Amina Sopwith

The latest child-induced earworm, but this time I'm actually not complaining. I even learned a couple of things myself.

Have eggs for breakfast.

Rat race.

Diana Ross won't stop! (In the name of love.)

We're all weird today.

Upper class.

World class.

Sleep beer, drunk get.

Sleep less, drink coffee.

Eating chocolate? Worth it.

I am eating chocolate.

In fact, one last post and then I think I've had enough. Internet discussions generally have a shelf life before pretty much everything has been said. And the more this goes on, the more likely it is to cause offence or distress to someone reading, which is absolutely not my intention. I notice that even though this is a very topical discussion, most people are staying well out, even though I'm sure very many are reading. I think I know why. We are all torn, understandably, between wanting to support trans people to live as their authentic selves without victimisation, and also wanting to support women to have athletic integrity in their sports. (And a lot of women, if I'm honest, are frightened to say what they think. I'm sure anyone who knows the Internet reasonably well will be aware that those people who do make abusive, violent-minded and highly sexualised online attacks when this subject is discussed have little trouble identifying women when they do.) We know that DSDs exist and there are rare cases when someone's sex is not easily determined by looking at them, even looking at them naked. It doesn't mean sex doesn't exist, any more than the existence of people with webbed or extra fingers means that humans are not a pentadactyl species. It's a rare variation from the typical, and sports bodies can write into their constitutions how they should be included in order to keep everything fair, with input from experts and people from the DSD community. (And the impression I get from people in this community who have written about it is that they are really tired of being pulled up in this debate as "proof" that sex doesn't exist or isn't plain to see in the overwhelming majority of people, including a great many of them. Many are offended by it.) Focusing on this DSD or that DSD doesn't alter the fact of sex, or the fact that DSDs can be included within a sporting constitution. Though I would posit that if we find XX natal females are frequently losing all or most medals to people with an XY DSD variation, that may be a sign that we should review the rules to make sure they are still fair. If an XY DSD alone gives a significant advantage over natal females, an XY male athlete with no DSD will have an even larger one. As before, if sex doesn't exist, why did Hubbard want to change classes after coming out as trans and how was the preferred class determined? DSDs are not relevant anyway in the question of whether it is fair, or safe, for a transwoman with no DSD to compete with natal women. It is a deflection and an obfuscation. The athletic male advantage is comprehensive. I suppose we could measure all athletes for every affected characteristic to segregate that way: bone density, skeleton size, muscle/fat ratio as a percentage of weight, fast twitch muscle, haemoglobin production, heart size, Q angle, lactic acid levels and so on, but it seems a grossly complex and massive task, and entirely unnecessary. I don't know how you would account for menstruation at all. We have already done the measuring for the sex based differences. They are comprehensive and demonstrable enough to justify the segregation. Why would you go through all of those to find your basis for segregation, but absolutely not go near the single most easily determinable, influential and comprehensive characteristic, for which you know which class will always hold the ultimate world record? The IOC did not consult women's sports bodies when determining that a trans woman athlete could compete as a woman as long as she got her testosterone (rocket fuel, apparently) down to under 10 nanomoles per litre, a level that would get a natal female disqualified for doping because it's nearly five times what she could expect to have. Androgen blockers affect performance but they do not reverse all the effects of male puberty or turn a man into a woman. I do not see how anyone could see 43 year old, recently injured Hubbard up there with ultimate female weightlifters 20 years younger as a worthy and equal contender, and not understand that it simply isn't fair or sporting. It's not on. It's just not cricket, as we say over here. And of course, gender identity is another matter entirely. It exists as a concept only because it's distinct from sex. I find this very liberating. Whatever body you were born with may affect how you compete in sports - women deserve fairness too - but it categorically does not affect how you wish to live, present or express your identity and self. (Although we do still need some words to differentiate between male and female people because there are times when it matters. I've been called a "bleeder", "menstruator" and "person with a cervix", and I'm not happy.) So yes. I'm tired now and I'm going to leave it there, but I hope this discussion has been useful for people. And I certainly hope it has not caused any offence. If it has, then I apologise, but this is important.

Like I said, DSDs are overrepresented in women's sports, and not men's. AIS can be complete or partial. It affects the development of an XY person who would otherwise be a typical male. In PAIS, testosterone does have some effect on development and genitals are externally ambiguous. In CAIS, it does not and genitals are female. Children with AIS may have fully or partially undescended male parts, but no uterus or ovaries. Doctors can usually discuss with parents the best way to raise their AIS child. But none of this proves that sex doesn't exist (it is a recognisable medical condition only because it does), or isn't clearly definable in almost everyone, or highly relevant in sports. As I've said before, several times, sports bodies are aware of DSDs and can write the rules, in connection with experts, to determine which DSD should come under which category. Alternatively, we could have an Open category if enough people would like that. Focusing on rare DSDs, which can be accounted for if the sports authority is willing to do the research and write the rules accordingly, is an obfuscation of the question of whether a male person with no DSD should be allowed to compete against females.

Then the patient's sex was indeed determinable, even if the staff made a mistake.

I've answered this question already, several times. Your reproductive class affects your entire build. And yes, it is easy enough to measure if someone is male or female. We've never had a problem with it when deciding who to send to war or who to send to the delivery room. Flame wars have erupted on here over people angry that someone lied to them in SL about which reproductive class they were. Everyone seemed to know the definition. As before, how did Hubbard know which contest to enter after coming out as trans? If you want a category that is equivalent to the women's, why not base it on whether people are female or not? If you want to measure legs or hearts, why would you not look at the clearest and most comprehensive measure of speed and strength? The measuring for that one is done. We know that men have more muscle, more haemoglobin, etc etc. We know they're faster. The strongest 10% of women can only beat the bottom 10% of men in hand grip. If a man and woman are the same height and weight, then assuming similarity in age, fitness etc, he will have more muscle and less fat. And he won't ever menstruate! Male and female bodies are comprehensively different at a class level, and certainly at elite level when everyone is in peak condition. I am sorry if some people don't like that, I'm not a massive fan of the fact myself in many ways (these labour injuries are horrible, you know), but it's true. It has no bearing on gender identity and how someone chooses to live and present, but when it comes to athletic ability and integrity, it matters. And it is not fair to women to claim that it doesn't.

Well, we have been told it was still women's weightlifting with Hubbard competing. I don't really understand why it's only ever women who are expected to accept the sex based disadvantage in their sports. If it's equivalent to a women's category, why can't you define and call it that? "Labelling" is not always a bad thing. Words have and need meanings. People need terms to define who they are, and enable you to identify them so you can see whether or not they're being treated fairly. That absolutely goes for trans people too. If we had no word for trans people, we couldn't recognise their existence. Weightlifting wasn't even an Olympic sport for women until 2000. If we don't have a word to identify and recognise women, how would we have recognised that female weightlifters couldn't compete as Olympians? Perhaps the solution is a male category for male people, a female category for female people and an Open category for anyone who, for whatever reason, does not wish to compete in their reproductive sex class. Might be because it is different to their gender identity, or it might be any other reason. I would be interested to see how many women choose it.

They are male. That's not my subjective opinion. It's the sex class of their bodies, with the DSD.

I've got a lot of sympathy for Semenya because her DSD does make her appear externally female, and she truly thought she was for a long time. Though she was often pulled aside while doing sports at school and taken off to be checked privately, because she was so atypical, so demonstrably different to the rest of her female class. Her DSD is 46 XY DSD, which is usually male. My understanding is that she is male by sex classification. As you say, she has a biological advantage. The other women who raced her noticed it. It is demonstrable. At the 2016 Summer Olympics women's 800 metres, Semenya took gold, Francine Niyonsaba took silver and Margaret Wambui took bronze. All three winners have a variation of XY DSD, and not Swyer's. Like I said earlier, DSDs are over represented in women's sports (not men's) as a percentage of how many people have them in the general population. Yes, I think this is amiss. If there really is no difference, why could they not compete in the men's category? I've seen people say we should categorise on leg length or heart size or whatever, and I truly, truly cannot see why it would be OK to segregate based on these characteristics, but not natal sex, when natal sex is the most obvious, dimorphic and comprehensive difference between any group of athletes. Menstruation alone should be enough to warrant it. Men and women are similar enough in that we are all categorically human (and the existence of people born, say, without fully developed legs does not mean humans are not a bipedal species). They are also categorically different enough to have two distinct and classifiable reproductive sex classes that DO make a difference to athletic ability, to the point where we would have no woman champions if we don't make the distinction. Hormone imbalances etc can occur but they don't make you change sex. A woman with PCOS is not a man. Of course you get masculine women and feminine men and that's great. But it makes no difference to the reality of comprehensive male athletic advantage when competing like for like (and often when not, like Hubbard). Well yes, because your body functioning a certain way is literally what sex is. Male or female. You may find that limiting, well, I find my permanent labour injuries limiting, but playing with semantics won't change their reality, nor the fact they could not possibly occur in a male body. How you have been raised your whole life sometimes matters, but in a test of speed and strength, athletic integrity states that physical reality needs to come first. It's just not fair to women otherwise. But this is precisely why I think understanding that sex is merely reproductive class is liberating. In some cases, it matters. Fair competition in athletics is one of them. Gender roles? Doesn't mean a thing. You can dress how you like, have any dynamic in your relationships, have any interests (we had a trans woman at my old burlesque class and she was great fun), whatever. But the physical difference is there, and sometimes - sometimes - it matters.

I'm not sure, but I think it may have something to do with how the funding works.

Incidentally, the blogs and spokespeople from the DSD community that I've read about give a consensus that people with DSDs are generally fed up with being dragged into this as "proof" that sex doesn't exist. I know I would be. And I don't see what the relevance is anyway if we are talking about people who don't have a DSD.

Swyer's syndrome is a rare condition in which a female body has XY chromosomes. The Y chromosome effectively doesn't work. People with Swyer's syndrome are female. They have a uterus, tubes and female genitalia, they just lack functioning ovaries. Lacking functioning ovaries isn't a medical condition in a male body. As I said, DSDs are classifiable to male or female and the rules could lay out which DSD belongs in which class. I happen to know someone with Swyer's syndrome who gets very hurt and offended at the idea that she is somehow not female.

Well, the fact that they determine one's reproductive class and, therefore, the many ways in which it will differ from the other one. Sperm are produced by male bodies which are comprehensively different to female ones (and believe it or not, this didn't used to be a controversial statement. Historically, when we have been trying to decide who to send to war or whom to deny a vote, we have not found the distinction hard to make.). A male body that has gone through male puberty not only produces sperm, it also produces significantly more testosterone, more muscle/fast twitch muscle, a bigger heart, more haemoglobin, a different gait because of the hips, and so on. Because it is designed for a completely different reproductive purpose than a female one. And, overall, a bigger skeleton, but I tend not to mention that one because then people say "but tall women!" as if tall women are men. The end result is a body that has such a comprehensive athletic advantage over a female one that is comparable for age and fitness etc (and probably many that aren't; you may find yourself world class at 43 after injury and blockers, even when pitted against totally fit women 20 years younger), that it is unfair, unsporting and often unsafe to compete them together. It is pure sophistry to attempt to reduce it down to "this one body bit". However, if you don't think it makes any difference, then one might ask why Hubbard wanted to compete in the women's contest. Or how we managed to work out which contest was the women's one for Hubbard to go into.

The reproductive sex class of your body at birth. Male: the class capable of producing sperm. Female: the class capable of producing ova. There are some rare people with differences of sexual development but they are still classifiable as male or female; it might require a deeper look than simply glancing at their genitals, but it is still determinable. And there are conditions that can interfere with a body's ability to produce sperm or ova, but that doesn't stop the body being of the reproductive class capable of producing those gametes. Not ovulating, for example, is a medical condition only if it occurs within a female body. None of this means that a man or woman has to follow any particular gender stereotypes, which is quite liberating.

Short answer: yes. Long answer: It is a disingenuous, oversimplified, facile, leading and loaded question, and I think everyone knows that. (Have you stopped beating your wife?) Nobody should be in any way persecuted or victimised for who they are. I will use any name or pronoun you desire, and support you in living authentically to yourself without oppression. However, there are times when the physical body parts you were born with do matter, because it is not just about you. And it is not about "society", or "limiting". At a class level, with exceptions too rare to be in any way significant, a male born body that has gone through male puberty has such a comprehensive athletic advantage over an otherwise equivalent female one (muscle and fat ratio, fast twitch muscle, haemoglobin production, heart size, gait and standing due to hip structure, to name but a few) that it is simply unfair and unsporting - and sometimes downright dangerous - to pit them against each other in competitions. Even after taking androgen blockers...and I'll remind you that the IOC's testosterone limit for transwomen athletes is still several times the amount found in any natal female. In fact, it is a level that would get a natal woman disqualified for doping. Menstruation alone is an issue that only natally female athletes have to handle. If we do not segregate sports by natal sex, there will be no women champions. And if that's not limiting people to the physical body parts they were born with, I don't know what is. Hubbard can compete. Hubbard competed for many years, fairly. Hubbard, a middling national level athlete as a fit young man, is apparently world class at 43, after injury, after androgen blockers, when placed against natal women at their physical peak. How can anyone think that is fair? Hubbard has not been limited by body parts any more than any other athlete who has reached the natural end of their competitive years. Is the ageing process also limiting people to their body parts? Segregating sports by sex does not stop anyone competing. (Yes, even those rare people with differences of sexual development, who actually are over-represented in, you guessed it, women's sports. DSDs are still classifiable to a certain natal sex, and it would not be hard to write the rules to set out where an athlete with a particular DSD should stand.) It is inclusive of women and enables them to compete fairly. A female athlete who wants a child has to choose whether to risk compromising her athletic prowess, because of the toll it could take on her body. (I have permanent injuries from traumatic labour. Lucky I'm not an athlete.) Yet nobody would complain that she is being "limited to her body parts" or that she shouldn't have to choose. They accept, as she would, that she will just have to make a choice due to the nature - the natal sex - of her body. I could go on, and to be honest I'm tempted. But I won't. I haven't said everything I could or would like to say, but I hope I've said enough. And I won't say it on Twitter, because frankly I'm too scared. Not of a debate, but of an extremely hostile and abusive response that will most certainly limit me to the physical body parts I was born with.

Er....being more or less likely to be true is a very valid basis on which to make any statement at all. The suggestion is long running, that's a fact. You don't have to believe it. This conversation is giving me a headache and reads like an attempt to deflect the actual issue at hand.