOC recognition of the newly formed WBO and their policy.

        Your other points touch on methods for identifying sex at birth and the validity of gender different to biological sex.

        People are already aware that those born with DSD's historically got designated male or female based on form appearance (before knowledge of chromosome difference). However it is was not the basis for transgender – different to birth sex – identity. Whether by managed transition including form changes and hormones, or the more suspect self-ID.

        PS – If a society allows self-ID, it should condition this to no threat of, or act of violence against women.

        • Nic the NZer 5.1.1.1
          10 August 2024 at 1:50 pm

          Lol. You're ridiculous impossible proposal again.

          "PS – If a society allows self-ID, it should condition this to no threat of, or act of violence against women."

          Including boxing?

          and why stop there anyway, this could be extended to women who commit violence against women since your basic sexist idealization of women involves being non violent.

          • SPC 5.1.1.1.1
            10 August 2024 at 2:05 pm

            Ignorance 101

            You are not even aware that there are no transgender people competing at the Olympics, let alone a self-ID one.

            As for conditions, parole – no prior offending against children to access some jobs and places and protection (and trespass) orders.

  6. Visubversa 6
    10 August 2024 at 12:28 pm

    Just look at the picture of Khalif being carried on the shoulders of a fellow male Algerian Olympic contestant. Ask yourself what Algerian male would be carrying a woman on his shoulders like that in public, and what Algerian woman would be allowing such a display?

    • Visubversa 6.2
      10 August 2024 at 5:34 pm

      The IOC stopped sex testing in 1999. They rely on he sports bodies to do it – or not. All the IOC asks for a an "F" on your passport.

      • lprent 6.2.1
        11 August 2024 at 4:02 am

        There really is no such thing as an ideal woman or ideal man, that doesn't overlap statistically genetically or with training. You can find the same overlaps when you look at damn near everything about humans and other animals.

        Sporting organisations make up their own rules to induce 'fairness' in their competitions. However, in my view, that is really mostly an excuse to enable wider marketing of sports.

        So the IOC makes their own rules? The IBA did as well, but appears to have been highly selective about how they applied them, and suspected of match fixing. Which is why they are being de-recognised.

        I guess that you're just complaining that you don't like the IOC rules and would prefer something else. Diddums…

        • David 6.2.1.1
          11 August 2024 at 8:49 am

          I’m guessing here… I believe the reason for the woman’s category was to allow women to compete in sports. There’s no event in track and field where women can compete with men. This whole palaver is only happening because those pesky feminists want more from life, however I for one am not brave enough to pop my head above the parapet and suggest they get back into the kitchen.

          • tWig 6.2.1.1.1
            13 August 2024 at 11:45 am

            Yup, fair comment, and brought a smile to my lips. Although women competed in open categories such as skating and yatching in early modern Olympics (1st gold medal went to a female member of a sailing team in 1901).

  7. Anker 7
    10 August 2024 at 12:30 pm

    https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/heretics-andrew-gold/id1515932214?i=1000664642308

    If any one is interested in finding out more about this, Dr Emma Hiltons interview on Heretics is excellent. Dr Hilton is a developmental biologist.

    The easiest thing in the world would be for these two boxers to have sex tests. Why don't they

  8. Anker 8
    10 August 2024 at 12:37 pm

    Not good enough calling us bullies or gender extensialists.

    I am a sex realist. Ample scientific evidence that males, particularly those who go through male puberty have huge physical advantage over women. Are you expecting women to keep quiet about this. Just shut up and not challenge what seems to many of us to be both unfair and unsafe. This is on th IOC. They relied on passports to prove femaleness (another reason why self ID is so problematic)

    These men tested with XY choromsome at two independent labs. Easy enough to take a new test to prove they are female. They don't.

    Have you considered the female boxers who are saying its not fair and they have never been punched so hard before. They would not pit a feather weight male boxer against a male heavy weight.

    Ad I would suggest. you go inside of yourself and ask yourself why do you fail to consider women in this debate.

  9. TeWhareWhero 9
    10 August 2024 at 12:58 pm

    It's strangely ironic to be lectured on this complex and contentious subject by someone whose moniker is Advantage.

    The IOC had a long history of somewhat crude and invasive attempts to deal with sex verification which was only ever an issue in the female category. In 2015 the IOC eventually put in place a less crude but still problematic standard of legal sex plus a serum testosterone level of less than 10 nmols/L which is the bottom of the standard reference range (SRR) for natal males and four times the top of the SRR for natal females. NB. There is no top of the male SRR and the two ranges do not overlap.

    Because of problems with that, the IOC then threw the issue out to individual sports to develop their own policies for inclusion, fairness and safety, within a broad framework of principles which some argue push the inclusion side of it too much.

    You have to be ignorant and/or ideologically blinkered not to accept there are significant average performance advantages that natal males have over natal females in all sports involving running, jumping, throwing, kicking, punching, rowing etc. You also have to be ignorant or blinkered not to know the role that androgens play in the formation and maintenance of that APA.

    The point is not that there are women with “massive” shoulders, arms or legs, it's stating the obvious that there is a wide variety of body types within the sexes, and some women have conditions like PCOS which cause degrees of hyperandrogenism – and some men have hypoandrogenism. The point is that there are important anatomical and physiological SEX-based differences. (NB. using gender as a synonym for sex helps obscure already complex issues.)

    Take two athletes, A and B, the same in terms of height, weight, age, health, fitness and technical ability in a given sport. Apart from a few minority sports, Athlete A with a XY chromosome-led physical development will be dominant over Athlete B with typical XX-led development.

    That margin will be fairly close in some sports and massive in others, averaging around 8-10%. It is also stable; as women have improved, so have men.

    Athlete A will have more skeletal muscle and different distribution and lower level of body fat which increases power-to-weight ratios.

    A’s muscles will be larger and denser with stiffer connective tissue which allows for greater and more efficient muscular force.

    If B’s level of body fat drops too low, adverse health consequences can ensue.

    A will have heavier, denser bones with stronger ligaments and tendons.

    A will have a larger heart, larger lung capacity due to lower diaphragm placement, larger blood volume giving higher haemoglobin concentration – overall, a more efficient system for delivering oxygen to muscles.

    B will have less upper body strength translating into a weaker punch, which gives A a clear advantage in all combat sports.

    In all contact sports and especially combat sports, the issue of athlete safety has to be paramount.

    In combat sports, the objective is to win by "striking, submissions, joint holds, or forcing the opponent’s body into compromised positions through forceful joint manipulation."

    These sports carry a very high risk for acute and chronic musculoskeletal, vascular, ophthalmological, and neurological injuries. Athletes have died in the ring/cage or the immediate aftermath of a bout most commonly from a traumatic subdural haematoma.

    I keep banging on about this but it is also now known that there is a sex-based difference in the way key stabilising muscles in the cervical spine insert into the base of the skull, ie these insertion points are differently placed and stronger in men than women.

    The increased torque forces when a woman's head is impacted by a blow may in part at least be why women are statistically more prone to concussion and to acute and chronic cervical spinal injury than men.

    These are some of the averaged differences driven by the effects of androgens, most powerfully during puberty. The safety and fairness issues are straightforward with trans athletes in comparison with athletes who have a 46XY DSD which grants some or all of that male APA.

    Bottom line is : if you put a person with a sex-based average greater vulnerability to being injured by being punched, against a person with a sex-based greater punching ability, it's a recipe for disaster on many levels.

    The politically-driven debacle over boxing has resulted in an already contentious sport not having a clear standard for inclusion of athletes who have some or all of the known sex-based APA.

    This not only puts female boxers at a greater risk of harm than they would normally face, it fuels the wider debate which is now being weaponised by the far right and by Christo-Fascists in the US.

    I detest the vicious attacks on these two athletes but I also deplore the way they are being used as pawns in a wider geo-political game. We don't know for certain if Khelif has a 46XY DSD of the sort that allows for the development of secondary male sex characteristics during puberty. We do know Khelif was raised as a girl and competed as a woman in boxing until disqualification last year. We also know this issue is a re-run of the debates around Caster Semenya, but unlike running, boxing involves repeated blows to the opponent’s head.

    • Darien Fenton 9.1
      10 August 2024 at 2:27 pm
      • 1 laat paragraph.
      • Karolyn_IS 9.1.1
        10 August 2024 at 3:35 pm

        I also agree that the 2 athletes have been poorly treated by those attacking them and those treating them as pawns – that includes many transactivists.

        The Caster Semenya situation is instructive. Caster tested as having high testosterone and was asked to lower it to IOC standards, which Caster refused. Caster went to a CAS tribunal to contest the ruling. The tribunal process resulted in Caster's test results becoming public, showing the presence of the DSD condition of 5-ARD.

        In this condition, the individual has a male anatomy and went through male sex development from utero through puberty. However, in this condition, the genetic component that triggers penis development is defective, often resulting in the baby being mistaken for female at birth and often brought up as a girl. Usually the condition becomes obvious during puberty as they do not menstruate, and start to develop along male lines.

        This put Caster in a very difficult position to come to terms with. It is likely that such conditions are identified at puberty more often in wealthier countries and communities than poorer ones. Caster still claims to be a woman, in spite of claiming to have internal testes and no uterus. Caster clearly is male and has male advantage in sport/athletics.

        The 2 boxers in question this Olympics could possibly have a similar condition to Caster. We won't know because they didn't take up the opportunity to go to a CAS independent sports tribunal, which would have made their test results public. Nor have they published the results of the blood tests, or asked for new independent sex tests.

        The solution for the future, is to bring back sex testing, as most female athletes want, but also to do it in a humane and supportive way. It should be done early on in sports' careers, preferably early teens. And it should be accompanied by counselling and follow up medical care for those who fail or are atypical of their supposed sex. People with DSDs usually have specialised medical needs that should be attended to. The tests should not be happening at a point where medals are in contention, pushing them into the public spotlight.

  10. Psycho Milt 10
    10 August 2024 at 1:47 pm

    This is bullshit. Women aren't disputing these two boxers' right to punch women boxers because they think the two look overly masculine, they're disputing it because sex testing has shown that both are male, ie yes they do have the advantages of male puberty, no they should not be participating in any competition for which being female is a criterion, and yes there is a serious safety issue involved.

    What a person identifies as or how they've been raised is irrelevant for competitive sports. What counts is whether or not they meet the criteria for the event. This should not be difficult for adults to understand.

    • Darien Fenton 10.1
      10 August 2024 at 2:17 pm

      Ohhh we are not debating this AGAIN! Along with Winston Peters who couldn't help climbing in. I am so pleased Imane won a gold. Others like tWIG have explained the IOC rules. Read them please.

      • Belladonna 10.1.1
        10 August 2024 at 3:06 pm

        Given that the IOC criteria is gender on the passport – it's hardly scientific! More a cop-out that they didn't want to deal with the controversy. The controversy they're dealing with now.

        So, yes, we are debating this AGAIN – because, if we are serious about women-only sporting events, there has to be scientifically measurable qualification. Otherwise, we might as well just not bother.

        • Rosielee 10.1.1.1
          10 August 2024 at 4:48 pm

          yes

        • lprent 10.1.1.2
          11 August 2024 at 4:19 am

          …there has to be scientifically measurable qualification…

          I don't think that there is one given what I know.

          If you went to the generic level, then you'd probably have to eventually define it down to perfect genetic woman or male. Which probably no-one would fit apart from clones. They certainly don't exist in current populations. There are wide range of genetic shifts, including those on all chromosomes. Statistically the range

          The whole point of non-cloning non-hermaphroditic genetic populations is that there is a genetic diversity and that goes all of the way through the genetic populations of a species.

          In humans, despite their relative lack of species differentiation (outside of teh mild diversity in Africa), the range of genetic diversity and level of hybridisation effects between different populations mean that you have statistical spread.

          Having a male from a African pygmy population defeat a Scandinavian female in boxing is a ridiculously low probability. Yet you don't seem to see that as being unfair?

          • Belladonna 10.1.1.2.1
            11 August 2024 at 8:42 am

            Taking this argument to the logical conclusion, you wouldn't support any 'women only' events in sports. Or any other divisions (boxing weight categories, for example). Or any paralympic sports.

            For those of us who do support a women-only category – the simple chromosome test (XX being female) is simple to understand and administer.

            Of course there is genetic diversity underpinning sporting success. Body type has a huge impact. There is a reason that high-jumpers are string-beans, gymnasts are compact, and divers are streamlined. If your genetics have you topping out at 5.2 feet – you're never going to be a top basketball player.

            But in most sports (yes there are exceptions) the top women athletes just can't physically compete at the same level as the top male athletes. To take a homegrown example: Valerie Adams – multiple world-champion, multiple Olympic gold medalist in shotput – has a career best of 21.24 metres. Tom Walsh – not quite at the top level, bronze Olympic medalist – has a career best of 22.9 metres.

            If you want women to be able to compete at the top levels of sport, there needs to be a women-only category.

            • weka 10.1.1.2.1.1
              11 August 2024 at 9:41 am

              if we want women to be able to compete at any level of support, there needs to be a women-only category.

              • Belladonna …
                11 August 2024 at 12:19 pm

                I absolutely agree with you, in the area of competitive sport – but my comment was in the context of top-level international Olympic competition.

                I do think that you can have different rules for participatory, rather than competitive sport. So you'd have to be female (XX chromosome) to participate in the Local/Regional/National athletics or swimming, or rowing competitions – but the local women's social touch or netball team might not be so strict.

            • TeWhareWhero 10.1.1.2.1.2
              12 August 2024 at 1:48 pm

              To further contextualise the difference between Adams and Walsh – she throws a ball weighing 4kg; he throws one weighing 7.26kg.

              There are differential weights in discus, hammer and javelin.

              The height and spacing of hurdles for women is lower and shorter; the length of the road race in cycling much shorter – women 128km; men 252km.

          • MichaelP 10.1.1.2.2
            14 August 2024 at 3:32 am

            "…given what I know."

            Not much about sex or boxing obviously.

            "Having a male from a African pygmy population defeat a Scandinavian female in boxing is a ridiculously low probability. Yet you don't seem to see that as being unfair?"

            Totally incorrect. If such a fight were made it would be ridiculously high probability that the male would win and would obviously be unfair, unless you were to stack the odds. The words "African Pygmy" and "Scandinavian" are irrelevant. IMO you're adding them because you think they help back up your argument because many people (who don't have any knowledge of boxing) automatically get an image in their head of a tiny little man against a huge strong woman..

            However boxing has weight classes so both the male and female would weigh pretty much the same. Assuming both are boxers of similar experience and both are of fighting age (which is a fair assumption to make, unless you are trying to stack the odds in favor of your argument), then the male would beat the female the vast majority (pretty much all) of the time.

            Yes, even in your ridiculous excuse for a credible example, an African Pygmy male would beat a Scandinavian female nearly all of the time.

            Of course if you put a 30 year old, 6 foot 2 inch, 200 plus pound Viking female world champion boxer in against a 100 pound, 80 year old pygmy male who has never thrown a punch in his life then no doubt the female would win. But we are talking about averages and populations here, not made up exceptions that would never happen in real life.

            Either way the fight would be unfair. In a realistic boxing example it would be unfair because the male would have a huge advantage and in the unrealistic example it would be unfair because the female would have a huge advantage.

            That's the thing, we have sex categories in sport for a reason, to make it fair. (not to mention safety in combat sports)

      • Karolyn_IS 10.1.2
        10 August 2024 at 3:11 pm

        The IOC rules are not fir for purpose. The maximum level of testosterone required for males who ID as women, or who are DSD for participation in most women's sport is well above the top female range. Actually, as I understand it, it is unhealthy for those with male bodies to have too low a testosterone level.

        Plus, the research I linked to up thread shows that testosterone suppression does not do away with male advantage in sport. That advantage is acquired through the development period from utero through puberty.

        Plus the head of the IOC committee has said that they have not tested the 2 boxers in question, so how would they know what their T level is. They seem to have gone on their passports to accept them into the women's category.

      • TeWhareWhero 10.1.3
        10 August 2024 at 3:27 pm

        Khelif's win is being lauded as proof of "changing attitudes towards gender identity in sports". I'm afraid that this may be prophetic but not in the way anticipated by the authors.

        The issue of transgender inclusion in women's sports quickly became as contentious as the issue of paediatric transition, and for many people there's no difference between trans inclusion in women's sport and the inclusion of athletes with a 46XY DSD which has resulted in degrees of virilisation at puberty.

        It's a fact that the IBA handled the issues badly because it did not have a policy and process in place prior to disqualifying boxers whose eligibility was in question after the 2022 world champs.

        Disqualifying them mid-competition in 2023 was also ham-fisted as the usual process is for subsequent disqualification and reassignment of medals. They would no doubt claim there were compelling safety issues but that's post-hoc rationalisation. The probable truth is, they were pissed off at the US-led boycott and formation of a rival organisation.

        It's also a fact that the way the boycott was called for was all about a wider geopolitical power struggle.

        Some of the OG specific elements of that power struggle are becoming more apparent with a split between WADA and USADA over issues like the disproportionate number of therapeutic use exemptions issued to US athletes for medications known to be masking agents, and the way the US throws its weight around.

        The revelations that USADA has allowed US athletes who it knew to have doped, to continue to compete in exchange for grassing up other athletes, and the fact that the US passed a law which allows it to take legal action against foreign athletes and sports administrators, coaches etc it suspects of doping in competitions in which US athletes are competing, will be viewed by many countries, the Chinese especially, as arrogant and offensive.

        We may be seeing the beginning of an east-west or global north vs global south divide in the sporting world.

        For me, the safety issues of women in what is an inherently dangerous sport are paramount and I've tried to clarify them. What concerns me is the utterly cavalier attitude towards those issues of many on the inclusion side of the debate.

        I'm also and have always been concerned by the way these issues are being weaponised by the religious and secular far right. Considering the emphasis placed on transgender issues by the real sex-essentialists of the likes of the Christo-fascists backing Trump, that wider political reality should be giving us all pause.

        • tWig 10.1.3.1
          13 August 2024 at 11:53 am

          Thanks for that background, you clearly have more background than me, and I agree with you, Te Whare Whero, that this debate is being used as ammo for geopolitical and culture wars.

      • Psycho Milt 10.1.4
        10 August 2024 at 3:36 pm

        What is there to discuss? If the IOC's rules allow participation by competitors who don't meet the stated criteria of the competition, the rules are unfit for purpose. That's not really a discussion topic, just a statement of fact.

    • roblogic 10.2
      10 August 2024 at 2:54 pm

      +1 When the stakes are as high as the Olympics, the standards of fairness should be unimpeachable.

      I was shocked at the comments of the IOC president, unable to grasp the difference between male and female. And in other statements the IOC opines that “athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity”.

      Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, said this:

      Very concerned about these statements by the IOC at #Paris2024🗼. There are multiple international treaties and national constitutions that specifically refer to #women and their fundamental rights to equality and non-discrimination, so the world has a pretty good idea of what women -and men for that matter- are.
      Also, how can one assess whether fairness and justice has been reached if we do not know who we are being fair and just to?
      https://x.com/UNSRVAW/status/1821950095991943254

      • Psycho Milt 10.2.1
        10 August 2024 at 3:43 pm

        Disappointed but not surprised. We've been treated to the spectacle for years now of grown men and women trying to pretend there's no way to tell the difference between men and women. The lack of self-respect that must take just doesn't bear thinking about.

        • David 10.2.1.1
          10 August 2024 at 5:28 pm

          I guess this demonstrates the dark side of human nature. One can feel and appear virtuous, while at the same time justifying being a bully.

    • David 10.3
      10 August 2024 at 6:30 pm

      You are absolutely right, the two boxers have XY chromosomes, and are intersex, or DSD, they have no place in women’s contact sports.

      We can be sympathetic to the fact they had the appearance of being girls when born. In previous times we were none the wiser and it never really mattered. However it now matters, women’s sports are taken seriously and they are involved in contact sports, which is no place for men or women with XY chromosomes.

      • Psycho Milt 10.3.1
        10 August 2024 at 6:36 pm

        We can be sympathetic to the fact they had the appearance of being girls when born.

        I believe so too. If your society's told you you're female from your earliest memories and you have genitalia that look more female than male, you can be forgiven for believing you're female. The IOC is 100% to blame for this – after all, these male boxers are participating in the women's boxing based on the IOC's rules and its rejection of sex testing.

    • bwaghorn 10.4
      10 August 2024 at 7:12 pm

      Did they ever have testicle? That's what I want to know??

      • Psycho Milt 10.4.1
        10 August 2024 at 8:45 pm

        They haven't released that info and as it's their private medical data they don't have to. However, the IBA invites us to read between the lines: they didn't pass a test looking for XX chromosomes and their testosterone levels were high. "Has bollocks" is a pretty safe conclusion. If they have 5ARD disorder of sex development, the testicles would be undescended and they'd have no penis, so could easily have been "assigned female at birth" but gone through male puberty. I think that's the most likely explanation, but I don't know that it's true.

      • weka 10.4.2
        10 August 2024 at 8:46 pm

        Yes. Emma Hilton, developmental biologist,

        If it is, as suspected, 5ARD, this means:

        The baby starts developing as a healthy male (XY, testes, testosterone, all the internal plumbing).

        But the baby lacks a protein needed to make a penis grow. This means that baby’s external genitals can develop as female-looking. Hence, baby might be registered at birth as female.

        During puberty, the male internal bits start kicking out huge amounts of testosterone (as per male) and their external genitals start to become more masculine. It’s a kind of “catch up”.

        Not only that, but testosterone at puberty – produced by all that internal male biology – does all the regular stuff it does to muscles blah blah.

        So their body – the thing they run, jump and punch with – has developed like any other male.

        That’s why they shouldn’t be in female categories. It’s got precisely nothing to do with their external genitalia and what their paperwork says.

        3:58 am · 3 Aug 2024

        https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1819402288789590246

        Also of note,

        I meant what I said. With Swyer, you don’t go through *any* puberty without hormonal intervention and both of them clearly have gone through puberty.

        https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1821921241957077332

        • bwaghorn 10.4.2.1
          10 August 2024 at 9:16 pm

          Thanks , I can't be bothered entering the fray, but it seems obvious

        • Visubversa 10.4.2.2
          10 August 2024 at 9:55 pm

          Yes, that sort of DSD is known as "Penis at 12". It is one of the main ones the scouts looking through sporting youngsters in less developed countries want to identify for future exploitation.

          You don't find these sportspeople coming from Boston or Manchester. This is a product of places and cultures that did not (and some still do not) have the access to sophisticated medical services 20 odd years ago.

      • Francesca 10.4.3
        10 August 2024 at 9:32 pm

        Internal testes which is why their testosterone is in the male range

  11. weka 11
    10 August 2024 at 3:44 pm

    The organisation running boxing at the Paris Olympic is the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit. Here are their regs. I've only key word searched to find the eligibility around sex, but can't find them. Can anyone else see them?

    https://boxing.athlete365.org/qualification-system-and-rules/

    http://boxing.athlete365.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/20230825_Paris2024-QS-Boxing.pdf

    https://olympics.com/athlete365/app/uploads/2023/04/PARIS-2024-BOXING-UNIT-EVENT-REGULATIONS-VERSION-1.0.pdf

    • TeWhareWhero 11.1
      10 August 2024 at 4:00 pm

      The only sex specific regulation I can see other than what is on the individual's passport is the Declaration of Non-Pregnancy for all Women Boxers.

      I suspect if the routine testing in competition showed a boxer was competing with very high endogenous T levels, even well within the male range, it was not an issue.

      If however a boxer was shown to have even a trace of exogenous testosterone or a substance known to be a masking agent for which the athlete doesn't have a TUE, that would be doping and result in disqualification.

      All TUEs would be listed on a medical certificate.

    • Karolyn_IS 11.2
      10 August 2024 at 5:22 pm

      The IOC rules generally leave it up to individual world sports bodies to set the rules for participation in women's sports. An increasing number of such bodies are doing so. Boxing is a particular case,and the current IOC response is at odds with recommendations from many other sports.

      Other sports, including for aquatics/swimming via the FINA policy, say athletes must be screened to show they are eligible for participation in FINA's women's events. It's a very good model for such policies, with one quibble from some people.

      It's a policy that makes clear the importance of sex-based categories and the need to screen for eligibility.

      Extracts from the policy:

      2.a. All athletes must certify their chromosomal sex with their Member Federation in order to be eligible for FINA competitions.

      2. c. FINA reserves the right to include a chromosomal sex screen in its anti-doping protocol to confirm such certification.

      4. b. re transgender male-to-female and 46XY DSD, they can participate in women’s events

      ”if they can establish to FINA’s comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later”

      Some people are concerned including criteria of not having experienced male puberty will encourage young males to take puberty blockers.

  12. Anker 12
    10 August 2024 at 4:05 pm
    • #Do the test!

    This is so simple. We have sophisticated tests to determine sex. They are not at all intrusive.

    These athlete's likely are male. Prove the world wrong! Do the test! I would apologise if I am found to be wrong

    Dr Emma Hilton, Developmental Biologist. Likely these boxers XY male early in the womb. Then as pregnancy progresses lacked an enzyme that produces a penis (or produces a micro penis. They have something that looks like a female genitalia, so it is concluded they are female. Internal testes that once puberty hits produce massive amount of testosterone. At this stage Dr Hilton states it would be hard not to know your male and they may even grow a penis. No ovaries or womb. The key thing here for sports is they go through male puberty, which gives them huge physical advantage over women. Bigger heart, lungs, denser muscles, hips don’t widen. Dr Hilton says people should be tested at a young age so we don’t have to be exposed to the publicity that these two boxers are getting (although I note athletes are banned from using social media (or at least Imane is).

    But really all this aside, I can’t believe people are falling for this nonsense! As Winston’s Peters said, Louisa Walls article is drivel.

  13. gsays 13
    10 August 2024 at 5:19 pm

    Considering Socrates was cited, acouple of definitions from the author would help.

    Namely what is a woman?

    What is a gender essentialist?

    This post is swerving the crux of the issue and clouding things with IOC's passport clause.

    If this is the way of the modern world (athletes with XY chromosomes but female on the passport), then I think the term 'gender essentialist' is being applied to the wrong 'side' if the discussion.

    • SPC 13.1
      10 August 2024 at 5:38 pm

      He is accusing those who take the biological sex determination approach of

      Gender essentialism

      Oxford Reference

      The belief that males and females are born with distinctively different natures, determined biologically rather than culturally

      thus being social conservatives at a time of cultural change.

      Some feminists might see it as gaslighting – given their position on social, economic, religious and political equality – a challenge to the historic concept of a separate and distinct role for women.

      It could be read along with

      https://thestandard.org.nz/the-promises-of-lange-moore-bolger-and-the-wto/

      An era of neo-liberalism undermining common cause citizenship.

      • Psycho Milt 13.1.1
        10 August 2024 at 6:46 pm

        That definition's pretty dubious. Anyone claiming evolution has no influence on behaviour is almost certainly wrong, so it's entirely reasonable to believe "males and females are born with distinctively different natures, determined biologically rather than culturally" and no social conservativism needs to be involved.

        The socially conservative approach to gender is a straightforward 'is versus ought' fail, ie it assumes that we can just take our reckons about what the distinctively different natures of male and female are and make them prescriptive obligations. Now, that we can all do without and we don't need to pretend we can't tell the difference between men and women to achieve it.

        • SPC 13.1.1.1
          10 August 2024 at 9:36 pm

          No not really (the definition is pertinent) – the biology (biological sex) is not in dispute, what is being the concept of gender, gender identity and gender roles, as per culture etc. It is in the area where social conservatives and progressives have their issues.

          The issue has become one of legal identity, as distinct from biological sex – the use of the term gender in place of sex, on drivers license and passport. And designated at birth***, because of the nature of the pre puberty body of the child***.

          PS At some point those who oppose pre puberty health intervention (or pre age 18) as to change of of gender identity will come to support health care to manage people to their biological sex norm***.

          • Psycho Milt 13.1.1.1.1
            11 August 2024 at 6:32 am

            Legal identity is irrelevant to sport. Biological sex is highly relevant, especially to combat sports due to the safety factor involved. The people trying to replace sex with identity (in this case, the IOC) are putting women's health and safety at risk.

            • SPC 13.1.1.1.1.1
              11 August 2024 at 7:55 am

              We were discussing the definition.

              While biological sex is a relevant to fair competition and safety rules, there is a relevance to legal identity – when matters come before courts.

              For example the rules as per the exclusion of CS being contested at CAS and the subsequent legal appeals.

              https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/articles/cd188y15n4eo

              • David …
                11 August 2024 at 9:33 am

                Legal definition shouldn’t trump the developing scientific knowledge with respect to DSD and contact sports such as boxing. Safety is the priority, a person with XY should not compete in women’s boxing. Should science show a person does not have the male advantage, we have another conversation.

                • SPC …
                  11 August 2024 at 9:43 am

                  Sporting bodies might well agree, but still have their determinations referred to courts all the same – as per the link.

  14. TeWhareWhero 14
    10 August 2024 at 6:18 pm

    From Women's Liberation Aotearoa on Twitter:

    We know, or should, that even in women’s sports, the majority of coaches and managers, and all the sprawling, self-interested layers of professional and semi-pro, corporatised and hyper-nationalistic sport are men. All the big money, blue-riband sports were developed by and for men, to showcase male athletic prowess, and women have had to struggle to be allowed to compete, and are still subordinate in terms of status and remuneration.

    The gear in some women’s sports is highly sexualised, reaching its nadir in such sports as beach volleyball and in synchronised swimming in which the costumes owe more to burlesque than to sport, and some are so narrow in the crotch they barely cover the vulva. If male athletes’ genitalia and buttocks were on show in that way there would be an outcry; instead the outcry is in defence of it and in shouting down women who say it’s sexist.

    Sports medicine and coaching regimes once based much of their approach on the male default and viewed the female body as a scaled down version of the male. Some female athletes were encouraged to take testosterone to virilise. Some women were subjected to training regimes which took body fat levels too low for female endocrine health. In sports in which a female puberty sometimes brought unwanted body changes, some athletes’ puberty was chemically suppressed. What we now know about very low body fat and puberty suppression is there can be deleterious effects on bone strength.

    In the late 1970s, a USSR gymnast, Elena Burkhina, won the all-round competition in the 1978 world champs and was on track to fight it out at the 1980 Moscow summer olympics with her team mate, Nellie Kim, and Romanian, Nadia Comăneci.

    Behind all these young women were teams of largely male coaches and administrators, a male dominated international bureaucracy, and male dominated countries that wanted to win gold medals for national prestige in a world dominated by the Cold War.

    Elena broke her leg, and the injury may have been the result of osteopenia from having her body fat reduced too low, or possibly from having her puberty chemically delayed. Forced back into training too soon, in order to be ready for the olympics, her coach wanted her to include in her already unique floor routine, a move never attempted by a woman.

    The Thomas Salto involved a 1½ backflip with 1½ twists ending in a forward roll, which required absolute precision in the landing to avoid spinal trauma.

    Worried she was not strong enough to get sufficient speed and height to land the move safely, Burkhina tried to argue with her coach but he overrode her concerns.

    These days we know that the ability to tumble at high speed and remain aware of where your body is in space is critical to safety and in that awareness, self-belief is critical. Once doubt and fear creep in, the chances of an accident increase.

    In a movement such as the one Burkhina was attempting, the price of failure was a catastrophic neck injury. At the age of 18, she went instantly from supreme gymnast to quadriplegic.

    Her coach had the excuse of not knowing as well as we do now that the female body is not a scaled version of the male, and that the female neck is not as robust. We are also now aware of the dangers of lowering female body fat levels too far and of delaying puberty. We know that women suffer more concussion, more whiplash injuries, and more chronic cervical spine pain than men probably because of the sex-based differences in bone density of the skull and the musculature of the posterior cervical spine.

    For Burkina, the combination of being pressured to perform a movement developed by and for men, and to ignore what her body was telling her, resulted in a near-fatal, catastrophic spinal injury, and an injury-related early death.

    Before people get all high and mighty about the countries of the then eastern bloc, no country is without some degree of culpability in the ways they all too often pressure athletes into pushing their bodies to extremes for national glory.

    The relevance of this to the current issue is, do we want women's boxing to have its Burkina moment because, in a wider ideological and geo-political battle, inclusion is being prioritised over athlete safety?

  15. lprent 15
    11 August 2024 at 4:27 am

    Personally, I'm getting somewhat sick of these sex debates. I find them completely ridiculous, insanely arbitrary and full of pious and extremely stupid bull and cow shit. Plus most of the people finding them important are clearly too stupid to delve into basic statistical genetics of population diversities, and seem to prefer what amount to religious beliefs as a decision making tool.

    The basis for argument seems be as completely arbitrary as sporting body rules about eligibility for hormone levels.

    They certainly don’t meet my standards of robust debate. Nor do I find them of much relevance to the board labour movement.

    At present I'm starting to wonder if I should just kick this site off my server and off my budget just so I don't have to read them a part of my due diligence.

    I don't like sports on principle. Really couldn't give a shit about perceived rather than any actual unfairness in the arbitrariness that is the historical basis of sports. I fail to see any real world issues with it, like legal issues. To me, it seems to be framed purely as a culture war wank fest for prurient entertainment.

    Plus I can just see a risk of court or tribunal case arising in my future defending the culture warriors who seem to think that this kind of trivia is important.

    I think that the next post on this subject will be about those topics. Is it worth me wasting development and support time on this kind of culture war trivia.

    • Darien Fenton 15.1
      11 August 2024 at 5:08 am

      +1. I so agree LPrent. Well put.

      • Mike the Lefty 15.1.1
        11 August 2024 at 11:33 am

        I agree too.

        The Olympic Games is rife with political posturing, bribery and corruption and has become a ridiculously expensive sports pageant.

        That's why I take minimal interest in it.

        Not because of any gender based questions.

    • weka 15.2
      11 August 2024 at 9:42 am

      Nor do I find them of much relevance to the board labour movement.

      There is no labour movement without women. That's an obviousness that I need to explain in this context.

      • women do the labour of reproducing the species, including pregnancy, birth, post-partum care, breastfeeding. Women also do most of the childcare and housework necessary for children to grow to reproductive age, This reality is the basis of a range of feminism including socialist feminism. Those politics have absolutely nothing to do with biological determinism (which is a construct of conservatism), but I have to point it out here because there are too many people that don't understand the difference.
      • women are 51% of the population and thus have always been part of the labour movement. Even back in the good old days when men were dominant, it was women that were feeding and clothing them and raising their children, and political debate, strategy, planning was happening in the home as well. But women have always been in the labour movement as well.

      At the core of the whole sex/gender debate is whether women, as a class, are allowed to have our own politics born out of our specific experience as female humans living in societies that still treat us as second class citizens. In the 1970s, feminists broke with the male dominated socialist politics because we finally had the power to do so. That's second wave feminism and it is based in responses to being oppressed on the basis of sex with reference to gender roles/stereotypes as tools of that oppression.

      I agree that the debates here tend away from the labour movement focus. But there is a really simple fix for that. Support socfems in particular to write and comment here on a range of issues. I count 3 or 4 feminists just in this thread capable of forming coherent arguments that easily fit within the debate standard of TS. They also comment on other topics.

      • Visubversa 15.2.1
        11 August 2024 at 10:41 am

        Last weekend was the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the Working Women's Resource Centre. Started by women connected to the Trade Union movement and based at the Trade Union Centre in Auckland, it sought to improve the representation of women in every level of the Union movement and to assist Unions to provide better services to their female membership.

        40 years later – the Resource Centre is still operating. It provides training and support for women working in all parts of the Union movement and particularly for women officials and organisers. It helps Unions provide information on matters of importance to women, Pay Equity, Workplace harassment and sexual discrimination, provides support to women members during disputes, and support to the female partners of Union members at times of Union actions.

        Originally organised around the principles of the Working Women's Charter and the largely successful campaign to encourage Unions to commit to the Charter it still works hard – through the support of dedicated women Union activists to improve the conditions for women in the Union movement.

      • lprent 15.2.2
        11 August 2024 at 1:32 pm

        There is no labour movement without women.

        You miss my point. The obvious point is that neither you nor anyone else involved in the endless gender/sex cultural posturing has made any of it relevant to anything except yourselves.

        Sure some women have children. It is also a choice to do so. My current partner hasn't for instance. Generally there will be some other human else actually involved in that decision. Sometimes it is by accident (including me) and most of the single mothers in my family. But except in the US most civilised states allow that decision to be a choice.

        If the debate was about work/life issues involved in being a mother or parent and the effects on work life then I'd be interested.

        But cultural posturing about simple biological differences in a species with the levels of statistical overlap on capabilities is exactly the same as talking about sport or TV programs. Meaningless except for those who like endlessly arguing about an entertainment with arbitrary business practices and rules that produces virtually no economic productivity.

        Is there bias and favouritism in decisions made about other people. Sure. But not under our laws and those tend to be slowly changing in social practice over the generations. Young women no longer are forced by their parents to drop school and go to work so their brothers can do a few more years at school, as happened to my mother. The one who forced her way through night school, got a degree and provided educational path inspiration for me and generations of (especially the female) relatives and other people.

        Not only that, the quality of debate from the proponents of sex is different to gender is complete shit. Uses lines that are clearly untrue most of the time – think of the great female toilets stuffups like Queenstown airport. Which didn't exist, took only a few minutes to point out the obvious misinformation.

        Or the endless repetition about single instances (like a single prisoner in Scotland (I think persistent lack of credible links sucks)), without even trying to look for statistical patterns. That is the art form of yellow journalism and blatant bigots – use a single instance to smear a range of other people. It used to be and often still is the mainstay of racists, religious bigots, cynical politicians and mob leaders to produce bad law and lynchings.

        As far as I can tell most of this 'debate' topic is for exactly that same mode and probably for the same effect. What you and the others pushing it are after is so nebulous in its aims that it looks exactly like that is what you're after.

        At the core of the whole sex/gender debate is whether women, as a class, are allowed to have our own politics born out of our specific experience as female humans living in societies that still treat us as second class citizens.

        If you were capable of doing it without denigrating and putting down others who are also trying to their own aspirations to get out from being 3rd class citizens, I wouldn't have a problem.

        If you were doing it to illustrate a economic or legal or issue, then fine. But all I see is that it just looks like a group of people social posturing around something that is largely meaningless by putting others down purely on social ground.

        Support socfems in particular to write and comment here on a range of issues. I count 3 or 4 feminists just in this thread capable of forming coherent arguments that easily fit within the debate standard of TS. They also comment on other topics.

        I am aware of that. But I'd be mostly concerned about them pushing the shit commentary that they use on this nebulous and poorly defined topic.

        Or they could that in a commenting forum dedicated to the politics of that. The Women Rights party seems to use this as their main political thrust along with (very occasionally) some other more interesting and relevant topics – midwifery.

        Then I don't have to read it endless fuzzy crap about nothing much, mostly about sport. I'd even help set up the site – but not on my servers. I'm not kidding about the legal ramifications I have with the way that this 'debate' has been operating here.

        MyHost or Voyager would be my recommendations.

        Or they could relate posts here to something that is a practical issue that could be campaigned on, and something that could be put into law or policy without violating BORA. Which is something that I don't see much of.

        As an example, quit with bloody sport unless you can suggest concrete measures that could be actually taken inside NZ to rectify whatever you seem to think is the problem.

        Since that would probably require regulating sports bodies, I suspect that there won't be much support from anyone involved in sports. People involved in sports like making their own decisions about their rules. They also have their own forums for it. And women have been literally changing it for the last century. Talking about it here without actually being involved in the sports goes beyond pointless and drops in wilful stupidity. It also just reeks of exclusionary policies and public lynchings.

        • mpledger 15.2.2.1
          12 August 2024 at 11:25 am

          I wouldn't be so sure about the "Young women no longer are forced by their parents to drop school and go to work so their brothers can do a few more years at school, as happened to my mother."

          The dynamic has just changed. Nowadays, kids are doing both school and work, as there is more work available at night and at weekends. They get to finance their family and slowly fail out of school.

          • Karolyn_IS 15.2.2.1.1
            12 August 2024 at 12:59 pm

            And the changes don't amount to evidence that there is no longer inequalities between the 2 sexes.

            Sex based inequities still remain and we need accurate continuing data collection to monitor this. The inequalities fall most intensely on low-income women, Māori and Pasifika women and single mothers, especially those on benefits.

            Feminism has been neoliberalised over recent decades, so the mainstream version is very watered down and tends to focus more on middle class and wealthy women. Socialist and radical feminism focuses on the way women’s oppression is a result of the way male-dominated societies (and we still live in one) exploit and dominate women as a socio-economic and reproductive resource: eg in NZ in tourism/hospitality women are over-represented in the lower income and precarious jobs – the tend not to be in a union.

            The basis of women being exploited etc, is that we are a sex class with a different biology/anatomy and reproductive function from men. A male dominated society is organized to enable this exploitation and domination so that the male sex class benefits. It can be seen in health care, the prevalence of male violence and sexual abuse of women, in income and wealth inequalities.

            The current over-reach by transactivists and gender ID ideologues, is moving towards erasing recognition of the significance for females of scientifically verifiable natal, anatomical sex and replacing it in law, politics and society with vague and slippery terms like ‘gender identity’ and ‘sex characteristics’.

            This will wind back female gains in law, society, and single sex provisions. Sport is a significant aspect of this because it brings to the fore significant differences between male and female bodies. Genderist propaganda is aimed at denying these differences and the binary nature of human sex, through cherry picking data, misinformation, censorship, and misdirection. They have built their belief system on an appropriation, over generalization and misrepresentation of DSDs.

            I watch some sport, am not a great fan of the Olympics, and definitely don’t like boxing. The Olympics continues to treat women in a demeaning and second class way – eg some of the over-sexualised outfits some female competitors are required to wear.

            The 2 boxers in question bring to the fore the issue of DSDs and the way some males can be misidentified as female at birth. It also brings to the fore the way male puberty provides an advantage over females in many sports, and in relation to interpersonal violence.

            The genderists seem to be working hard to deny the reality of the kinds of DSDs that the 2 boxers benefit from. But, as more information leaks out, and more people become aware of the realities of DSDs and how they reinforce the material reality of the binary nature of human sex, gender ID ideology will start to crumble, and with it, their case for replacing ‘sex’ with ‘gender identity in law.

            I’d participate more in this discussion, with evidence, and in other TS discussions ATM, but I’m recovering from surgery, tire easily, and can only type slowly, and error-ridden, with my non-dominant left hand.

            • Tracy Bee 15.2.2.1.1.1
              12 August 2024 at 2:58 pm

              Thank you Karolyn, I really appreciate that reply. Am actually astounded at what you were having to reply to. Feminists have been "posturing" about sports recently because it's clearly an area where men and the wider non political public can sympathise with the gender issues women are facing.

              They may not care about things like rape crisis centres or prisons, or who is in which hospital ward overnight together and other areas feminists are concerned over, but they generally give a rats about fairness in sport.

              Likening this type of concern and push-back from feminists re:gender to bigotry, isn't arguing the point, it's just trying to close down discussion. I'm disappointed to see that on here.

              • lprent …
                13 August 2024 at 8:23 am

                They may not care about things like rape crisis centres or prisons, or who is in which hospital ward overnight together and other areas feminists are concerned over, but they generally give a rats about fairness in sport.

                So why aren't there any posts on those topics here written by 'feminists'? I have literally never seen one since about 2015… Those were of interest

                Yep posts written by Stephanie Rodgers and karol on rape crisis centres. Prisons and hospital wards – nothing that I can see. I guess thayt these are new topic based on 'sex-based rights' – which seems to largely be about generating privileges rather trying to solve actual problems.

                Ok – enough. I will bail out of this. I guess that the current 'feminists' aren't interested in discussion or robust debate. I'm not interested in providing skills to support the tiny minority to seem to be concerned about this shit and who have a serious problem with anyone questioning their faith.

            • lprent 15.2.2.1.1.2
              12 August 2024 at 5:29 pm

              This will wind back female gains in law, society, and single sex provisions.

              Yeah right. Nice vague and stupid slogan. Now show me the specifics of cause and effect, the statistics, the actual hard facts.

              The kind of things that my partner, female relatives, and female friends will want to see. They're even more sceptical about this bullshit than I am.

              And the changes don't amount to evidence that there is no longer inequalities between the 2 sexes.

              I didn't say that there were inequalities. But I do think that you're living in a mental world that is probably decades out of date. You appear to be describing a world that I lived in, not the one that I see now.

              At present I suspect that the major gender and/or sex inequalities are mostly dependent on who your parents were when you were growing up. Hell I was born in 1959, was 15 in 1975, got into my first serious relationship in 1982 – and I never saw much about actual gender based inequalities except those my parents and grandparents told me about. The main ones that I did see were generally lower rates of pay and various idiots of older generations – especially after I left Auckland.

              The inequalities now are seldom structural in a way that they were back in 1957 when it was literally embedded in half of the union agreements. Nor embedded in law in the way that they were back in, say, 1975. This is a societal progression.

              Just as there were changes between the societal views about same-sex sex between, say, 1975 and 1986. Or the idea of legal relationships that didn't involve marriage and included same-sex legal relationships in 2004.

              Times change, the societal framework shifts change the laws. The laws are typically lag by a couple of decades.

              You know that times have changed drastically when the last two family court cases that I know from my social contacts concern post-breakdowns claims for community property. But where the male is trying to extract property and settlement money from a much higher earner and better qualified female partner.

              Both are women who have always been a solo mothers raising their kid, but who have been in a one or more relationships with a man. Neither had done a pre-relationship agreement. In both cases the guy got dumped for essentially being an annoying leech. These cases aren't exactly uncommon. At least they aren't around central Auckland.

              I actually haven't seen the classic woman without qualifications dumped out of a marriage with small children for a younger woman for a while. Probably a decade? Presumably because there is a pretty routine way of dealing with those now that the community property laws are established..

              Of course these are higher earners, but exactly the same laws apply both ways. Where is may have happened for people with family wealth a couple of decades ago, now it is happening for people with relatively moderate earnings – in the top 10-15% of earners. Not the top 2%.

              There are always going to be inequalities. Simple to pick individual instances out and to highlight them claiming that they are typical. The problem is that that they are often not typical, they often seem to be mythological and referential to how it used to be.

              In my eyes, the Womans' Rights party and their fellow lyncn-mobs are about as notorious as Cameron Slater for doing that. Vague hand-waving claiming something awful, of being victims, and backed up by some very selective rewriting of known facts and inflating single instances to societal conspiracies. It is classic stupid meme behaviour. I really can't see much od a difference between you fools and QAnon these days

              When I have examined claims against whatever data there is on this site, there is never any substance. No links to actual legislative changes. No links to bills that change anything for women. A lot of weird invariably false talk about conspiracies in sport (arbitary rules controlled by property owners), about toilets and changing rooms (controlled by regulation about density requirements – controlled by property owners for gender rules) etc. In other words all things that property owners are actually responsive to demand.

              Not controlled by any governmental laws or regulations. Some regs that specify the numbers of toilets required for a certain number of people in building regulations – gender not being included (a sit-down toilet being the default measure).

              A lot of vague whining about 'rights' for women that don't actually exist and appear to have never actually existed, and absolutely nothing that is possible inside our legal system. Which is presumably why I have never seen even a hint of someone trying to write a policy or a private members bill to deal with these issues.

              Why – because the kinds of things that might be asked for to give preferential treatment for women are exactly the things that were removed by feminists to remove restrictions on women over the last 150 years.

              Literally the only thing that I have seen of any actionable possibility is some stuff about pay equity and coverage for midwives with nurses. A relatively routine job for a union.I class that as just stupid lying. I don't know of anything in or even proposed for NZ law that would wind back anyything at alls.

              I haven't even managed to identify in all of the scared and vague dross, of how trans people can act in detriment to self-identified 'women' at all, at least not after you remove single instances. I say self-identified because absolutely none of biological women I know under my age seem to want anything to do with the Woman's Rights party or its ideological pitch about trans or gay. And I have seriously discussed with a reasonable number of them from age 20 to about 60. It is like they live in a different universe to the party that is about 'their' rights.

              Probably explains the percentage vote in the last election.

              • Karolyn_IS …
                16 August 2024 at 11:36 am

                You ask some very good questions. It will take time for me to answer them all, in detail, with sources, especially as my energy levels are low as I recover from surgery, and my left-handed typing is slow & laborious.

                For starters, I draw your attention to a 2022 article by Susan St John on ‘gender inequality’. It outlines the structural inequalities that impact on women, with low income women being hit hardest. She writes of the impact of a mix of legislative changes, the wider employment and social structures, and the toll on large numbers of women of unpaid, domestic work. She writes,

                Even social policies that we are most proud of are based on the primacy of conventional full-time male paid work and the invisibility of the value of the unpaid female contribution. For example, while ACC is a comprehensive world-leading scheme for all New Zealanders who have an accident, women get 37 percent of the total ACC expenditure and much less than men of the earnings-related part.

                Middle aged, middle class, working women are in the best position financially, with there being little income inequalities between men and women without children. There is a significant ‘motherhood penalty’ on income and work opportunities.

                Young and older women are impacted most strongly by discriminatory attitudes. Male violence against women, sexual abuse particularly of younger women, and interpersonal violence by men against their female partners being at high levels.

                Here the anatomical differences between males and females, as highlighted by sports science are relevant when a woman is in an enclosed space with a man.

                This is in a society in which representations of women, eg in music videos, highlight and exploit young women’s sexuality, being influenced by the digital, expansion of sexual and violent abuse of women in pornography.

                There’s a noticeable increase in income inequalities for women over 50 years of age, and as Susan St John pointed out, women are disadvantaged in society in retirement, a large number of whom are renting. This is particularly so for older single/divorced women. Age discrimination at work and elsewhere hits women younger than it does men.

                See also Caroline Criado Perez’s book on “Invisible Women” in which she provides evidence of the diverse ways our contemporary world is structured around men at the expense of women, in the home, health care, public spaces and work places. In medical research

                This points to the ongoing need for accurate data collection. Stats NZ’s shift to treating gender ID as the default rather than natal sex in data gathering at work is a very backward move. We need clear sex-based stats in a range of areas. We don’t have any clear stats on how discrimination against trans Ided people, in things like income, work opportunities, housing , health care, etc, compares with those of their birth sex and with those of the sex they self ID as. As someone who has not conformed to conventional sex stereotypes, behaviour and expectations, I’m all for protecting trans IDed and ‘gender diverse’ people from discrimination in housing, employment, health care, etc.

                There is a welcome clause in the BDMRR Sex self ID amendment, that continues to make natal sex relevant. It says birth certificates, with self IDed gender included, may not be the only way to identify a person’s sex; other means may be used. The current shift by some world sporting organisations, eg FINA, to require sex screening via a simple cheek swab, is one such method.

                Speak Up for Women have recently had a meeting with the law commission on the proposed gender and intersex amendments to the HRA.

                SUFW show the way by wanting to maintain natal sex as a protected characteristics. The also ask for a clear definition of ‘gender’ or ‘gender identity in law.

                We're interested in ways that "gender presentation" can be added in such a way that it actually means something.

                With gender self ID there is no way of objectively ascertaining a person’s ‘gender’. It’s based on a person’s declaration about how they feel about themselves.

                OK, that’s enough for one comment. Apologies for the late reply. I’ve had other things I needed to attend to in the last few days.

          • Belladonna 15.2.2.1.2
            12 August 2024 at 2:55 pm

            Certainly, my teacher friends in South Auckland report that there continues to be pressure on the girls in the family to drop out of school to look after family members. This starts as the odd day here and there (Girl A isn't at school, because she's looking after a sick younger sibling), but quickly escalates – as the teen gets behind on assignments, and becomes discouraged.
            Note: this never happens to the boys in the class (they might have a part-time job – but aren't expected to be caregivers).

            It makes the teachers so angry, to see girls with real potential to develop careers, be short-changed in this way.

            • lprent 15.2.2.1.2.1
              12 August 2024 at 5:50 pm

              I was more describing the settled kiwi culture with lots of generations.

              My mother was 5th generation kiwi. But when she grew up that was definitely an expectation. There were traces of that expectation when I grew up, but definitely not in my wider family. I used to see a lot of that kind of parental expectation inflicted on the kids from in the vast UK migration of the early 1960s and the later polynesian migration here. I grew up in Ponsonby and Mt Albert, so those were the two prevalent migrant groups then.

              I'd expect that does happen in South Auckland.

              I have heard that in central Auckland from a few teacher acquaintances these days that recent incoming migrant groups have similar cultural carry-ins. In particular from people coming in via the refugee centre in Mt Roskill.

              On the other hand we also have parents in some of the incoming migrant communities are extremely obsessive about the kids doing well in education. To the point of wanting a full set of the professions in their kids. Doctor, lawyer, engineer being the most common combo. Gender neutral – all are expected to do really well and go for professions.

              • Belladonna …
                13 August 2024 at 8:28 am

                I agree that there are substantial differences in culture driving a lot of this. I just don't think that this is an aspect of culture I agree with.

                (and I've also seen the countervailing 'expectation' that you need to have a 'good' degree – becoming an entrepreneur or an electrician just doesn't cut the mustard. And I don't agree with that, either).

                But it does persist even into the workplace. We've just had a young woman (late 20s) drop out of work in order to look after her elderly grandfather. She was just getting back into the workforce, part time, after having her children (work was entirely flexible over hours, and working around child-care/kindy arrangements – they really wanted to keep her – bright, enthusiastic, lots of potential). I didn't see any indication that she wasn't enjoying the job (or the independent paycheque) – but family pressure…..

                • lprent …
                  13 August 2024 at 9:15 am

                  Personally I didn't want to go to university in 1977. I was only 17 and understood the uni workloads after watching my mother do a degree as a adult.

                  I did a year wandering around jobs in NZ looking at various things, factory work, farming – dairy and sheep, army. I'd already been involved in retail and a number of other jobs beforehand.

                  Wound up going to uni because farming was clearly in a structurally shit state post Britian entering the EEC. The problem is that they never really got out of that state. The commodity agricultural exports just kept being pumped out while the only real profit takers were the interest receivers on capital used to buy land.

                  We've just had a young woman (late 20s) drop out of work in order to look after her elderly grandfather. She was just getting back into the workforce, part time, after having her children (work was entirely flexible over hours, and working around child-care/kindy arrangements…

                  Yeah, I hate that scenario. And it happens. The problem is that it is a choice and made typically as a individual based on family upbringing, which tends to be hard to overcome. You cannot prevent people from making their own decisions. All you can do is to make sure that they're aware of possible choices.

                  I've always supported the younger family members to be able to do what they want. I am the uncle or gruncle that the rest of the family tends to direct their young adult kids towards because of that. Finally I only have one I am keeping an eye on at present, and getting a little old to take on more.

                  Also right now I tend to be more concerned with my remaining parent, currently 85.

                  • Drowsy M. Kram …
                    13 August 2024 at 10:01 am

                    Also right now I tend to be more concerned with my remaining parent, currently 85.

                    88 in my case – caring for rellies of any age can be challenging and rewarding. In my experience, expert advice and practical assistance is usually available, even if the (public) services providing same face challenges of their own.

        • mpledger 15.2.2.2
          13 August 2024 at 12:17 am

          The Isla Bryson case is on wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_Bryson_case

          At the time of her remand to the women only prison, there were 16 transgender people at the prison, half transitioning after conviction.

          • lprent 15.2.2.2.1
            13 August 2024 at 9:35 am

            Thanks. That link does explain a lot.

            I have asked for credible links on that for more than a year without finding one. After reading it I can understand why the people proffering the case as an example were so coy about giving one.

            Effectively a hypothetical rape risk from a transitioning in a female prison. Compared to a virtual certainty of a transitioning being raped in a male prison.

            Looks like another example of the common risk management issues that plague prison systems. There are a lot of power imbalances in any penitentiary or imprisonment model and actual issues that arise. That seems far more important to me as an issue. Like the common issues of male guards in female prisons.

            I see that there was another hypothetical in the US.

            • mpledger 15.2.2.2.1.1
              13 August 2024 at 11:40 am

              It's not so much the risk of the rape occurring, it's that a lot of the women in prison are victims of sexual assault themselves. In America, 86% of the female prisoners had been sexually assaulted at some point in their life. https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/resource/86-percent-women-jail-are-sexual-violence-survivors

              (One would hope it is a lot lower in NZ and the UK.)

              The risk of rape would presumably be low for the women, but the opening of past trauma, the stress of vigilance and the change in behaviour to signal that they are not a target is not really conducive to rehabilitation.

              • lprent …
                13 August 2024 at 3:49 pm

                Sure. That is the case essentially anywhere, in or out of prison.

                In this case it looks to me like it was just a deceitful talking point by politicians with no actual foundation. Certainly not worth the amount of air time that my servers have been giving it.

                I will be kicking this site off my servers by the months end because of at least a year of that, topped with the disgraceful public lynching furore over some people at the Olympics that this post pointed out.

                Not worth my time maintaining the operations of the site. I have better things to do. I expect that the dynamic site will shut down.

                I hope that it was worth it for the people who have been avoiding my questions on their reasoning and motives for their exclusion and derogatory behaviours for the for the past year.

                • Drowsy M. Kram …
                  13 August 2024 at 4:01 pm

                  I will be kicking this site off my servers by the months end …

                  Sorry to read that lprent, and thanks for all your expert efforts over many years to keep ‘The Standard’ on air.

                  Wishing you all the best in 'retirement', DMK (soon-to-be homeless)

                  P.S. Thanks to the mods and authors, and the commentariat too.

                • roblogic …
                  13 August 2024 at 4:27 pm

                  That is sad to hear. It's a peculiar phenomenon of social media. Cut it up: how scissor statements divide us,

                  I think younger generations have better psychological defenses against these kind of meme attacks: everything is cloaked in layers of irony and self-deprecation. (At the expense of sincerity)

                • Mountain Tui …
                  13 August 2024 at 5:35 pm

                  Sorry to hear it lprent – but support what you want to do. It was very nice to meet a lot of people here and thank you for your efforts in maintaining this site over so many years (that I missed)

                  Mountain Tui

                • mpledger …
                  13 August 2024 at 6:48 pm

                  I am not clear about what you mean "is the case…, in or out of prison".

                  I am very sorry if you do take this site off your servers. I have always found you have to very insightful comments. And you have gone to such great lengths for justice against some really scummy people.

                  However, I think it's a little unfair to come down so hard one side of the argument when Advantage wrote such an inflammatory article that misrepresented what some people think is the real issue in this case.

                  In this case I don't think people are trying to exclude anyone. Noone is saying that the boxer can't box, only that she box in the most appropriate group based on her sex and her development.

                  The thing is if that women will walk away from the sport (perhaps a good thing anyway) if the contest is going to be so lop-sided.

                  Even if you don't understand why so many people are putting so much time and effort into arguing a point over such a long time period, you must acknowledge that they wouldn't make such a commitment if they didn't think the point was important to them.

                  • lprent …
                    14 August 2024 at 12:11 am

                    I didn’t find it inflammatory. If you go back for the past year you will find me pointing out exactly the same things. But way more pointed and pretty damn specific.

                    • For instance – if someone thinks that woman are having ‘rights’ removed – then point to the legislation or regulation and tell me why it affects woman. The best I ever got to that was an ability to change gender on the passports online, which as I remember was mandated by treaties we were signatories to.
                    • For instance, if someone think that there is a problem – what legislation or regulation do they propose to fix it and what would the wording be. Silence – every time. Which is both weird fro something that should be actionable.
                    • For instance, sports bodies rule themselves. Why don’t people complain to them rather than grumbling ineffectually about it here.
                    • etc…

                    The legislation of NZ is effectively genderless, sexless, generally loose about most sexual preferences that aren’t criminally defined. The legislation has a few exceptions based around pregnancy and childbirth – ie actual physical differences.

                    Which has been a slow progression of changed laws since the 1960s specifically to remove gender exclusions and specifications. Even those will probably change over time to deal with actual or possible technology changes. Same for things like employment laws. Case law. Most regulations. Most organisations rules. etc

                    Where a need for differentiation is required, for things like single sex schools or prisons or toilet blocks, the authority to differentiate is left to the organising bodies based on their needs. Same for issues like puberty blockers in the legislation governing medical industry groups. etc etc… Most of the time that requires actual instances or statistical instances of harm to others to cause rule changes to prevent repetition.

                    Hypothetical arguments are and should be positively ignored – they usually indicate simple bigotry or rabble rousing being in effect. Think of the forced baby adoptions of unmarried mothers in the 1950s and 60s for instance. Or a large number of the cases that showed up in the Abuse in Care Royal Commission.

                    These changes were done specifically to make sure that the laws applied to all. Most of these changes were specifically done to ensure that women weren’t discriminated against in law or regulation. However they also did exactly the same thing across the board for the whole population.

                    So far I haven’t seen anything that suggest that discrimination against in laws and regulations should be reconstituted. Which is why I suspect that there are few concrete actions being suggested. Instead I see a lot of what is effectively bigoted hate speech against particular community groups. I don’t see any valid actionable items. I don’t see any particular harm to others apart from pretty obvious individual stupid offences at protests – none of which seem to be systematic (I have been at or around a lot of protect actions and court cases deriving from them).

                    The nearest thing to being possible actual harm is puberty blockers, hormone therapy and transition surgery in teens. Which is a question about consent and medical ethics that in NZ should be directed at medical governing bodies.

                    But generally I don’t have that much interest in people being stupid or preemptive with non-criminal activities on themselves. I do have a problem if it is coercive. There isn’t that much of a difference between between getting a tattoo, chopping off a finger, cutting themselves, spending time doing really dangerous sports, and getting genital surgery. None of them should injure others and are a matter of choice. We have defined ages of consent, procedures and processes for consultation for exactly that reason.

                    I can see harm in people saying that others may not make their own legal choices. I am a naturally a major geek. I’d be an obvious target for interfering busybodies trying tell me how I should live my life or what I should believe.

                    I think it’s a little unfair to come down so hard one side of the argument

                    I didn’t. I am a geek, I always look at things and make my own judgements base don what I ‘see’. I simply cannot see a credible argument on one side arguing for for resulting from . I can see defence against accusations on the other

                    I look at what I see on this site and others (when I have time). Look at what I have research when I find credible links. What I see on the news reports, court reports, and what is proposed as legal and credible remedy for a perceived issue – which I have literally not seen for ‘one side’ related to NZ.

                    If I had seen positions that I considered to be credible in the positions over the last few years by the likes of The Women’s Right Party and their supporters, then my opinion may be different. But mostly what I see is deeply held beliefs about others without significant substance of how they cause harm to others, a pile of vague mostly misinformation, and no credible pointers about how it could be changed within our legal structures.

                    Even if you don’t understand why so many people are putting so much time and effort into arguing a point over such a long time period, you must acknowledge that they wouldn’t make such a commitment if they didn’t think the point was important to them.

                    Trolls are notable for their commitment. So are many people who are religious. So are geeks, and especially programmers. Sports nuts. Military enthusiasts. History freaks. etc etc So is almost anyone on a political blog. Commitment simply isn’t a criteria to value peoples opinions and arguments by.

                    What is important is the arguments and supporting information that they bring to a discussion. The suggestions for how to fix the problems that they perceive. Something that they and others can work with. Just making assertions of fact doesn’t work without supporting links. Opinions are meaningless without saying how they were arrived at. Identifying a perceived problem without making a even a suggestion of how it can be fixed in a legal manner is damn useless. Not listening to or explaining to others who don’t share a common understanding in a open public forum is both rude and usually extremely boring to other readers.

                    But also a lot of the tactics just remind me of trolls from the Whaleoil era, or in the worst of usenet. I consider use of such tactics to be a mark of people who I don’t trust the judgement of.

                    In this case I have tolerated the womens ‘rights’ movement for years on this site on the basis that it is a topic that may deserve an airing. Turns out that I can’t see a reason for it because I cannot see any basis for adding new rights, nor evidence to removal of existing. All I seem to see is a dislike of other people towards their own actualisation where I can’t see any obvious harm to others. I now view it as a commitment towards being toxic to others.

                    Also one that blocks actual topics of dealing with harm. Rape crisis. Woman refuges. Care of children. Midwifery lacks. All issues that seem to me as being blocked by dreary discussions of nebulous moaning about nothing obvious.

                    It just wears me down especially when I consider the kind of legal issues I could get dealing with fallout. Or the effort required to ensure an upgrade in debate about this toxic topic. So after 18 years, I will go to something that is of more interest to me than maintaining this site. I made that decision this morning after reading the tenor of comments on this post, and rereading some from about a years ago using my new search plugin.

                    The probability of others to being able to technically support this site are minimal. They always have been since I was asked to do it about 18 years ago (and made the commitment to do so after a hour of thought).

                    The site budget is minimal because I run it with my programming skills at shaving costs, on my servers, and in a large part with limited cash from small donations from some committed regular donors and my own pocket for the small cash expenses it requires annually and monthly to operate. I have defended the site with time, argument, and a lot of court time and costs (tens of thousands of dollars) from legal challenges. I don’t think anyone else is likely to do anything similar.

                    So it is most likely to just get archived as a static site that requires no maintenance (ie HTML/CSS with minimal javascript and no database, probably with some search option). I’ll exert effort to make that work and to provide the funding to ensure it happens for the foreseeable future.

                    I do thank the various donors. I literally would have dropped it long ago without their moral and cash support.

                    • mpledger …
                      14 August 2024 at 12:29 pm

                      I found it inflammatory because it essentially said that the reason for people objecting to the boxer's inclusion was because of how she looked. For some people that might be it, but it's not the shallow reason that people here have been talking about.

                      There is a problem in our legislation because it says you can't discriminate based on gender and you can't discriminate based on sex. But there is a problem when women as a gender group clash with women as a sex group. Which group has the greater rights? Can a self-identified female demand access to any women's group based on gender rights or can the women's group deny her access based on sex rights? And does it matter if the group is about cultural matters or medical matters?

                      I don't see that getting sorted anytime soon because I don't expect any politicians will want to go anywhere near it.

                      A lot of the legislation protecting women doesn't work practically. For example, I was asked in a job interview whether I was going to have children in the next few years (a male got the job). That's not incredibly uncommon even if it is illegal. But there is no remedy in law for that that wouldn't also cause me a lot of reputational harm.

                      If the laws not going to work then you have to let people know a different point of view so that it may change their behaviour.

                      At this point in time I see women being stuck in the middle of two male factions. On one side there are the males wanting to be females (and their supporters) who want women to accept them as women. And on the other are men wanting to control women's behaviour by defining what a women is and can do. And when women want to speak out about what we want for ourselves, we get trapped in the "you're transphopes" rhetoric or we get stuff like "there is something wrong with you because real women want children". Just look at the crap Kamela Harris is getting because she is a step-mother rather than a mother.

                      I'm sure it's quite correct that much of this stuff has made no impact on the women in your life, but quite a bit of that is due to the MSM. The NZ MSM media decided that Posy Parker was the bad guy because neo-Nazi's came to her Australian rally and then everything was reported based on that point of view. But what it came down to was that two different groups wanted to control what women were doing – the neo-Nazi's showing-up in Australia and the people assaulting women at the Auckland rally. Unfortunately, who is right and who is wrong has been set in people's minds and they never delved further into the nuance. People only have so much time.

                      The soft power that America holds means that what is going on there has an impact. The removal of abortion rights is one thing but the signalling of laws to limit access to contraception, limiting the ability to travel for abortion and ending no-fault divorce should be worrying prospects for women here too. Because the charter school, loosen gun control, benefit bashing stuff that ACT is talking about comes from the same political home.

                      I haven't been around much for 9 months of so, so maybe I have missed out on some of the more contentious stuff.

                    • lprent []
                      14 August 2024 at 2:33 pm

                      I found it inflammatory because it essentially said that the reason for people objecting to the boxer’s inclusion was because of how she looked.

                      Well that is exactly the reason that I saw in the comments. I didn’t see any evidence that it was an issue in the IOC’s rules, the rules of the sporting body that the IOC recognises for boxing (the IBA having been booted for various other issues), or in the laws of France. There was some speculation about tests, but no evidence that anything speculated would have violated the laws of the host country nor rules of the IOC.

                      There is a problem in our legislation because it says you can’t discriminate based on gender and you can’t discriminate based on sex. But there is a problem when women as a gender group clash with women as a sex group.

                      So figure out a way to word that into the vast body of existing legislation. Especially because the current guiding legislation doesn’t not . The Bill Of Rights Act 1990 which says nothing about either gender or sex, just against discrimination. The Human Rights Act 1993 says nothing about ‘gender’, and the use of ‘sex’ is undefined. So could mean anything sexual orientation through to genetics and in case law that is what it does. If you read Hansard debates on the Act and subsequent amendments you will find that as deliberately ambiguous as human sexual activities.

                      In any case, this is probably governed by the Legislation Act 2019 s16 “(1) Words denoting a gender include every other gender.” with the genders undefined and therefore legally loose.

                      Don’t forget that s96 of that Act where the Revision powers include (my italics) “(2) A revision Bill may—” “(e) make changes in language, format, and punctuation to achieve a clear, consistent, gender-neutral, and modern style of expression, to achieve consistency with current drafting style and format, and generally to express better the spirit and meaning of the law:”

                      However I am also drawn to Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Act 2022 which states in the s3 that part of its purpose is to “(b) promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender.” which to my mind has not been happening on this site.

                      I will happily criticise the flaws in your or anyone elses proposal(s). But to do that there have to be concrete proposals. I haven’t seen any over the last couple of years. Just a lot of self-indulgent whinging, whining, gossiping, misinformation, and generally offensive behaviour.

                      To date (yes – I am being deliberately offensive here) I haven’t seen any of the lazy busybodies who spend time gossiping about their outrage about sex and gender coming up with any concrete changes to legislation. Or even speculating on how to approach the issue at a legislative level.

                      I’d be particularly interested in how you get get around the vast body of law without effectively discriminating indiscriminately, and probably almost accidentally, against whole groups of a people. Something that I would probably start a revolution against having grown up in generations where that was an endemic problem in NZ.

                      I still kind of haunted by the memory of the young women staying at our house in the 1960s and 1970s while waiting for pregnancy and kids being adopted out. They were fleeing legal and moral discrimination in rural and semi-rural NZ beause until the DPB came arrived, they had few choices. I think that all of them would have kept their kids if they didn’t have the moralistic busybodies at home and therefore had a choice. Certainly the couple that I have run across later, seemed to have made active contacts with their gown up kids. Probably because my parents wouldn’t do hidden adoptions.

                      But what it came down to was that two different groups wanted to control what women were doing – the neo-Nazi’s showing-up in Australia and the people assaulting women at the Auckland rally.

                      And the Density church turning up in Auckland and assaulting people? Sorry – was I not meant to mention that. 🙂

                      Having anything in a public place including public meeting or protest, also invites opposition including the counter protests. If you want to control that, then hiring a non-public space from a property owner like a theatre or local council is the way to go. Of course you then have to get property owners balancing the aggravation, potential damage, and wanting effective security for their property.

                      But generally the ‘Posie’ protests were quite peaceful by my standards. I do carry scars from one of the ones I was at – from police. The ‘assaults’ were largely inadvertent or due to misinterpretation by one side or another according to the police which is why the prosecutions went to diversion. That is usually what happens when you get groups of people disagreeing in reasonable numbers in public. The police are there to keep it to a moderated level of peacefulness. But anyone going to a contentious protest or meeting for whatever reason should always be aware of the various risks from teh insensate noise to the possibility of arrest that they are assuming. I know I always was. I have bailed friends and family from both jail and hospitals and been bailed out of hospital when public discussions have occurred.

                      BTW: I wasn’t exactly convinced by some of the inflated claims of assault. Many of the claims would be classed by my as massive exaggerations.

                      The removal of abortion rights is one thing but the signalling of laws to limit access to contraception, limiting the ability to travel for abortion and ending no-fault divorce should be worrying prospects for women here too.

                      I totally agree. Now those are a topics that I could get into. It is also one where we have actual laws present to discuss. I am not unhappy with the way that our laws around those are written and operate. And I’d defend them against the crazies.

                      Biggest issue that I can see with the current laws are to do with some of the property issues in the Family Court. The excessive inherent lags in getting abortions. Better availability of contraception – it was the burden of my adolescence having my mother handing out contraception at parties at our place and I’d prefer that no adolescent ever needs to have that happen. My partner would like to have abortion decriminalised (ie remove it from the Crimes Act). I disagree, mainly because I know the history of ‘backyard abortions’ and that is what the Crimes Act provisions are aimed at.

                      There should be a requirement of rapidly available medical support for home births. Something that is almost completely lacking outside of major urban areas at present. It doesn’t exactly lend itself to the current governments ‘telepresence’ policies.

                      etc…

                    • mpledger …
                      15 August 2024 at 5:03 pm

                      Yes, you can mention the Destiny Church. They are another male-led faction trying to exert control over women by defining what women are and how they should live their lives.

                • That_guy …
                  14 August 2024 at 9:36 am

                  I am sorry to hear this. That's a shame. I appreciate the back-end work you do, which is an invisible and thankless task. So thanks for that, genuinely thanks.

                  I just don't agree that an issue getting "air time" is a bad thing just because you don't agree with some of the people talking about the issue.

                  If this site simply becomes a site where we all agree that Luxon is shit, bashing the most vulnerable is bad and the climate crisis is scary, well, then I do wonder what the point is. What's the point of us all sitting around and agreeing?

                  I thought disagreeing is what this site was for. Patching holes in left-wing thought. Critically analysing our own ideas, because if we don't, the right will do it for us, on their terms. Which requires, well, "air time".

                  But yeah. I'll miss the site and genuine thanks for your work. But the world will continue to turn, and women's rights will continue to be an extremely important and non-niche issue that I will never trivialise or dismiss.

                  • That_guy …
                    14 August 2024 at 9:45 am

                    One final thing: if you actually want this site to continue but the main issue is simply the workload, and you want a helpful code monkey to take over some or all of the workload, I can do that if it's the difference between the site being up and the site being not up. You can maintain complete control and vet all my work. I won't bring my opinions into it.

                    This is a genuine offer, you have my email.

                    • lprent …
                      14 August 2024 at 4:19 pm

                      The problem isn’t the workload. The problem is that the system runs on my servers which effectively makes me the visible target for being legally responsible for anything said here.

                      I can’t bring myself to try to defend the vagueness and lack of reasoning of TWRP and its acolytes who write here.

          • Alexandra 15.2.2.2.2
            16 August 2024 at 1:30 pm

            It's unclear whether "16 transgender prisoners" refers to prisoners with a Gender Recognition Certificate or those without a GRC. The latter were not counted in statistics. No males should be in female prisons. One rape of a female prisoner is too many.

      • Mountain Tui 15.2.3
        11 August 2024 at 6:22 pm

        weka

        I can't really read threads like this. Mostly, I have no clue what people are arguing about, nor have I spent the time researching it, but what I do know is it feels wrong to have this rant especially when the person making it seems to feel they are coming from a moral high ground.

        As to feminists, and others, I recall catespice and others (?) were thrown out by you after they argued with you from their perspective.

        There is no fairness in this debate, and it’s the a fanciful moral posturing that I find off putting.

        • Incognito 15.2.3.1
          11 August 2024 at 7:50 pm

          FWIW, in a short space of time here on TS, Caitlin Spice attracted several educational pre-warnings and then Mod notes from three different Mods.

          • Mountain Tui 15.2.3.1.1
            11 August 2024 at 9:08 pm

            Noted and thanks Incognito. I didn't follow that conversation and stayed out of it for a reason, nor commented until now.

            Having said that, the whole topic makes me uncomfortable – mostly because this is a matter of complexity and I don't believe anyone has a moral high ground. I'm not going to educate myself well enough to reliably comment, but nor will I contribute to characterising people for exercising their choices in life. Is it not true that if it comes to harm and abuse, that faith based institutions appear to excel, yet somehow trans are the frequent targets when it comes to accusations of abuse or otherwise. As to the sports issue, I presume there are much wiser and well informed voices than I to deal with it all, but the politicization of it is problematic imv. Today on Q&A I noted there was an economist who featured and most comments on Youtube were there to tell him how dumb he was. And who were these people? What academic criteria and experience did they have, what depth of thinking and multi-dimensional approach did they exhibit in their thoughts? I'll wager little to none. IOW, I'd prefer some things be left to those who are well informed – and this is really the genesis of populist politics. When generalisations, anecdotes and myths are used to perpetutate stories and stir/rouse anger, it becomes unconstructive. Methinks there are much bigger issues for the political folks to focus on but I understand it's a contentious topical subject here.

            Thanks for giving me an opportunity to expand my thoughts on it. Not directed at you per se, but gave me some space to think what it is that is annoying me here.

            Tui

            • Incognito 15.2.3.1.1.1
              13 August 2024 at 10:43 am

              I’ve been sitting on this for a while and due to recent comments here I decided to stop biting my tongue and respond, while I still can.

              I don’t have an issue with ‘this topic’ (aka ‘it’) per se, but it has become a wedge issue, in style and substance. There’s no such thing as a constructive wedge issue or wedge politics; it’s polarising, divisive, and ultimately exclusionary.

              I’ve always seen TS as an antidote for the poisonous and toxic SM and with the weakening MSM and the rise of biased & fucking stupid AI one could easily make the argument that the need for a site for robust mature debate & deliberation is now stronger than ever.

              Unfortunately, ‘this topic’ has become a signpost to a graveyard of TS commenters and Authors and hurt a few Mods on the way too, quite possibly because too much antidote is not healthy either (aka it’s the dose that makes the poison).

        • Muttonbird 15.2.3.2
          11 August 2024 at 8:18 pm

          Plenty of progressive, socially conscious people are stood over here because of their views on gender issues.

          This prevents decent lefties from being able to contribute, express themselves, and challenge current government policy.

    • Red Blooded One 15.3
      11 August 2024 at 10:06 am

      100% agree lprent and thank you for saying it.

    • TeWhareWhero 15.4
      11 August 2024 at 12:56 pm

      I’ve been active in the broad labour movement, and the women’s, peace, anti racist and green movements for more than 50 years here and in the UK and I managed to maintain a principled class-based position within all of them.

      I do due diligence; I research issues before I write about them and I strive for balance in my arguments. Sometimes I indulge in a polemic as a release of frustration or anger but mostly I’m factual and measured. I am also capable of reading and understanding scientific papers to a reasonably high level.

      I don’t claim to always be correct on all things but I’m open to hearing opposing views and admitting when I’m wrong. I'm not interested in engaging with lazy, shallow, highly ideological arguments from either side of these most diversionary, divisive issues.

      In relation to sports, I can claim to have had a long standing involvement in women’s sports on both a political and a practical level, and I have been warning about the extent to which the secular and religious right would weaponise these issues to whip up already fiercely burning moral panics among socially conservative people – who are the majority of the population.

      Dangle what they believe or are pressured into seeing as forms of gross unfairness, they will react, and the political right is way more adept at utilising the resulting fear and anger than the white left which sold out the working class when it reached various accords with corporate capitalism in the 1980s.

      To be told by a bloke that my arguments are “shit” or "trivia" is nothing new. I'm old enough to remember very clearly how some men in the labour movement and on the wider left reacted to the emergence of the women's liberation movement. I saw too many of them actively shaft their female comrades, or shout them down, or silence them by other means, or watch passively as it was being done.

      Some deployed subtle arguments and forms of emotional blackmail about the primacy of labour-related issues over specifically women’s issues, while others lashed out with threats and varying sorts and degrees of bombast.

      Not much changes, eh.

      If people are so narrow in their domestic and wider geo-political focus, they can’t see the class issues in play in this, they’re the ones indulging in a "wank fest” – consoling themselves with notions of a largely idealised past, and managing to convince themselves that their visceral reaction to dissenting women is actually a principled political stand.

      I seldom post on this site because it reminds me way too much of past battles. I’m too old and have too little energy and time to waste it arguing with people who should be my allies but who are so smugly self righteous they don’t bother to read what I write, or they read it through a dense filter of confirmation bias. That some then have the absolute temerity to whine about women drifting to the political right is the unpalatable icing on a stale old cake.

      Well, that was cathartic. 🙂

      • Psycho Milt 15.4.1
        11 August 2024 at 5:08 pm

        To be told by a bloke that my arguments are “shit” or "trivia" is nothing new. I'm old enough to remember very clearly how some men in the labour movement and on the wider left reacted to the emergence of the women's liberation movement.

        It's so depressing. When I was younger I thought leftist men treating women's issues as trivia would be a thing of the past, because those of us who'd come of age with feminism and punk rock would know better. The last five years in particular have taught me how wrong I was about that.

        • Shanreagh 15.4.1.1
          11 August 2024 at 9:21 pm

          It's so depressing. When I was younger I thought leftist men treating women's issues as trivia would be a thing of the past, because those of us who'd come of age with feminism and punk rock would know better. The last five years in particular have taught me how wrong I was about that.

          In a strange way I can see the reason why Winston Peters/& party sometimes pop up with pro-women sensible points of view is that both he, you Psycho Milt and and I are of a generation.

          It was much earlier than five years ago that I encountered malignant sexism/misogyny on a scale I had not seen before, ever. (The sexism I had fought against was often benign in intention but not affect, often a product of policies not keeping up with social trends)

          That we now have men defending the idea that men are rightly housed in womens prisons, or playing in womens sports merely because they say that they are a woman, shows us how skin-thin is a concern for the rights of women if the so-called rights of a fellow bloke may be threatened.

          • SPC 15.4.1.1.1
            12 August 2024 at 5:38 pm

            That we now have men defending the idea that men are rightly housed in womens prisons, or playing in womens sports merely because they say that they are a woman, shows us how skin-thin is a concern for the rights of women if the so-called rights of a fellow bloke may be threatened.

            Have you any evidence that men do so, more than women? Is not support for self ID and before that managed transition similar among male and female? And at first support was higher from women.

      • Shanreagh 15.4.2
        11 August 2024 at 9:08 pm

        Such a great post TeWhareWhero.

        This para sounds like me also:

        I seldom post on this site because it reminds me way too much of past battles. I’m too old and have too little energy and time to waste it arguing with people who should be my allies but who are so smugly self righteous they don’t bother to read what I write, or they read it through a dense filter of confirmation bias. That some then have the absolute temerity to whine about women drifting to the political right is the unpalatable icing on a stale old cake.

        Women who object to unfair sports practices are just the same type of women pointing up other unfair, discriminatory practices in other walks of their lives.

        Despite what has been said, there are no issues that are forbidden to be examined and commented on if they appear to be unfair to women. What was yesterday's expanding the voting franchise, or wages for working women, is today's questioning if it is fair for sportswomen to be expected to participate against men, in whatever guise/disguise.

        Womens rights should not be limited to the law or the BORA or what ever limiting factors are de jure to denigrate (now it seem sports unfairness).

        Women's rights are not, or should not, be defined as worthy to fight against, by men who say 'sorry not worthy'.

        Lprent is mixng the messages I feel. I can see as the site owner he is to be aware that things do not get out of hand comments-wise so as to put the channel and him personally at risk. I agree he has to be cautious.

        But it seems to be the case that debate, except on issues that he agrees are worthwhile topics, is now receiving 'a shot across the bows'. I also agree that the proprietor has an ability to set up the topics that can be discussed.

        What does not follow if this is done, is the mantra that this is a left-wing site. where people debate all sorts of topics interesting and concerning left wing folk. And left wing also includes left wing women.

        We have had a wonderful site peopled with all sorts of views. Saying womens' issues, (before it was access to womens' safe spaces now it is sport) are not part of this site does bring the comment by TeWhareWhero 'women drifting to the political right' into stark relief.

        Perhaps not 'drifting' for some, and perhaps 'divorcing' from political life or thought for others. As left wing people we can't afford either actively moving rightwards or abstaining from political thought.

        • Mountain Tui 15.4.2.1
          12 August 2024 at 5:51 pm

          It would be foolhardy to suggest that lprent's comments suggested women can't comment or that there is no place for rational debate across the spectrum. The strongest point of evidence is the fact lprent left the prior articles about it up, although if there is continued hate speech, overseas has shown us people do become liable for it. It sure feels like people on this thread are being so defensive, they are ready to twist comments to promote a narrative though, and that doesn't serve anyone.

      • SPC 15.4.3
        11 August 2024 at 9:23 pm

        In general, every progressive development is either a response to crisis for the many, or has to over come "conservative:" resistance.

        In this instance there is the safety of women in public society (still lacking stalking legislation) and opportunity (here sport).

        It has been posed with some credibility that the middle class centre, right and left, sold out the local working class to global market neo-liberal economic policy in return for progress on TOW justice and nuclear free "independent" foreign policy.

        Thus no CGT, removal the estate tax and gift duty, labour law (and training for business on tertiary debt) designed to suit employers has resulted in the growing divide between income and property value (by 2050 less than half residents will own property) and at the same time gross under-funding of government and thus under investment in infrastructure to support (migrant led) population growth.

        We are now ruled by those who have their children in private schools (and then foreign universities, where they will later work – and will receive an inheritance from our landlord estates from their parents – leaving us even more capital depleted).

        But of course, progressives can still work with greenwashing monopoly corporations to show their concern for a minority.

        When we moved on civil unions and same sex marriage, religious groups were allowed some independence from any requirement to conform, yet women's groups are having a harder go of it on recognising identity via gender (on passports, drivers licence years ago – and more recently legislated self ID).

        In this instance there is the safety of women in public society (still lacking stalking legislation) and opportunity (here sport).

        • Muttonbird 15.4.3.1
          12 August 2024 at 7:58 am

          – “In general, every progressive development is either a response to crisis for the many, or has to over come "conservative:" resistance.”

          That's not what's happening here, though. Here, the progressive cause is to advance a very small minority to be able to fully participate in society with dignity. And it is "conservative;" resistance working against that.

          • SPC 15.4.3.1.1
            12 August 2024 at 3:07 pm

            Yes, as per inclusion.

            However the safety of women and equal opportunity for them is itself a progressive cause and is facing a re-assertion of social conservative patriarchy and its neo-liberal partner wealth and privilege (class warfare).

            It is a time for common cause.

      • That_guy 15.4.4
        12 August 2024 at 3:40 pm

        I completely agree TeWhareWhero and I am just exhausted.

        People on this site don't understand gender-critical progressives and have made no effort to do so.

        We are not here because we are closet fascists. We are here because we are progressives and we think the progressive movement has made a mistake.

        This issue is, by far, the one that attracts the most comments on this site. It is clearly an issue. Yet we get told over and over, it's not an issue, we are just dinosaurs.

        Well, I'm a dinosaur with several decades of experience in genetics. Let me break it down for you.

        Humans are divided into those who's bodies are organised around small (male) or large (female) gametes, and no human (and no mammal) has ever moved from one state to another. All males are XY (apart from extremely rare CAIS) and all females are XX. CAIS XY females do exist, but are almost certainly not athletes due to lower bone density, and do not have the "male advantage" since by definition they cannot respond to androgens.

        Many DSDs exist in both males and females but each individual DSD can only occur in one sex.

        Khelif (and Caster Semanaya) are males who were born with a condition called 5-Alpha-Reductase Deficiency. Anything with an "ase" is an enzyme: enzymes modulate chemical reactions that occur in biosynthetic pathways, in this case the one that produces androgens (testosterone).

        In this condition, the baby looks like a female or has ambiguous genetalia, and is often raised as a girl, but they have the skeleton, reach, and stronger skull of man, and at puberty the flood of testosterone makes them develop like any other man. Caster Semanaya has literally fathered a child and has internal testicles, while continuing to insist he is a woman.

        This is why both "likely male" competitors won every fight and every single round (no woman did this). This is why female competitors consistently say things like "I've never felt a punch like that". This is why they ended up bloodied while the world cheered on a man beating up a woman. This is why when Khelif was training in Spain they had to put him with men: he kept injuring women.

        Because they are men. Not gender-non-conforming females. Men. I know of no gender-critical feminist who is objecting on the basis of appearance. None. Saying "female = external performance of femininity" is something gender-critical feminists are absolutely opposed to!

        If people on this site continue to gaslight and dismiss the legitimate right of all women to compete in all sports at all levels, women will drift right and I don't blame them.

        • SPC 15.4.4.1
          12 August 2024 at 4:15 pm

          Women have to deal with unfairness in a range of areas, not just sports.

          Access to health care, safety from stalking (being gaslight in court cases), having their own safe spaces (from lesbian groups to refuges), fair pay, parental leave and access beyond the glass ceiling.

          There is an extent to which women's identity is a factor in that total spectrum – but there is a reason why Angela Dworkin wrote to warn about alliance with the social conservative right against liberalism (porn etc).

        • Anne 15.4.4.2
          13 August 2024 at 10:36 am

          This issue is, by far, the one that attracts the most comments on this site. It is clearly an issue.

          If you had observed over a period of time, you would have found that the comments on this issue come from a relatively small number of contributors and they comment multiple times. That does not make it an issue which transcends all others. Unfortunately this site has lost well regarded commenters who have left it because of this issue. Most seem to have left for good. I am not surprised. There are more urgent and topical discussions to be had at both a local and on a global scale.

          I've said it before and I will say it again. If The Standard becomes a one issue site then it will spell the ultimate death knell of it. Perhaps that is the aim of the exercise for some……

          • Muttonbird 15.4.4.2.1
            13 August 2024 at 9:15 pm

            Yes, it also attracts the most comments because commenters who wish to talk about issues which concern workers, low income people, renters, beneficiaries, and the health compromised are discouraged from doing so if their views on gender are not acceptable.

            • Anne 15.4.4.2.1.1
              15 August 2024 at 6:00 pm

              Indeed Muttonbird.

              That is why some commenters have been bullied and targeted on this site in recent times including yourself. It is also the reason why some damn good commenters have permanently walked.

              Bees and bonnets are all very well, but when it gets to the stage of over – obsessiveness as has happened in a few cases here, then it becomes counter productive and dangerous.

    • adam 15.5
      11 August 2024 at 2:13 pm

      Thanks Lprent, culture wars do my head in whilst wages are stagnant or going backwards. Workers rights are being smashed. And the labour movement as a whole is under attack by this collection of ratbags, pretending to govern for the whole country and not the interests of the greedy few.

    • MichaelP 15.6
      14 August 2024 at 3:56 am

      You're such a self centered, cry baby wanker.

      You may not give a shit and don't like sports (probably because you were never any good at them and don't understand the dedication and sacrifice it takes to try and become the best in the world at something) but female athletes who dedicate their entire lives to trying to their chosen sport have a right to compete against other females in a fair competition.

      Anyone who thinks a male should be allowed to compete against a female in competitive and / or professional sport, especially in combat sports is anti women at best, not to mention a complete arsehole.

      [I can’t even be bothered explaining. You can leave the site before the site leaves you – Incognito]

  16. georgecom 16
    11 August 2024 at 6:03 pm

    when it comes to high end competitive sport things can get fairly confusing at times. what nature gave you and what you were born with should define where you fit within the sport. Make or female. If Imane Khelif was born as a woman with certain characteristics that provide her an advantage then I guess she is blessed in that respect. Female at birth, female in competitive sport.

    If she or any other athlete took, for example, performance enhancing drugs then that is modifying their nature (god) given attributes and should face appropriate stiff bans from the sport, as should any male athlete doing so.

    Transgender poses an altogether more complex issue. What a person identifies as gives them no automatic right to compete in that theatre of sport if by crossing genders they are instilled with a significant physical advantage over those born to that gender. Good example might be boxing or sprinting or weigh lifting, all other things being equal a male physique affords an advantage over female physique. Or vice versa if a woman identifies as male. There might be some sport, maybe the likes of darts, where it makes nit a blind bit of difference so no need to get too hung up on 'gender essentialism' in such a case. Boxing for example, I think a reasonable dose of 'gender essentialism' is a good thing.

  17. Corokia 17
    11 August 2024 at 6:16 pm

    Well said Lprent. As a left wing, greenie, feminist woman, I'm disappointed how much energy and anger goes in to this gender in sports issue. Energy and anger that I think would be better directed at the current government, who drop some new WTF policy every week.

  18. SPC 18
    12 August 2024 at 12:57 am

    The BBC has an overview of the issue.

    The IOC abandoned genetic gender testing in 1999 and seems opposed to changing the rules, partly for fear of stigmatising people, saying that "every person has the right to practise sport without discrimination".

    warning

    IOC President Thomas Bach said: "It is not as easy as some may now want to portray it – that XX or XY is the clear distinction between men and women. This is scientifically not true anymore."

    "If somebody is presenting us a scientifically solid system – how to identify man and woman – we're the first ones to do it. We do not like this uncertainty. So, we would be more than pleased to look into it."

    They added: "There are many women with higher testosterone levels than men so the idea that a test is some kind of magic bullet is not true. This is a minefield. If we can find a consensus we will certainly work to apply that. This is a question in all sports, we are open to listen to anyone with a solution to that question. The IOC is always trying to balance inclusivity and fairness, to put it more broadly, also safety. That is a difficult one and something we will have to look at."

    In 2021, the IOC issued new guidance, asking individual sports federations to develop eligibility policies of their own, rather than insisting on a blanket policy based on testosterone levels.

    This is especially the case after a number of sports federations have toughened up their own sex eligibility regulations in recent years, banning transgender women from elite female competition and insisting that athletes with differences in sex development (DSD) medically lower their testosterone levels.

    The boxing controversy has fuelled demands for mandatory sex testing at future Olympics, with campaigners calling for the return of a cheek swab test (which the IOC moved away from in 2000). They say that the vast majority of female athletes are in favour of this. However, others have argued that more comprehensive testing is required to be sure about an individual-s genetic makeup, which would raise concerns over cost and invasiveness.

    We do not know if Khelif and Lin are athletes with DSD because the full results of the tests are confidential, and the fighters are yet to declare them. They and their supporters insist they are female.

    However, because of what the IBA has claimed (and an IOC mistake when it initially said that this was not a DSD case, before having to retract the statement), this has inevitably led to speculation that they could be DSD athletes, and has renewed debate over how sports should approach the issue.

    Athletics

    World Athletics is one of a number of sports federations that have toughened up rules relating to the eligibility of transgender and DSD athletes in the women's category.

    In 2018 it said DSD athletes could not participate in any women's event between 400m and one mile – unless they lower their high testosterone levels, which it claimed gives them an unfair advantage because it can boost endurance and muscle mass. It said the rules were needed "to ensure fair and meaningful competition within the female classification". Athletes could reduce their levels by taking specific drugs.

    Since then World Athletics has tightened its rules further, with DSD athletes having to have hormone-suppressing treatment for six months before being able to compete in all women's events.

    It has been especially relevant to athletics, in which South African middle distance runner Caster Semenya – who was born with DSD condition 46 XY 5-ARD – twice won Olympic 800m gold. At Rio 2016, all three medallists in the women's 800m were DSD athletes, including the winner Semenya.

    Several top sprinters have also been affected by the sport’s restrictions on DSD athletes, which now cover all track and field events in the female category.

    World Athletics has claimed that while "approximately 1 in 20,000 of the general population have a 46 XY DSD, in elite women's competition, the proportion is approximately 7 in 1,000 – a prevalence that is 140 times higher". It argued that "this is strong evidence of a performance advantage".

    However, even within the scientific community there is debate over what physiological advantage DSD athletes actually have, depending on the type of DSD. Some say it is impossible to establish that everyone with a Y chromosome is a male and everyone without a Y chromosome is a female, and that more data is needed.

    Semenya insists there was "never any unfair advantage" and that "sports have never been fair because of genetics", adding that it was discriminatory and against her human rights. She refuses to undergo treatments and has been engaged in legal disputes over the case for years.

    Aquatics

    World Aquatics, which has brought in similar regulations to athletics, says that all athletes "must now certify their chromosomal sex with their national federation," adding that "failure to do so, or provision of a false certification, will render the athlete ineligible". It also reserves the right to include a chromosomal sex screen in its anti-doping tests.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/articles/c0l8gxzw6n4o

    • That_guy 18.1
      12 August 2024 at 3:54 pm

      IOC President Thomas Bach said: "It is not as easy as some may now want to portray it – that XX or XY is the clear distinction between men and women. This is scientifically not true anymore."

      It's true that there are scientists who say this. It's fair to say they have not proved their case, and their position isn't the "scientifically true" one, since that make a mockery of what science is. Truth is always provisional and can be overturned by new evidence.

      "There are many women with higher testosterone levels than men"

      I actually do not know what he's talking about here. The normal range of testosterone in men is approx 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL) and in women it's 15 to 70 ng/dL. There is no overlap even among women with high testosterone levels.

      • SPC 18.1.1
        12 August 2024 at 4:01 pm

        There he is probably using the legal identity definition of woman (designated at birth).

        • That_guy 18.1.1.1
          12 August 2024 at 4:08 pm

          From above:

          World Athletics has claimed that while "approximately 1 in 20,000 of the general population have a 46 XY DSD, in elite women's competition, the proportion is approximately 7 in 1,000 – a prevalence that is 140 times higher". It argued that "this is strong evidence of a performance advantage".

          Since men with 5-ARD are the most common DSD in sport and often present as female at birth, what this passage really means is: "in elite women's competition, 7 in 1,000 women are probably men who were born with ambiguous or female-presenting genitalia and were incorrectly identified as females until puberty"

          Incidentally, men with 5-ARD have normal testosterone levels for men, not wildly and uniquely abnormal testosterone levels for women.

          So "designated at birth" won't work, and the IOC knows it.

        • Shanreagh 18.1.1.2
          15 August 2024 at 3:33 pm

          Bach was even more simplistic I understand and pointing to the fact that the boxer had a female passport. Which not proof of anything really except that by some means a female passport was issued to a person who had, in the IBA context, male type testosterone levels. Passports issued from self ID are not worth the paper they are written on except to signify that the person has self ID'd as something.

          • SPC 18.1.1.2.1
            15 August 2024 at 5:40 pm

            There was no self ID when the boxers were born, they have had female status since birth (designated female) as those with their condition have been for thousands of years (before chromosome testing and awareness of the DSD conditions).

  19. That_guy 19
    12 August 2024 at 2:53 pm

    Thanks for the update lprent. I'm a bully, I hate the olympics, and if a woman isn't a barbie doll I think she's a man, it's cultural posturing, I'm pious, the quality of my contribution is shit, and you can't actually make up your mind about whether it's bullshit or cowshit. Does that about sum up your understanding of my position?

    Do you, as the owner of this site, abide by the rules of this site? Is anyone moderating you?

    • francesca 19.1
      12 August 2024 at 5:24 pm

      Well , women should never have got so uppity, they shouldn't consider a career in sport, they should have left that to men.

      As to the debate about dsds …whether they give an advantage in sport(apparently the jury is out….it all depends what dsd) the dsd that crops up the most is 5-ARD and only occurs in males

      https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/5-alpha-reductase-deficiency/

    • SPC 19.2
      12 August 2024 at 5:34 pm

      One reason DPF does not comment on his own posts on KB is that criticism of him is banned – any debate might lead to an unkind expression of disagreement. A form of entrapment to a banning that might lead to him being seen as against free speech.

    • lprent 19.3
      13 August 2024 at 8:11 am

      Dipshit. I don't 'own' the site. I operate it.

      I tend to moderate myself. You probably wouldn't like it if I didn't.

      However what I don't see is many listening to the points that I am raising, and actually responding to them. All I see is exclusion in response to a policy of inclusion. That is a familiar pattern for online forums. It is how forums die from toxic, and piss of the geek operating it.

      I could go through and moderate it out. But it really doesn't seem worth doing at this point. Not really a problem for a geek. I will just drop the now odious task of operating the site, dump it off my servers, and concentrate time on the other things I'm doing.

      That will essentially mean that the site disappears. I guess that it is a victory for a micro-party.

      • PsyclingLeft.Always 19.3.1
        13 August 2024 at 8:26 am

        Lprent, I for one really appreciate the effort, (probably a huge amount behind the scenes ! ) you put in to The Standard. Have to say I have stayed well out of this particular area as apart from it being extremely micro focused….I find it actually quite toxic. And there have been many good people who have either been disppeared….or just gave up on it.

        Anyway, I wish you all the Best . And thanks.

  20. Drowsy M. Kram 20
    12 August 2024 at 5:00 pm

    It's only sport. Boxing (The Manly Art) never appealed to me – what might have been.

    … it's entirely reasonable to believe "males and females are born with distinctively different natures, determined biologically rather than culturally" [@13.1.1]

    Yes, with a non-trivial caveat: "distinctively different natures" on average.

    Enjoying/admiring the [skillful] punching of people (either first-hand or vicariously) may be behaviours/interests on the feminine-masculine continuum. I believe a sizeable minority of women exhibit/possess some abilities/behaviours/interests that are generally/historically considered masculine, and a sizeable minority of men exhibit/possess some abilities/behaviours/interests that are generally/historically considered feminine, regardless of their (immutable, biological) sex.

    Men, Women, and Ghosts in Science [17 Jan 2006]
    You cannot deduce the psychological characteristics of any person by knowing their sex.

    Throughout life, individuals experience an evolving gamut of societal pressures (possibly including "prescriptive obligations" [@13.1.1]) and feelings about conforming to, or going against 'norms' – sometimes those pressures/feelings have regrettable consequences. Imho, Kiwis are lucky to live in a country where it's possible for many to [get to] know themselves and be themselves, ideally without harming anyone.

    Why Sex Is Mostly Binary but Gender Is a Spectrum [15 Dec 2016]
    At the top of the cascade, nature works forcefully and unilaterally. Up top, gender is quite simple—just one master gene flicking on and off. If we learned to toggle that switch—by genetic means or with a drug—we could control the production of men or women, and they would emerge with male versus female identity (and even large parts of anatomy) quite intact. At the bottom of the network, in contrast, a purely genetic view fails to perform; it does not provide a particularly sophisticated understanding of gender or its identity. Here, in the estuarine plains of crisscrossing information, history, society, and culture collide and intersect with genetics, like tides. Some waves cancel each other, while others reinforce each other. No force is particularly strong—but their combined effect produces the unique and rippled landscape that we call an individual’s identity.

    • Descendant Of Smith 20.1
      13 August 2024 at 8:33 am

      And yet there are other geneticists who say it isn't that simple.

      This is the case among humans as well, Graves told IFLScience. “There is so much variation, variation in so many pathways.” Simply saying that someone has a Y chromosome doesn’t always tell us much. The Y chromosome is small, and shrinking, but nevertheless includes some genes generally acknowledged to have little to do with making someone male or with sporting prowess.

      That job primarily belongs to the SRY gene, but even saying that the presence of this gene equals maleness undersells the complexity and diversity that exists, Graves stresses. “There are 70 genes between SRY activation and making the gonads, so it is not a surprise to find there is variation in sexual differentiation,” she told IFLScience.

      This means that anyone thinking a single test, or even several tests, could unambiguously sort athletes into male and female categories is mistaken. Someone with an SRY gene, but for whom only a few of the genes Graves refers to activate, is unlikely to gain any genetic advantage over typical XX females. They are also unlikely to have any hint that they are genetically unusual until tested, including in some cases being able to give birth. To prevent someone from entering women’s sport on this basis in the name of fairness would make a mockery of the term.

      https://www.iflscience.com/olympic-boxing-controversy-a-leading-geneticist-and-a-sports-researcher-have-their-say-75524?

      While I used to read many of the posts I generally didn't comment. The black and white positioning and the clear battle lines between male versus female always seemed quite stark in the way they were written. I don't mind that as sometimes that is what is needed to push boundaries and envelopes. I just felt there was little for me to add to the picture.

      Weka then posted about how she felt there was a lack of support for these causes by left wing men (in part I guess by the lack of commenting). So I've made an effort. The experience has oft been the same as debating religious people and right wingers. (In fact we aren't really allowed to debate the fact that god is a made up construct and doesn't exist in these forums as it is considered akin to starting a flame war.)

      I have taken a clear position that only slightly disagrees with the notion that these athletes should be banned on the basis of XY.

      That position is:
      1. These are unusual rare genetic variations
      2. The athletes were raised as female and have boxed as female previously
      3. It isn't known by any of us what disorder they have
      4. It isn't clear what level of advantage they have and the science in my view isn't settled
      5. It is up to the sporting bodies to work through their rules
      6. This is not domestic violence etc it is a controlled sport with rules and as someone who is well familiar with domestic violence and the angry uncontrolled nature of that I find linking two people training and willingly getting into a boxing ring as such problematic
      7. This is not a transgender issue – I am clear that trans-gender athletes should not compete against women in competitive as opposed to participatory sport
      8. The dumbing down of the Olympic decision to but they have a female passport is untrue. Their decision was much more complex than that even if you disagree with it

      I would add to that the nothing to fear, nothing to hide argument is a straight out fascist argument that I detested when John Key used it and I detest it here as well.

      The responses of here we are arguing against men, not supported, nothing has changed, here we go again I don't find useful in any way shape or form. In the 80's it was myself, alone, in the boardroom raising the issues of crude jokes being told in meetings, promoting the rights of gay people (no one dared tell the manager his secretary was in a lesbian relationship with another staff member he would have sacked her on the spot), pushing for women to be allowed to do more than be secretaries and typists, oh you must be having your period, to employ more maori staff, recruiting staff by breast size and hair colour etc. These battles too were not just fought against other men – plenty of women knew women's place as well. I helped women (some into their 70's) leave their abusive partners and so on. I helped educate young women in things as simple as understanding miscarriages and what domestic abuse was and advocated for them to get DPB without having to have Social Welfare traipse through their bathrooms and pressure them to adopt out their child. Lots and lots of things. Not because I was a male but because it was the right thing to do.

      I worked with many other passionate people on trying to do the same – both male and female. My experience of these fights was never that men were not supportive, even when sometimes we didn't understand the issue, which is why I don't see this as a battle between men and women.

      I don't see that as the case now – particularly with the rise of the religious right – many of the vocal people taking away women's rights remind me exactly, but worse, of those women back in the 80's who knew and argued their conservative place in the world, or the ones who were early promoted into the realms of the men and who actually behaved worse than the men – that is why they got there in the first place.

      I don't have the answer on how to join the feminist debates here as a male in a useful way. I get both the frustrations on both sides that are resulting in people talking past each other. I do think we all want sort of the same things but do disagree on how to get there – or at the very least disagree with where we sit on a 1 – 10 continuum. I think the notion that we are all either at 1 or 10 is problematic. I don't know if writing this helps. It does explain a little why I get reluctant to comment.

      I guess it might not be an issue down the track (no Olympic pun intended).

      And finally, it wouldn’t be a genetics podcast about the disappearance of males if we didn’t address the perennial headline: that the Y chromosome is disappearing, and men will go extinct.

      I swear I see articles about the disappearing Y chromosome popping up in the news every single year, and each one follows the same sort of logic. The Y chromosome used to be the same size as the X chromosome 166 million years ago. It’s since shrunk to just a third of the size with only about 55 genes compared to the X chromosome’s 900 genes. If we extrapolate from the rate it is shrinking, it’ll be completely gone in less than 5 million years. Oh no! Men will go extinct!

      https://geneticsunzipped.com/transcripts/2023/03/23/bye-bye-y

      • TeWhareWhero 20.1.1
        13 August 2024 at 1:26 pm

        Thanks for engaging positively. I was getting so depressed by such emotive & dismissive reactions as “shit, trivia, culture war wank-fest, posturing, fuzzy crap, wilful stupidity, ridiculous, pious, exclusionary politics, public lynchings, vague whining, vague dross…” I had almost decided to throw in the towel.

        "These are unusual rare genetic variations.” Agreed, some of which confer all or part of the average PA men have over women. As an aside, when I read about phenomena such as the increase in the incidence of central precocious puberty, of childhood cancers, of neurological and developmental disorders in children, of reproductive cancers and other reproductive disorders in women and men, like endometriosis and a global decrease in sperm quality (to name just a few issues), having a long standing interest in chemical triggers for endocrine disruption and DNA damage, I wonder about environmental causal factors, and that leads to questioning all attempts to normalise those pathologies.

        “The athletes were raised as female and have boxed as female previously.” There are gold medalists in T&F events who were raised as female and competed as female who are now known to have a DSD which confers some at least of the average PA which natal males have over natal females in most sports.

        “It isn't known by any of us what disorder they have.” Agreed. I don’t know for certain but I’d put a lot of money on it being either 5-ARD or PAIS.

        “It isn't clear what level of advantage they have and the science in my view isn't settled." The science is pretty well settled – it’s the politics which complicate things; and thorough testing, ie going beyond a simple finding of an XY karyotype, on an individual by individual basis is expensive.

        “It is up to the sporting bodies to work through their rules.” That is precisely what is happening and why there was an issue in women’s boxing. Because of the wider geo-politics in play, the competition put the issues of sex-related eligibility into the too-hard basket, or someone wanted to generate a controversy.

        “This is not domestic violence etc it is a controlled sport with rules ….” The two core rules are a strictly controlled weight division, and a less strictly controlled sex division which, in the presence of an androgen-related body type, makes a mockery of the former.

        “This is not a transgender issue”: only knee-jerkers and malign shit-stirrers ever claimed it was about transgender inclusion.

        “The dumbing down of the Olympic decision to but they have a female passport is untrue. Their decision was much more complex ….” Not in relation to boxing. It is very clear, inclusion was on the basis of passport, competition record, medical certificate, signed declaration of non-pregnancy. Issues of eligibility related to endogenous testosterone levels do not seem to have been addressed but if any exogenous T or masking agent without a TUE was found in routine testing, probable disqualification.

      • weka 20.1.2
        13 August 2024 at 1:34 pm

        I will read the rest of your comment later (because they are always worthwhile), but this that your just wrote is simply note true,

        (In fact we aren't really allowed to debate the fact that god is a made up construct and doesn't exist in these forums as it is considered akin to starting a flame war.)

        I asked you not to start a flame war, by opening up a debate about god off topic in a post that was already tense in response to someone's comment. It was an appropriate mod request in context and at the time.

        You and anyone else is always free to write about god/not god on TS eg in Open Mike, DR, or a post where it doesn't matter if it goes off piste. You could also submit a post on the topic and so long as it was aligned with the general focus of the blog and it was decently written, then it could get published.

        I'm mentioning this because I think a significant issue in this debate is how big the gap is between sent and received communication. We are often not hearing each other (all sides). A bigger gap than any other political topic on T (bigger than atheism or vaccines or homeopathy). And over time resentments or ideas about what is happening build up and that makes it worse.

        You wrote a comment in that other post which I really wish I had replied to because it was clear instance of us talking past each other, then we clarified and suddenly I understood what you were saying. Unfortunately my time has been tight of late and I let it slip. I will try and go back to it later so you know what I am referring to.

      • Drowsy M. Kram 20.1.3
        13 August 2024 at 4:18 pm

        I do think we all want sort of the same things but do disagree on how to get there – or at the very least disagree with where we sit on a 1 – 10 continuum. I think the notion that we are all either at 1 or 10 is problematic.

        Amen.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_are_either_with_us,_or_against_us

      • Shanreagh 20.1.4
        14 August 2024 at 12:34 pm

        Thank you Descendant of Smith. Your clarity & knowledge of the topic is always appreciated.

  21. Cricklewood 21
    13 August 2024 at 2:45 pm

    The biggest problem in the whole debate is that both sides tend to point to the most extreme ends of the opposing spectrum then proceed to tar everyone on the other side with the same brush leading to increasingly bitter echo chambers that shout back and fourth at each other.

    There should be a path forward that works for both Woman and Trans etc but the rhetoric has turned groups which should be allies into enemies and and there is no shortage of people happy to drive the wedges in deeper to suit their own ends. It's sad and somewhat depressing.

  22. TeWhareWhero 22
    14 August 2024 at 10:19 am

    I've written extensively about this issue and I'm sick of it. I still write about it because I see it as a symptom of a wider malaise, and I don't much like having my analysis and those of other principled left wing feminists described as bull shit, trivia, a culture war wank-fest, posturing, fuzzy crap, wilful stupidity, ridiculous, pious, exclusionary politics, vague whining, vague dross, a disgraceful public lynching furore…

    For someone who indulges in that sort of emotive rhetoric to then spit the dummy and threaten to close the site over it adds insult to injury.

    Too often, the level of the scientific and socio-political analysis of these issues by those who shout down left wing feminists who've been struggling with them, is shallow. Some of it is nothing more than a politically infantile resentment of what's seen as a distraction away from the important issues.

    From one of my blog posts … for what it's worth.

    "One of Neoliberal capitalism’s greatest victories was its destruction or weakening of any and all collectives that argue for a different social order, especially those which threaten its profit and its entrenched power.

    Up there with it, in terms of strategic importance, is having successfully lured a critical mass of left wingers into the intellectual and political shallows where they don’t have to learn how to survive in rough, cold seas, or be strong enough to swim against the current.

    These warm shallows provide a false sense of security, and never more so than now when a tsunami of interconnected social and ecological issues is likely to drown many of us, or dash us onto the rocks.

    From global warming and resultant climate disequilibrium, to accelerating species extinctions, and mass plastics and chemical pollution … the interacting states of global disequilibrium have the potential to tip into whole system chaos.

    The possibility of a fusion of disastrous androgenic outcomes is a terrifying reality that has to be kept well-hidden, or social disequilibrium may rapidly worsen and tip into social chaos.

    In a natural and social world at imminent risk of tipping very rapidly from disequilibrium into chaos, the gender identity issue was a master class in the use of division, distraction, diversion, and defamation.

    The political left should at least be asking why and how this ideology, and the forms of praxis which flowed from it, morphed so rapidly into a powerful orthodoxy that was embraced enthusiastically by the corporate world, and by much of corporate capitalism’s compliant politicians, bureaucrats, and technocrats.

    We need to ask, who benefits from:

    – reducing people to isolated individuals, focussed on what they believe are their personal, and these days, bespoke “gender identity”, which effectively privileges the subjective, gendered “self” over the material, sexed body?

    – worsening the conditions in which large numbers of people, especially the young, are profoundly alienated, in the sense of being socially isolated and estranged?

    – replacing natural, human connection and community with the chimera of virtual or cyber-communities centred around a shared sense of individual self?

    – pushing the ideal of self-improvement, of aspiring to be the best possible version of one’s self while forcing many into a struggle simply for survival?

    – dangling the false promise of appearance enhancement via various surgical procedures and chemical potions, and by so doing, creating arguably the most medically monitored and chemically corralled population in human history?"

    Sigh.

    https://tewharewhero.blogspot.com/2023/09/more-on-chains-that-bind-us.html

    [link added]

    • francesca 22.1
      14 August 2024 at 11:05 am

      Thanks TeWhare, ditto That_guy.

      You present the sex/gender issue in the much wider neoliberal context it deserves.

      I'm grateful for your clarity.I'm dismayed by those who think women have got it good and any attention paid to misogyny is nothing but "whining" and exclusionary crap.

      I also am interested in where you blog.You've been a breath of fresh air.

    • Shanreagh 22.2
      14 August 2024 at 1:18 pm

      I will ditto too That Guy and Te WhareWhero who provide a breathe of fresh air and knowledge.

      Thank you to Weka whose knowledge of women;s issues and how it fits in with the wider left conversation is second to none.

      My mother who had a history of the sharp end of women's issues during and after the war, when 'the boys came home' used to say that there were three types of men/responses from men when confronted by women's issues/misogyny/discrimination.

      1 the first group believes that women are equal citizens deserve to be treated as such and in their day to day lives will do this, this group of men sees the issues and will support women naturally,

      2 the second group will readily see, when it is explained, that women are equal citizens and deserve to be treated as such. They are often appalled to think that they may have offended……

      3 the third group are the misogynists, sexists who actually don't believe in equality or see no need for a focus on women's issues of any kind, they miminise the role and concerns of women.

      Her views were also that while the sizes of the groups would vary from decade to decade, year to year the groups themselves were always in existence

      Scarce funds would mean that the focus should be on reinforcing the beliefs of the first group and on making sure there is plenty of information to persuade the second group….

      She felt that they third group would never change, is only reachable by legislation or sanctions and this should should be the extent of the involvement. By this she meant their ability to be sexist. discriminatory etc would/could only be limited by the rule of law. If they learn by the operation of law then all the better.

      While these divisions have, unfortunately, stood the test of time and can be applied to other so-called 'cultural' issues…are Maori issues, issues of disability cultural?

      Why have cultural issues suddenly become so 'bad' that calling something a cultural issue is an attempt to relegate it to the soft and fluffy while the real crunchy issues such as $$$, class etc are worked on by the real left. (elements of /sarc)

      Sorry but we've been through all this before……the way 51% of citizens are treated by the system or by other humans is part or should be part of the left's response.

      Please do not denigrate the issue of women's rights or any issue that is not seen as economic by calling it 'cultural'. Women who have lived through itierations of 'why society cannot change' see this word for what it is, an attempt to push women back down….

      At the moment the word is being applied to concerns that women must compete against men in sport. Not everyone loves sport but surely the issue can be looked at from the point of view of fairness rather than being dismissed as cultural and 'I hate sports anyway'? That this C word is said on this site, seemingly, without a blink is sad/shameful.

    • lprent 22.3
      14 August 2024 at 4:15 pm

      I’ve written extensively about this issue and I’m sick of it. I still write about it because I see it as a symptom of a wider malaise, and I don’t much like having my analysis and those of other principled left wing feminists described as bull shit, trivia, a culture war wank-fest, posturing, fuzzy crap, wilful stupidity, ridiculous, pious, exclusionary politics, vague whining, vague dross, a disgraceful public lynching furore…

      The problem is that what I see is people complaining about something without ever suggesting what would fix it. No suggestions for how to change legislation. No suggestions on a way to change regulations.

      Mostly it is just complaints about organisations with specific authority to operate in their area of expertise (like prisons or the medical association) or what are effectively private organisations mostly in sport that largely govern themselves.

      Instead we see a almost exclusive focus on perceived problems where there isn’t any obvious expertise.

      Just as an exercise, why don’t you look at your latest post where you describe in detail issues with boxing at the Olympics. Most of it is general medical knowledge but you never state your links which would be useful, nor your expertise. There are assertions of fact like the questions about the IBA/WB Olympic accreditation. But no substantiation so I have to assume it is merely ill-informed opinion. Same with the speculation about various bits of motivation which is vaguely interesting – again as opinion.

      Nowhere in the whole post do I see any reasoning or suggestions about what the IOC or boxing associations should be doing differently on the topic you’re talking about.

      indeed: “go figure”

      That is the same lack and fundamental reason that I have had issues with one side of the “gender identity divide” as you put in in “A Plague On Both Houses” back in May.

      Now as much as I dislike sports as being largely irrelevant entertainment, I see trans going in and competing according to the rules laid down by relevant sporting bodies – effectively acting by doing, and wearing a lot of flak in the process. Trans going into female prisons and apparently being routine prisoners inside.

      On the other side I have had a couple of years of reading people complaining on this site about trans going into sports or going into female population prisons or having transitions or transitioning preceded by puberty blockers. They seem to just be saying that it wasn’t right and was unfair. None have suggested anything that is actionable or is even a workable suggestion about what could be changed to alleviate that.

      Competitive sports at a national or international level is a terrible example anyway because it is completely unfair by definition. It is a genetic lottery, followed by resource lottery for training an time, and always requires even more obsessional behaviour than is exhibited by Geeks. The rules for sport by sporting organisations just limit the unfairness to bands spread widely enough to ensure variety for couch potatoes.

      What is notable was that the complainers have been effectively were disagreeing with where the relevant bodies in charge of putting in rules to achieve their functions were wrong. Sure and what should they actually do to change that? Silence! How would those changes be made convincing to those bodies? More complaining that they are even being asked that, presumably because it involves thinking and work!

      Instead we get the TWRPs. Also with no actionable solutions and just highlighting perceived grievances.

      Why do you think that I am kind of pissed off at the the lazy whiners. Not to mention that quite a lot tend to border on infractions of various legislation and I’d be the person who’d have to defend their sorry arses.

      So I have been pointing this out for years and in effect been given the finger because I am critical of their approach. I am not a great believer in dithering. So it was either do the work to excise the toxicity or remove myself from having to defend having it on my servers. After 18 years operating the site, the latter was a better option.

      • TeWhareWhero 22.3.1
        14 August 2024 at 7:13 pm

        “The problem is that what I see is people complaining about something without ever suggesting what would fix it. …. Instead we see a almost exclusive focus on perceived problems where there isn’t any obvious expertise.”

        Lots of women have raised these issues inside political parties, via submissions to select committees, responses to organisations that are developing guidelines, in the media etc. Some are even experts in related fields.

        I don’t agree with all of the arguments or the evidence used to support them, and I didn’t agree with the setting up of women’s party but I understand the frustration some women feel over their voices not being heard, or having their arguments misrepresented or being written off as hysterics or Nazis as happens all the time.

        “Just as an exercise, why don’t you look at your latest post where you describe in detail issues with boxing at the Olympics. Most of it is general medical knowledge but you never state your links which would be useful, nor your expertise.”

        It is a political blog; it is my opinion not a series of scientific / academic papers. I don’t have time to write fully referenced posts. I write books, I plant trees and tend 25 acres of land. I grow trees to give away to community groups. I care for unwanted animals and I'm in my 70s. I'm pretty damned good but there's a limit to what I can manage. 🙂

        The intention of the blog is to allow me to vent and hopefully to make people think, and do their own research – as I do.

        Do I need to be an expert in order to comment? Why can't I just be an articulate and well informed lay person?

        “There are assertions of fact like the questions about the IBA/WB Olympic accreditation. But no substantiation so I have to assume it is merely ill-informed opinion. Same with the speculation about various bits of motivation which is vaguely interesting – again as opinion.”

        Why do you leap from there being no source material cited, to it being “merely ill-informed opinion?” Aren’t you just demonstrating your bias – ie you want it to be ill-informed opinion because it doesn’t fit your preconceived notions of the truth?

        The facts about the geo-political back cloth are all ready available in the media; I have just analysed them and drawn my own conclusions.

        Everything I wrote in the post is general medical and sports specific medical knowledge. I do assume readers will have a similar level of knowledge as me; as I hate being patronised I tend to assume people are capable of doing their own fact checking.

        “Nowhere in the whole post do I see any reasoning or suggestions about what the IOC or boxing associations should be doing differently on the topic you’re talking about.”

        It’s not my responsibility to tell the IOC how to run sport and what eligibility tests to put in place to ensure safety in combat sports, but I have the absolute right to criticise when the way they do it creates safety problems for athletes or sets the scene for problems to occur in the future. I see it as my political duty to do so when the hamfistedness fuels the right wing.

        That aside, the basis of the solution is already there, in codes developed by other sporting organisations such as aquatics.

        I’ve been engaged with this issue since the 1990s. It is complex; it demands an atmosphere free of anger, fear and overblown rhetoric in order to do it justice.

        It is not helpful to conflate sex with gender or trans with intersex which happens all the time.

        Unlike you, I don’t see formal rights and social advances for women and minorities gained over the past 5 decades or so as complete, nor are they set in stone. Formal rights can be repealed overnight and what was assumed to be social acceptance can flip into rejection in a heart beat if the conditions are right for it to happen.

        I have said over and over that many people are stressed and frightened; the world is a scary place and for people who have been pushed or are at risk of being pushed into the “precariat” it’s all the more terrifying. Stressed, scared, economically marginalised people can be persuaded to blame some convenient “other”, or look to an idealised past, cling to old certainties, and to what seems to be “strong” leadership. The right knows this and will take advantage of it.

        I think the catalyst for this to take off into over-heated controversy was the move for sex self identification by statutory declaration (SSID) which a lot of women saw as having implications for sex-based formal and social rights.

        The way that was immediately responded to by some on the left with infantile equations of "TERF=Nazi" gave the right an opening to weaponise the issues.

        2015 was the first year I saw MRAs, specifically, "Men Going Their Own Way" accounts calling for “MGTOW Monks” (INCELs) to pretend to be trans lesbians on social media, and suddenly bearded blokes were all over social media claiming to be trans and lesbian, going onto lesbian dating sites, and if challenged, inviting women to “suck their girl dick” or worse. I suspect most of them were/are malignant trolls but when well-known TRAs says things like Terfs should "die in a grease fire”, or calls on people to "kerb stomp Terfs" the hyperbole and viciousness had spread and it has licensed an equally ugly, trollish backlash.

        And it’s all a sodding diversion. I have no doubt that the Tories in the UK proposing reform of the Gender Recognition Act to institute SSID was a diversionary move, like allegations of antisemitism, to derail the Labour Party which, under Corbyn, had the largest membership of any left party in Europe. When someone in the UKLP called for a female comrade to be expelled because she was a “deplorable c**t” for questioning SSID, I knew the issue was going to have legs, and it would be running for the right.

        And in case you think this is all elsewhere or in the past, I recently saw a Kiwi a/c on Twitter post, "A lot of you are following a TERF account FYI" with a screenshot of the account which they'd blocked. Another busy body chimed in to say the person posts on TS under several pseudonyms.

        People like that really should find better things to do with their time and energy as they are helping to maintain the toxicity in the debates.

        "Competitive sports at a national or international level is a terrible example anyway because it is completely unfair by definition. …"

        My beef with sport is that it is corporatised and a vehicle for extreme nationalism. It is also something a lot of people love to watch and to participate in, and at its best it’s got a lot going for it for a number of different reasons.

        As it was starkly obvious that the boxing issue would become the hottest of potatoes, it was either known that it would, and it was a cynical manoeuvre to divert attention from elsewhere, or the blazers in the IOC are absolute clowns. Maybe a bit of both.

        "Why do you think that I am kind of pissed off at the the lazy whiners. Not to mention that quite a lot tend to border on infractions of various legislation and I’d be the person who’d have to defend their sorry arses."

        The discussion around these issues on this site is usually free of acrimony and misinformation compared to elsewhere, and although I don't see all of it, what I have seen doesn't meet the standard for inciting hate, for example. The moderators are effective at ensuring a high standard of debate so I think you are probably overstating the risk but I'm not in your shoes.

        "So I have been pointing this out for years and in effect been given the finger because I am critical of their approach. I am not a great believer in dithering. So it was either do the work to excise the toxicity or remove myself from having to defend having it on my servers. After 18 years operating the site, the latter was a better option."

        I am sorry you feel this way; 18 years is hell of a commitment.

  23. That_guy 23
    14 August 2024 at 10:32 am

    I don’t want to add more heat to this discussion, so I will just say, well said.

    This issue is crippling the left (and in particular Green parties) across the world at precisely the time when they need to be strongest. That’s why I comment, that’s the wider strategic point here.

    Where is your blog? Sounds great!

    • TeWhareWhero 23.1
      14 August 2024 at 12:13 pm

      Link above. It's the quietest of blogging back waters – I'm not renowned for my technical know how or ability to market myself and if people pay too much attention to me, my inclination is to hide. smiley

    • Muttonbird 23.2
      14 August 2024 at 8:38 pm

      Nice work, mate. You didn't want to add more heat to the discussion, then barely an hour later you launch a major attack on the owner of the site resulting in a permanent ban and the potential dissolving of the forum.

      Yours is the kind of contribution we don't need.

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