What defines gender?

[Tobra]

I am a DPM not an MD

Perhaps Dixie would be so kind as to point out how I have disparaged anyone.

You did not respond to anything I actually said. It appears your response may be colored by your own biases, n'est pas?

[Cloggie]

Originally Posted by Tobra

It is dangerous for the XX person to step in the ring for martial combat with an XY person, in almost every case

XY genetics is male. The expression of secondary sexual characteristics is dependent on their gonadal function.

I do not know what the IOC, or whoever makes the rules for the Olympics is using as criteria, but I know I do not agree with what they used.

Spot on....

As for whatever people want to do with their bodies and how they want to dress up, have at it....once you are an adult defined as being over age 18. I reserve the right to laugh.

How I address people is completely my choice....no one picks my words for me and no one tells me what I should call anything. I will make my own determination at all times.....

As for Olympics or sport. Definition ought to be XX's compete with each other, XY's compete with each other and zero other choices.

D.

[Sooner or later]

She ain't no Mike Tyson.

She has had 50 womens amateur fights. She has a 13.51% knock out rate. She has lost 9 of those 50. Not a single one of her opponents has died.
https://boxrec.com/en/box-am/899786

I still think she has an unfair advantage and shouldn't be boxing against women.

[unclebilly]

Originally Posted by Targa68

I say this is nothing but all BS. Where the hell are all these freaks coming from. It's time to clean up this Country. Six more months and we'll start cleaning up this cesspool. The best is yet to come.

My god.

Do you even understand that being born with a vagina and XY chromosomes is not a choice? This is a birth defect that most of these girls don’t even know they have until puberty. These are not freaks. I think you should read up on this condition and reevaluate your position on this.

To answer your incorrectly punctuated question, these ‘freaks’ (your words) are born that way. The odds are 1/21000.

[aschen]

One thing is clear they shouldn't let that genetic freak simone biles compete. 4'8" hope they have checked her for every condition that could lead to such an improbable healthy height.


The only thing I am sure of, is not to trust anybody who is sure on this issue.

[masraum]

I don't know about this particular boxer past what I've seen in this thread or what I found in the link below. It certainly doesn't sound like the boxer is a monster with a wildly unfair advantage.

https://apnews.com/article/olympics-2024-imane-khelif-boxing-paris-2eb07d442ffb29a61e09911884dcdaa9

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has landed in the middle of a divide about gender in sports after her Italian competitor, Angela Carini, pulled out seconds into their bout at the Paris Olympics.

Outcry has come from conservatives like former U.S. President Donald Trump and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni. Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing unspecified and untransparent eligibility tests for women’s competition from the now-banned International Boxing Association.

Khelif was assigned female at birth and it says so on her passport, which is the International Olympic Committee’s threshold for eligibility for boxing because of the rift between the sport’s governing body and the IOC.

Khelif is a formidable athlete with respected fighting skills, contending in top international events — including major amateur boxing tournaments over the past six years, such as the Tokyo Olympics. She’s won a few regional gold medals.

But Khelif was decidedly not known as a dominant champion, an overpowering force or even a particularly hard puncher at her weight — not until this week in Paris.

Khelif defeated Carini in just 46 seconds Thursday, with the Italian boxer’s tearful abandonment of the fight leading to innumerable portrayals of Khelif as an unstoppable punching machine whose presence threatens the health of her opponents.

The reality, to those who actually watch or participate in Olympic-style boxing, is quite different. Here’s what to know about Khelif and the controversy:
Who is Imane Khelif?

Born in 1999, Khelif is from rural northwestern Algeria. Her father initially didn’t approve of girls participating in boxing, but Khelif said she gave up soccer as a teenager to pursue her new passion, even though she had to travel 10 kilometers each way to the gym.

Khelif eventually caught the attention of Algeria’s national team, making her major tournament debut in 2018 with a first-round loss at the AIBA — now the International Boxing Association — world championships. She lost five of her first six elite-level bouts, but improved and excelled.

Khelif was one of Algeria’s first three Olympic women’s boxers sent to Tokyo three years ago. She won her opening bout but lost her second to eventual gold medalist Kellie Harrington of Ireland.

She also raised her profile by doing well in the next two world championships, and she even became a UNICEF national ambassador early this year.

Why was she disqualified from the world championships?

Khelif reached the final of the 2023 world championships before she was abruptly disqualified by the IBA, which cited high levels of testosterone in her system. The circumstances of that disqualification have been considered highly unusual ever since it happened, and Khelif called it “a big conspiracy” at the time.

She had previously competed without issues and was disqualified by the sport’s governing body only after she defeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva in the 2023 tournament. The IBA is controlled by Umar Kremlev, who is Russian and brought in the state-owned energy supplier Gazprom as its primary sponsor and moved much of the governing body’s operations to Russia.

This week, the IOC described it as “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA” in which Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan “were suddenly disqualified without any due process.” Lin was suspended for failing to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.

The reasons for the two disqualifications are extremely murky, as is almost always the case with the IBA. The governing body has revealed little about the nature of the tests, including what was tested and who tested it. This lack of transparency would be unacceptable in major Olympic sports, and the IBA has been banned from the Olympics since 2019.

The IOC noted Thursday that the boxing association’s own documents say the decision was made unilaterally by the IBA’s secretary general. Those documents also say the IBA went on to resolve at a meeting that it should “establish a clear procedure on gender testing” after it had already disqualified the two fighters.

Why is there outcry about Khelif competing?

Trump, Meloni and others like “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling have complained about Khelif being allowed to compete.

For the political far-right in Italy, which has been targeting issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, Khelif’s participation was just the latest evidence of “woke” culture infecting sport. Meloni, who met Friday with IOC President Thomas Bach, warned “ideology” taken to extremes can discriminate and harm women’s rights.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams told reporters Friday that there has been “a lot of misinformation around on social media particularly, which is damaging.”

Boxing in Paris is being run by a special IOC-appointed unit that the Olympic body says is applying rules, including eligibility decisions, that are based on the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro following the split with the sports governing body.

The IOC insisted this week that no scientific or political consensus exists on gender and fairness issues. It gave updated guidance to sports governing bodies in 2021.

Several sports bodies have updated their eligibility rules since the Tokyo Olympics were held in 2021, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union. They all decided to bar athletes from women’s events who have transitioned from male to female and went through male puberty.

World Athletics also tightened rules last year to include testosterone testing for some athletes legally identified as female at birth though with a medical condition that leads to some male traits.

Carini’s unusual actions aside — she later apologized for not shaking Khelif’s hand after the bout and told an Italian newspaper that “all this controversy makes me sad” — it’s highly unlikely anyone else in the women’s 66-kilogram division thinks Khelif is unfightable.

“I’m not scared,” her next opponent, Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary, said Thursday. They will face off Saturday. “I don’t care about the story or social media.”

Khelif is a medal contender in a sport where the Olympic draw can often determine the semifinal field by randomly pitting top fighters against each other too early in the competition.

But Khelif isn’t yet considered to be at the level of defending Olympic champion Busenaz Surmeneli of Turkey or 2023 world champion Yang Liu of China, the top two seeds in Paris.

What do other fighters think about Khelif?

Opinions about Khelif’s presence in Paris have ranged widely, often directly correlated with awareness of the news cycle raging outside the athletes’ village.

Marissa Williamson Pohlman of Australia lost to Khelif in the Netherlands last May, and she said Khelif was particularly strong.

“I did notice it, but you just keep fighting, though, don’t you?” Williamson Pohlman said. “It’s just a part of the sport. All you want to do is win, so you just keep chucking punches.”

Khelif also received support from peers like Amy Broadhurst, the accomplished Irish amateur who beat Khelif in the 2022 IBA world championships.

“Personally I don’t think she has done anything to ‘cheat,’” Broadhurst wrote on social media. “I (think) it’s the way she was born & that’s out of her control. The fact that she has been (beaten) by 9 females before says it all.”

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

That is a very insightful post and not how I looked at this before.

Thank you, kind sir.

It’s what I try to do.

[Tobra]

The fact that nobody has actually died yet does not mean all is well with this nonsense.

This is not the same thing as the transgender issue, but it presents a very similar problem. How many young women will have to be crippled or killed before it stops?

[Alan A]

Originally Posted by Dixie

Read the AP new story I linked. The athlete was banned from a prior event based on testosterone levels.

The IOC and World Boxing, who have done testing, say she's not trans. A man in CA, based on nothing, claims she's a he.

The problem is, you're disparaging a person you've never met, with inaccurate information your bias created.

You saw this right?

https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/articles/cye0ex43k63o


The Russian-led IBA said Khelif "failed to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women's competition, as set and laid out in the IBA regulations".

According to the IBA's regulations: "Boxers will compete against boxers of the same gender, meaning women vs women and men vs men as per the definitions of these rules.

The IBA defines a woman, female or girl as "an individual with chromosome XX" and men, males or boys as "an individual with chromosome XY".

The IBA denied Khelif's testosterone levels had been tested.

===

There’s also another article in somewhere fairly reputable that says a genetic test was done and it detected XY chromosomes. Too lazy to trawl for it.

The best part of this is the idea that it is a woman that defends the right of men to beat up women. No wonder this has been allowed to spread…

[fintstone]

The IOC did not test. They claim they will accept whatever sex is on one's passport. The IBA did test.

[Rawknees'Turbo]

The topic here is remarkably simple and only made complex by those who are not familiar with the realities of fighting/combat sports, or maybe reality in general.

When the goal of the sport is to defeat your opponent by way of delivering more damage than one receives, the playing field must be as level as possible to be even remotely fair and reasonably safe ; this includes such things as weight, sex/gender (one in the same to me, in this context), and skill level (such as, you will not see a reginal beginner in MMA given the go-ahead to fight on a UFC card where he or she will needlessly suffer humiliation and likely some life altering injuries - same goes for the lesser sport of boxing - Higgins, are you there?!?! ).

This is why it is absurd to sanction cross-sex fighting events, via transgender or mutation at the hands of Mother Nature, in the name of inclusion, social activism, etc. Like I noted in the Olympics thread in PARF, a fighting sport is not the platform to accommodate metal or physical abnormalities, when the opponents well being will be under greater threat than is acceptable under normal circumstances in that sport.

[unclebilly]

Originally Posted by Rawknees'Turbo

The topic here is remarkably simple and only made complex by those who are not familiar with the realities of fighting/combat sports, or maybe reality in general.

This isn’t about sports… it’s about what makes a boy a boy and a girl a girl…

The controversy in Paris merely brings it to the forefront.

If you had a child born with a vagina, and when that child turned 15 still hadn’t had a period, you got some testing done and a cat scan and discovered that your child has no ovaries or uterus… a subsequent blood test shows the XY chromosome… is your child a boy or a girl? That’s the question at play here.

[Rawknees'Turbo]

^^^

Sorry, I got wrapped up in the sports part of it and forgot the actual subject of your thread.

I do not know the answer to that, however - certainly a trouble thing to consider/think about.

[Sooner or later]

[fintstone]

While a person with XY chromosomes that identifies as a woman might well be considered a woman, in the context of sports, she should be considered much like a heavyweight wanting to compete in a bantam weight class or an adult wanting to play little league. Ineligible. Otherwise, you essentially end the ability for women to compete on sports (just as allowing those born male to play women's sports). There is a reason why there are different categories (that are not entirely social). It is also why doping/drug enhancement should not be allowed.

[Dixie]

Originally Posted by Alan A

The best part of this is the idea that it is a woman that defends the right of men to beat up women. No wonder this has been allowed to spread…

I read your post, and this is what I hear. She looks manly, so she must be trans. I swear, if that boxer looked like Cheryl Tiegs you'd be singing her praises.

I do agree with Tobra that this isn't about trans, but it's similar. The question becomes, at what point does someone's anomalies become unfair? No one claims it's unfair to be a tall basketball player. And no one claims it's unfair that Mark Spitz produced half the lactic acid of other athletes. Yet a female born boxer with male attributes is unfair. Why is that one unfair, and not the other two?

Maybe the solution is an athlete's anomalies can't be unique to less than 1% of the population. I wonder how many athletes that would eliminate?

Perhaps the best solution is to have this forum review photos of all athletes. Any men that look too girly, and women that look too manly, are immediately disqualified. Gender be damned.

PS, I'm tired of the women's safety canard. Boxing is broken into classes to minimize disparities, including gender.

[fintstone]

I really don't understand the trans argument as no one has advanced that here...unless that just makes your position easier to argue.

Yes, size does matter in basketball and football...and gives very tall, large players an advantage. Of course, an 8ft basketball player is essentially unfair to 5 ft tall players. Those sports (and controlling bodies) have decided to accept the disparity that essentially excludes smaller folks at high levels of play. Of course, a female that has been born with male attributes is unfair in many sports.

Boxing has not normally allowed men or women with male attributes (XY), nor has the controlling body for boxing (which disqualified these two women). The IOC decided to do so on their own to make a political statement (knowing these two were disqualified by the IBA). Yes, allowing men (or women with male attributes) is incredibly dangerous to women as males have far, far superior striking power/ability. It is generally why women and men compete separately (that and women would rarely win (or even make it to the Olympics if the competed with men).

[Alan A]

Originally Posted by Dixie

I read your post, and this is what I hear. She looks manly, so she must be trans. I swear, if that boxer looked like Cheryl Tiegs you'd be singing her praises.

Then I suggest adult literacy classes. And something to remove the chip on your shoulder.


I pasted that the IBA found XY chromosomes. By every definition known that makes this person a man. That’s simple genetics, nothing to do with looks.

[Dixie]

Originally Posted by fintstone

Boxing has not normally allowed men or women with male attributes (XY), nor has the controlling body for boxing (which disqualified these two women).

Honest question, where did you read that these boxers are intersex? I googled the question, and to my surprise can only find that they're *not* intersexed.

I'd also appreciate your sharing any references to the testing the IBF performed. Like you, I read the IBF ruled they're not females, but I also read repeatedly the IBF lacked transparency on how they decided. That very lack of transparency is why the IOC now relies on WB, and not the IBF.

[Rusty Heap]

The answer is simple really. Male Sports if you have an Outty, Female Sports if you have an Inny, and a "other" unlimited class where you can run whatever yah brung.