Semenya is an in­cred­ibly powerful runner from South Africa, a two-time Olympic champion. She has also been the subject of controversy since the beginning of her career over decade ago.

Semenya has an intersex condition, though she doesn’t publicly speak about it: Her body allegedly produces testosterone at a higher level than most women.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that if Semenya wanted to continue to compete, she would be required to take medications to lower it.
The CAS, which was upholding a previous ruling by the @WorldAthletics , admitted that the decision was tantamount to discrimination. But, a statement read,...
“discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics.”
So let’s get down to brass tacks. What is a “reasonable and proportionate” amount of testosterone for Caster Semenya’s body to possess? Luckily for us, the IAAF offered specifics: “Below 5 nmol/L.”
I am sure many people turned to Google — “nmol” is the abbreviation for “nanomole,” which is one-billionth of a mole, which is a unit of measurement.
And so, for those who think you have immediate and correct feelings about this ruling, I guess I have one clarifying question:

Precisely how many nanomoles of testosterone are in your blood?
The CAS ruling is based on the idea that gender can be measured, that it exists in a vial.
The court seems to buy into the concept that there are exactly two genders, and that there’s a bright line dividing them: If Caster Semenya has 4.99 nanomoles of testosterone per liter, the “integrity of female athletics” will be preserved, but at 5.01, it won’t.
So, if you were forced to submit to a testosterone test, would you bet your livelihood and your identity on the hope that your measurements would turn up on the correct side of the line?
If they didn’t, would you alter your identity based on this new data — or might you argue that your personhood was more than a number?

Most women have never been forced to submit to such a test; most of us are quite sure we know who we are without one.
How should athletes who are born with hormonal differences be allowed to participate in the world?
If a higher-than-normal level of testosterone makes someone excel in certain pursuits, do we then dictate that they have to stay away from those pursuits — that they can only do things they suck at?
I guess I’ve now asked more than one question. But they’re the questions that I think we all should be wrestling with, as we decide who deserves protection, and who deserves dignity, and how both should be parceled out.
The CAS has couched its decision as the best of bad options, made in the name of protecting women. But it doesn’t seem to be about protecting women.
It seems to be about protecting a specific idea of what it means to be a woman. About protecting some women, just not the ones who look like Caster Semenya.
We could talk about the medieval-sounding “sex verification test” that Semenya was first forced to undergo in 2009, and how the details of it were murky, and how it’s hard to imagine such a test as anything other than humiliating.
“I have been subjected to unwarranted and invasive scrutiny of the most intimate and private details of my being,” she said at the time.
We could talk about all the prurient, invasive, and frequently racist ways we have talked about Caster Semenya over the past 12 years.

“It is clear that she is a woman but maybe not 100 percent,” Pierre Weiss, then-secretary general of the IAFF, said of her in 2011.
He didn’t specify how it was clear, or whom it was clear to, or what percentage of womanhood he was willing to give her.
Most of all, we could talk about what it means to be a woman. And what it means to insist someone is not a woman. And why Michael Phelps was treated like a marvel, and Caster Semenya is treated like a mutant.
@threadreaderapp please unroll

More from Kirsti Miller

There is little understanding within Australian society of the requirement to and legitimacy of adopting special measures.


Government policy does not acknowledge the applicability to Indigenous people of the right to self-determination. In 1997 the cruel Howard government actively rejected self- determination as the basis of Indigenous policy.

Key reports which make recommendations for redressing Indigenous disadvantage, including the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and Bringing them home, .....

the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, have ’NOT’  been fully implemented.

Many recommendations, particularly those concerning the application of the principle of self-determination, have been actively rejected.
”No child should ever be forced to live a life that is not theirs, I did and it nearly killed me many times.”


It appears that every time an under-age Transgender person attempts to access medical care to make their lives better conservative people try to say they’re not ready for it.


As an older transgender woman who waited until I my mid 30’s due to those same prevailing attitudes, I feel it’s sad right-wing people are still trotting out those same tired old lines.

According to them, we’re too young to know our gender pre-pubescent and when we start undergoing a puberty which doesn’t align with our gender identity apparently we’re still far too young to access puberty blockers to make the masculinisation process go away.

These people only want us to access medical care after the age of 18 and that’s when it’s far too late for many Trans women, as the whole masculinisation process [which we didn’t want in the first place] has already happened.

More from Sport

When thinking about who to play in DM for Leeds the word "role" is important. Let's have a think about the role:


A lot of people think Struijk isn't good enough in the build-up phase. Well, what does the DM do in build-up?

Here's a passing network from last season:


As you can see, Phillips' role in the Championship last season was largely facilitating build up in the wide area (on the left interestingly).

Per Wyscout, Phillips is putting up a figure of 7.03 long passes per 90 minutes and completes around 59%. Last season he was making 6.94 long passes per 90 mins at around 52%.

Per dribbles he's putting up similar numbers across both seasons (between 1 and 1.5 p90) and per duels he's putting up the same number (20 p90).

All of this suggests his role hasn't changed much over the last couple of seasons.

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THREAD: 12 Things Everyone Should Know About IQ

1. IQ is one of the most heritable psychological traits – that is, individual differences in IQ are strongly associated with individual differences in genes (at least in fairly typical modern environments). https://t.co/3XxzW9bxLE


2. The heritability of IQ *increases* from childhood to adulthood. Meanwhile, the effect of the shared environment largely fades away. In other words, when it comes to IQ, nature becomes more important as we get older, nurture less.
https://t.co/UqtS1lpw3n


3. IQ scores have been increasing for the last century or so, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. https://t.co/sCZvCst3hw (N ≈ 4 million)

(Note that the Flynn effect shows that IQ isn't 100% genetic; it doesn't show that it's 100% environmental.)


4. IQ predicts many important real world outcomes.

For example, though far from perfect, IQ is the single-best predictor of job performance we have – much better than Emotional Intelligence, the Big Five, Grit, etc. https://t.co/rKUgKDAAVx https://t.co/DWbVI8QSU3


5. Higher IQ is associated with a lower risk of death from most causes, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, most forms of cancer, homicide, suicide, and accident. https://t.co/PJjGNyeQRA (N = 728,160)