Nearly a generation ago, when the then 18-year-old South African runner Casta Semenya dominated female competitors in races and sparked questions about “her” sexual status, I predicted:
Medical tests will likely reveal that Semenya has internal testes.
The test results came back and confirmed that this was indeed the case: Semenya has the XY (male) genotype, meaning she has neither a uterus nor ovaries.
However, in recent reports, the runner has simply been reported as having “high testosterone levels from birth,” and no one knows this. Although hermaphroditism is certainly not normal, it is “natural.”
A similar controversy is currently brewing around Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Kherif, especially after one of her opponents, Italy's Angela Carini, withdrew from a bout with Kherif, screaming, “This is not fair!” Only now, defenders of willful neglect have a new strategy: the race card. As the Associated Press reported yesterday, “For women athletes of color, scrutiny of gender norms and identities is part of a long-running trend,” perhaps also of media misdirection.
For the record, here's what I wrote about Semenya back in 2009: “I am convinced this is a boy who has had intrauterine growth abnormalities… judging by his masculine build, deep voice, facial hair development, masculine mannerisms, and the fact that he is winning races by large margins.” It wasn't a hard call: “If he walks like a duck,” they say.
To be fair, Kherif is less masculine than Semenya, as evidenced by video and audio recordings, and has not dominated female opponents as thoroughly as the South African. However, the International Boxing Association (IBA) previously barred Kherif and fellow Olympic boxer Lin Yu-ting from competition from Taiwan. The IBA said the two boxers had failed gender identity tests and were widely reported to be of the XY genotype.
One response to this is that the IBA, now led by a Russian and recently funded by a Russian company, cannot be trusted because of these connections. Sound familiar? “Hunter Biden laptop is Russian disinformation,” anyone?
Since Donald Trump rose to the political upper hand, demonizing Russia has become a convenient propaganda tool, especially since Moscow invaded Ukraine. But this strategy, called the ad hominem fallacy (attacking the person who delivered a message instead of addressing the message), is misleading.
Anyway, on to the Associated Press story: “Algerian boxer Imane Kherif left the ring overcome with emotion and in tears after a crushing victory this weekend,” the paper's reporter Noreen Nassir wrote yesterday. “Kherif has faced hateful comments and false accusations about his gender in the days since his opening bout against an Italian opponent that he withdrew from within seconds of the bout.”
“'Because she's African, because she's Algerian,'” Adel Mohamed, a 38-year-old Algerian fan, said on Saturday as Kherif won her Olympic medal,” Nasir continued. “'These comments come from white people… it's a form of racism.'”
(By the way, Algerians are Arabs, and Arabs are technically Caucasian, just like Europeans.)
Of course, one could argue that if ad hominem attacks are commonplace, Nasir and Mohammed must be prejudiced, and perhaps they are, but what is the truth?
Assuming that non-Western women have indeed been at the center of most of these sexual identity debates, and this certainly seems to be the case, there is another explanation: “The problem may not be discrimination,” American Thinker suggested yesterday. “Western doctors may be better trained and better equipped, and therefore more adept at spotting sex-based genetic abnormalities.”
“Perhaps that's because poor people in Africa, parts of Asia and the Middle East lack the medical care to quickly identify illnesses in their children,” the site continues. “For example, if their 'daughter' stops menstruating, a Western doctor might do an MRI and discover that she has no ovaries or uterus, but instead undescended testes.”
Also, be aware that unlike in the United States, where abnormal conditions are now often celebrated, there may be a strong stigma attached to such conditions in third world countries, which may hinder the investigation of suspected cases of hermaphroditism.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) claims that officials say Khelif is definitely a “woman.” But is this a reassuring statement coming from people who can't define “woman” and who insist that “men menstruate” and that “identity” is real? Note that the IOC does not conduct its own sexual identity test, as this would now be deemed inappropriate.
But let's consider an analogy: In combat sports, there are weight classes, so like any boxer, Kheriff must undergo a “weight test” before a fight. And if a self-conscious fighter looks heavier than the others, would we respect his “feelings” and refuse to weigh in?
The idea that sex testing is irrelevant in sports implicitly includes the idea that gender distinctions are irrelevant in sports. But if that is true, then we should get rid of it and have men and women compete together. But if it is relevant in the same way that weight is, then testing it in the same way that weight is.
It is clear that Kherif, like Semenya, suffers from some degree of hermaphroditism. Of course, this term is now considered counter to common sense. The politically correct now call such people “intersex”. Just to be clear, I believe that everyone is either male or female, and that “intersex” people are simply men or women who have experienced abnormal sexual development. Either way, the “intersex” theory (which holds that there are more than two sexes) only strengthens the case for the exclusion of Kherif and Lin Yuting.
After all, women's sports are made for and limited to women, therefore making any other gender ineligible, be it male, third gender, or any other gender.
Some may point out that Kalief and Lin did not get to choose their terms and ask, “Is this fair?”
No, that's not fair. But that's because life isn't fair: one person is born with a potential IQ of 130, while another person is born with a potential IQ of only 88. But unlike life, human laws and rules should be as fair as humanly possible, and this can only happen if fair rules are actually enforced across the board.
What were the consequences of not doing so? “All three 2016 Olympic women's 800m medalists are believed to be intersex,” LetsRun.com wrote in 2019. So what does all this mean? If we follow the example of a Canadian man who in 2015 was “living his life as a six-year-old girl,” then surely we should allow our peers to be identified as and compete against children (see relevant and humorous Seinfeld clip below).
Failure to enforce fair rules makes a mockery of what rules are supposed to govern, whether that be women's sports or our entire civilization.
