Read a very long article here on the BBC’s website last week. In essence, it is a thinly-disguised apologia for the IOC’s decision to allow Imane Khelif to compete in women’s boxing despite being banned by the International Boxing Association (IBA), which governs amateur boxing. Is the chromosome test conducted by the IBA, which apparently showed up as XY, valid is the gist of the article. In other words it is a BBC article.
Well, if there is any doubt why doesn’t the IOC do another DNA test under disinterested expert supervision. That might be the answer.
Mark Adams, IOC talking head, said at a press conference that Khelif “was born female.” Does that mean what it used to mean these days? Adams redundantly added that Khelif was recorded as female on her birth certificate and passport. Did she present with a normal vagina, is the operative question. The usual obvious indication of femaleness. Of course, Adams would not know. How could he know, he wasn’t there. But let us say Khelif has the body parts of a normal female. She might still be XY.
If a person’s bodily appearance is female but ‘her’ sex chromosome is XY then the person has what is called Swyer syndrome. There is also the rare occurrence of a person being born with the genitalia of both sexes. It goes without saying. No one should face unfair discrimination on the basis of their physical make-up. The operative term is unfair.
Pardon me for thinking that it is not unfair to prevent people with male genetic characteristics of any sort from beating up women. Let us always err on the side of allowing “intersex” people to only compete in the men’s side of sports. Then there is no issue. Wokesters pipe down, we have biological women to protect.
It was feminists in the 1970s who invoked the notion of ‘gender’ as distinct from sex, with sex being biological and ‘gender’ being social and negotiable, in order to get around the research showing biologically based differences between the sexes.
Feminists are now in the process of being hoist by their own petard.
(Note: Petard—a case containing an explosive to break down a door or gate or breach a wall. A most appropriate metaphor.)
Of course, one of the unspoken rules of feminism is that when women have a problem then men must step in to fix it. So, for example, back in 2019 Kara Dansky, self-styled radical feminist lawyer and co-founder of the radical Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) said that men must stand up for women (you know, the same women who can do anything a man can do, only better) and denounce the transgender movement.
Given that, as Gloria Steinem told us, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, surely we should let the feminists deal with a problem of their own devising.
The way out it clear and simple: admit that ‘gender’ is bunkum and that sex is real. Until the sisterhood does that your ‘protection’ will be less of women and more of the repressive and authoritarian feminist dystopia that threatens to engulf us all, men and women.
Why non-feminists and self-identifying conservatives and liberals (in the J.S. Mill/Australian sense and not the American misuse of the term) and want to intervene with rules and structures to save feminists from the consequences of their own ideological choices and so preserve and conserve an inherently illiberal and authoritarian movement intent on denying freedom to everyone else is curious, to say the least.
Aren’t ‘women doin’ it for themselves’?
Wokesters pipe down, we have biological women to protect.
Exactly.
Nice to hear someone say “Medicine is knowledge, it is not opinion”.
International Boxing Association Fires Back at IOC in Row over Gender Tests: ‘This Boxer Is Male’ (5 Aug)
At the heart of this whole issue is objective truth vs subjective truth. And that in turn goes right back to Genesis 3:4-5 when humans rejected the source of objective truth.
Intersex women would not get very far in men’s sports. They would be hindered against the best biological men just as they are advantaged against the best biological women. They should compete if at all in special trans and intersex categories, which would not suit the Olympics but which might fit into the Para-Olympics. They are disabled and should recognise this. I suspect that without the easy ride of claiming to be female many would not pursue competition at elite levels.
I’m not prepared to comment on these specific individuals, because I don’t know the exact nature of their biology, but I do wish we would finally ditch the appropriated, single-word label ‘feminist’ as a symbol of universal female advocacy.
The present wave of ‘feminists’ are an exclusive, self-perceived elite clique who advocate for Western, First-World, left-leaning, upper middle class women ONLY. Themselves, in other words. They have appropriated the term ‘feminism’ from their forebears for the moral bling it provides.
While there are individuals and organisations who advocate for Third-World women in regards to FGM, child marriages, education for girls, etc., they are generally small, poorly resourced affairs staffed by a handful of passionate volunteers.
The P.R. status and financial clout of celebrities could contribute a great deal to these organisations attempting to deal with real issues, but they don’t. Policy makers could also contribute (it’s Opm, so why not?), but they don’t.
Why not? Because it doesn’t feed the Mean Girls, The faux-Gucci Clique, the Nipple Narcissists.
Going to paint yourselves into a corner.
It’s such a mish mash of ideas that there is no concrete answer, but if this continues, in a few years you’re will be sick of hearing “See, men CAN have babies”.
https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/more-women-than-expected-are-genetically-men/
Trying again…
A rare case where telling someone to go f*ck themselves is merely a matter of logistics
“Wokesters pipe down, we have biological women to protect.
Exactly.”
Men need to know that this is what women WANT them to do.
The Italian boxer who got snotted didn’t complain about having to fight a man, she wished her opponent well, hoping that “she” had a good competition etc.
If you want men to support you against such unfairness, those most directly affected need to speak up against it – and most don’t. Most “support” such “trans” competitors. There are a few exceptions, but not many.
If you think it’s unfair, make some more noise – happy to support you, but why should I when you’re just as likely to “cancel” me and call me “unkind”, “trans-phobic” etc, or stay silent when the radical left do it? I’m not gonna throw myself under the bus on principle if the ones I’m trying to help are driving the bus and will gladly run me over.
Australia should go all in and stack our womens teams with chaps. This would then get us a stonking bag of gold medals and show the numpties how stupid the whole thing is. You can bet ole Kim Jung Un has his brains trust working on it.