To avoid derailing the Olympics thread…
Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2024 8:55 pm
…because above all, the whole point of any discourse around eligibility is so that the Olympics can, as far as possible, celebrate exceptional athletes doing exceptional things, so for that reason, the controversy is maybe best discussed elsewhere.
It’s also not appropriate for the “Trans Debate” thread, because there’s no suggestion at the moment that the boxer at the centre of the controversy has asserted a transgender identity.
So this thread is where I’ll do my best to clear up any misconceptions (and by god there are a lot) that were in the Olympics thread yesterday.
I’ll tell you what I think and why, and i’ll be clear to differentiate fact from my opinion
I’ll start with the most pertinent detail, in my considered opinion: Khelife is almost certainly male. With “almost” meaning “unless Khelife has a condition that up until now has never, ever been observed”
The stuff doing the rounds about being “born female”, about “being a girl with a rare condition resulting in XY chromosomes” is nothing more than speculation based on misunderstandings, which are themselves based on misinformation; in terms of what is referred to by “born female” in those assertions, what is actually meant is “at birth, Khelife’s sex was recorded as female, and Khelife was most likely raised as a child by a family who had a sincere belief that Khelife was female”
The suggestion that Khelife has a female reproductive system is baseless speculation based on social media claims (none with any source) that Khelife has a disorder of sexual development called Swyers Syndrome. As well as being baseless, it’s also vanishingly unlikely to be true, since Swyer syndrome does not result in the masculinisation that clearly happened to Khelife’s body during puberty.
The disorder that Khelife almost certainly has is one that occurs exclusively in male people, and is called 5-ARD.it is not a “rare condition in females”, but a “rare condition in males that often results in incorrect observation of sex”
What happens with this condition is this.
During pregnancy the foetus initially develops as a normal healthy male - testicles, testosterone, anatomy.
The baby however, lacks a protein that triggers development of the penis.
The result of this is that the external genitalia can resemble that of females at birth, and be recorded as such.
The child however, has internal testicles capable of one day producing sperm, and no female reproductive system
In childhood, usually nothing happens to signal that the sex has been wrongly recorded.
At 11 or 12 though - male puberty kicks in in and huge amounts of testosterone impact the body in the way it does all males, and it actually triggers a masculinisation of the genitals too. The child develops physically like any other male, strength, height, speed, voice breaking, sexual maturation (including sperm production in the undescended testicles) - the child actually experiences standard male puberty, with the impact on potential performance that it has in any male.
Why do I believe Khelife has that DSD?
These reasons
1: it is extremely unlikely that an Algerian family decided to raise an obviously male child as if female, or that a young Algerian boy pressed to be treated as a girl. There are photos of Khelife as a child, and from those one can conclude that there was a sincere belief that Khelife was a female child
2: Khelife’s body has clearly gone through a masculinisation process consistent with that of a male with the disorder of sexual development described above
3: sex tests to determine eligibility have found that Khelife has XY chromosomes and testosterone in the male range - statistically there is zero overlap between the highest levels of testosterone in females and the lowest of that in males. The only way a female would have testosterone that high is with doping.
4: The IOC’s criteria for eligibility is “sex recorded on passport”, and has not carried out any further tests on top of those by the IBA that found Khelife to be male
5: many sporting bodies actually scout for young people who are likely to have this specific DSD, for the specific reason that their DSD and the erroneous sex category in which they have been in since birth, makes them good bets for athletic success, especially where (as with the IOC) there is no sex testing of any sort
So when Dunners suggested that the complexity around this was because this is a female with a rare condition, he’s incorrect. It’s based on this misconception; that being *socialised* as a girl, with a sincere belief of being a girl (as Khelife was and probably had) means that Khelife actually was female; those people saying “Khelife isn’t trans, she was born a woman” are actually meaning “Khelife has never asserted a trans identity - a girl identity is something Khelife didn’t choose”
And that gets us onto why the subject matters, and why it’s evil TERFs complaining about it; the problem with males who identify as trans in female sport isn’t trans identity, isn’t lippy, isn’t heels, isn’t fake tits. It’s being male. Athletes with the DSD that Khelife almost certainly has are also male.
Hope this helps - Adz I saw your question in the other thread midway through typing it, hopefully this answers your question, as well as shows why sex determination isn’t as simple as “so you’re saying she DOESNT have a vagina”
It’s also not appropriate for the “Trans Debate” thread, because there’s no suggestion at the moment that the boxer at the centre of the controversy has asserted a transgender identity.
So this thread is where I’ll do my best to clear up any misconceptions (and by god there are a lot) that were in the Olympics thread yesterday.
I’ll tell you what I think and why, and i’ll be clear to differentiate fact from my opinion
I’ll start with the most pertinent detail, in my considered opinion: Khelife is almost certainly male. With “almost” meaning “unless Khelife has a condition that up until now has never, ever been observed”
The stuff doing the rounds about being “born female”, about “being a girl with a rare condition resulting in XY chromosomes” is nothing more than speculation based on misunderstandings, which are themselves based on misinformation; in terms of what is referred to by “born female” in those assertions, what is actually meant is “at birth, Khelife’s sex was recorded as female, and Khelife was most likely raised as a child by a family who had a sincere belief that Khelife was female”
The suggestion that Khelife has a female reproductive system is baseless speculation based on social media claims (none with any source) that Khelife has a disorder of sexual development called Swyers Syndrome. As well as being baseless, it’s also vanishingly unlikely to be true, since Swyer syndrome does not result in the masculinisation that clearly happened to Khelife’s body during puberty.
The disorder that Khelife almost certainly has is one that occurs exclusively in male people, and is called 5-ARD.it is not a “rare condition in females”, but a “rare condition in males that often results in incorrect observation of sex”
What happens with this condition is this.
During pregnancy the foetus initially develops as a normal healthy male - testicles, testosterone, anatomy.
The baby however, lacks a protein that triggers development of the penis.
The result of this is that the external genitalia can resemble that of females at birth, and be recorded as such.
The child however, has internal testicles capable of one day producing sperm, and no female reproductive system
In childhood, usually nothing happens to signal that the sex has been wrongly recorded.
At 11 or 12 though - male puberty kicks in in and huge amounts of testosterone impact the body in the way it does all males, and it actually triggers a masculinisation of the genitals too. The child develops physically like any other male, strength, height, speed, voice breaking, sexual maturation (including sperm production in the undescended testicles) - the child actually experiences standard male puberty, with the impact on potential performance that it has in any male.
Why do I believe Khelife has that DSD?
These reasons
1: it is extremely unlikely that an Algerian family decided to raise an obviously male child as if female, or that a young Algerian boy pressed to be treated as a girl. There are photos of Khelife as a child, and from those one can conclude that there was a sincere belief that Khelife was a female child
2: Khelife’s body has clearly gone through a masculinisation process consistent with that of a male with the disorder of sexual development described above
3: sex tests to determine eligibility have found that Khelife has XY chromosomes and testosterone in the male range - statistically there is zero overlap between the highest levels of testosterone in females and the lowest of that in males. The only way a female would have testosterone that high is with doping.
4: The IOC’s criteria for eligibility is “sex recorded on passport”, and has not carried out any further tests on top of those by the IBA that found Khelife to be male
5: many sporting bodies actually scout for young people who are likely to have this specific DSD, for the specific reason that their DSD and the erroneous sex category in which they have been in since birth, makes them good bets for athletic success, especially where (as with the IOC) there is no sex testing of any sort
So when Dunners suggested that the complexity around this was because this is a female with a rare condition, he’s incorrect. It’s based on this misconception; that being *socialised* as a girl, with a sincere belief of being a girl (as Khelife was and probably had) means that Khelife actually was female; those people saying “Khelife isn’t trans, she was born a woman” are actually meaning “Khelife has never asserted a trans identity - a girl identity is something Khelife didn’t choose”
And that gets us onto why the subject matters, and why it’s evil TERFs complaining about it; the problem with males who identify as trans in female sport isn’t trans identity, isn’t lippy, isn’t heels, isn’t fake tits. It’s being male. Athletes with the DSD that Khelife almost certainly has are also male.
Hope this helps - Adz I saw your question in the other thread midway through typing it, hopefully this answers your question, as well as shows why sex determination isn’t as simple as “so you’re saying she DOESNT have a vagina”