When then-18-year-old South African runner Caster Semenya was dusting female competition in races and arousing suspicion about “her” sexual status almost a generation ago, I made a prediction:
Medical tests would determine that Semenya had internal testes.
Sure enough, this was the case, examination results showed upon coming to light. Furthermore, Semenya was found to have an XY (male) genotype and also no womb or ovaries.
You wouldn’t know it, though, from recent years’ reporting, with outlets merely describing the runner as having “naturally elevated levels of testosterone.” Well, yes, hermaphroditism is not normal — but it is “natural.”
Now there’s a similar controversy surrounding Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, especially after one of the fighter’s opponents, Italian Angela Carini, quit in her bout against Khelif, exclaiming “This is unjust!” Only, now, defenders of willful blindness have a new strategy: the race card. As the Associated Press put it yesterday: “For female athletes of color, scrutiny around gender rules and identity is part of a long trend.” Perhaps — so is media misdirection.
For the record, here’s what I wrote about Semenya back in 2009: “I’m convinced this individual is a boy who experienced abnormal intrauterine development … because of his masculine physique, deep voice, development of facial hair, male mannerisms and the fact that he has been winning races by wide margins.” It was not a difficult call. “If it walks like a duck…,” they say.
In fairness, Khelif is not as masculine as Semenya, video and audio make clear, nor has the fighter dominated female opponents as thoroughly as the South African did. Yet the International Boxing Association (IBA) did previously disqualify Khelif — along with Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting, who’s also in the Olympics — from competition. The IBA states the two athletes failed sexual-identity tests, with many reports holding that they have XY genotypes.
One response to this is that the IBA, which is now headed by a Russian and which was recently funded by a Russian company, is not credible because of these ties. Sound familiar? “The Hunter Biden laptop is Russian disinfo,” anyone?
Ever since Donald Trump’s political ascendancy, and in particular after Moscow invaded Ukraine, invoking the Russian boogeyman has become a handy propaganda tool. But this strategy is called an ad hominem fallacy (attacking the messenger instead of dealing with the message); it is misdirection.
Speaking of which brings us to the AP. “Overcome with emotion, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif left the ring in tears after a resounding victory this weekend,” the outlet’s Noreen Nasir wrote yesterday. “Khelif has faced days of hateful comments and false accusations about her gender following her first fight against an Italian opponent who quit seconds into their bout.”
“‘It’s because she’s African, because she’s Algerian,’ 38-year-old Algerian fan Adel Mohammed said Saturday, when Khelif clinched an Olympic medal,” Nasir continued. “‘These comments are coming from white people … it’s a kind of racism.’”
(For the record, Algerians are Arabs and Arabs are technically Caucasian — just like Europeans.)
Of course, if ad hominem attacks are the order of the day, one could say that Nasir (an Arab name) and Mohammed must be biased, and they probably are. But what of the Truth?
Assuming that non-Western women actually have been at the center of most of these sexual-identity controversies, and this does appear true, there’s another explanation. “Maybe the problem isn’t discrimination,” American Thinker suggested yesterday. “Maybe it’s that the West’s better-trained and better-equipped doctors are more adept at spotting sex-based genetic anomalies.”
“Maybe it’s because in Africa, parts of Asia, the Middle East, etc., poor people lack access to the kind of medical care that would quickly identify what’s wrong with their kid,” the site continued. “For example, if their ‘daughter’ isn’t menstruating, maybe a Western doctor would do an MRI and discover that the ‘daughter’ has no ovaries or uterus but has, instead, undescended testes.”
Also realize that unlike in the United States, where anomalies are now often celebrated, there can be a powerful stigma attached to such conditions in Third World countries; this militates against investigating suspected hermaphroditism cases.
As for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), its officials insist Khelif is definitely a “woman.” Yet is this reassuring coming from people who often can’t define “woman” and may claim “Men can menstruate” and that “identity” is reality? Note that the IOC did not conduct its own sexual-identity tests as this is now considered improper.
But consider an analogy: As with all boxers, Khelif must submit to “weight testing” before competing because fight sports have weight classes. And would we, if a self-conscious fighter looked heavier than his fellow competitors, refuse to subject him to a weigh-in in deference to “feelings”?
Implicit in the idea that sex testing is irrelevant in sports is the idea that the sexual distinction is irrelevant in sports. If true, however, we should eliminate it and have the sexes compete together. But if it is relevant, just as weight is, then it’s legitimate to test for it as we do for weight.
It seems clear that Khelif, like Semenya, suffers from a degree of hermaphroditism. This term is considered un-woke now, of course; the politically correct currently call such people “intersex.” For the record, I believe everyone is either male or female and that “intersex” individuals are merely males or females who’ve experienced abnormal sexual development. Regardless, the “intersex” theory — which holds that there are more than two sexes — only strengthens the argument for Khalif’s and Lin Yu-Ting’s exclusion.
After all, women’s sports are designed for and thus are limited to the female sex. It therefore follows that any other sex wouldn’t qualify — whether male, a “third sex,” or something else.
Some will point out that Khalif and Lin didn’t choose their conditions and ask, “Is this fair!?”
No, it’s not fair — but only because life isn’t fair. Thus is one person is born with 130 IQ potential and another with only 88 IQ potential. But unlike life, man’s laws and rules are supposed to be as fair as humanly possible, and this only happens when just rules are actually enforced — across the board.
The result of not doing so? “All three women’s Olympic 800 medallists from 2016 are believed to be intersex,” wrote LetsRun.com in 2019. And what’s the point of all this? In keeping with the Canadian man who in 2015 was living “life as a six-year-old girl,” you may as well let a fellow identify as a kid and compete with children (relevant and humorous Seinfeld clip below).
Not enforcing just rules makes a mockery of what they’re meant to govern, whether women’s sports — or our civilization at large.
