When does a woman become a man?

[Natasha]

When does a woman become a man?

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23735314-details/article.do
Stephen Robinson
8/21/09

The straightforward answer to Professor Henry Higgins's anguished rhetorical question — why can't a woman be more like a man? — is that she can, and she is.

The next time you go to the gym, look at the women around you on the treadmills, pounding away, burning fat, sweating their way to the perfect hardbody.

Consciously or not, they — you — are trying to look more like poor Caster Semenya, the new world 800m champion from South Africa who this week finds herself in a humiliating "is she, is he?" row, with the flat-footed international athletics authorities creepily suggesting that they might have to probe deeper with something called a gender verification test. Internet conspiracies have even included an intruiging anagram of her name — Yes A Secret Man.

[Shana]

I only have my own opinion:

Never..
No matter how many steroids she takes, how many muscles she acquires, whether she has had a hysterectomy and/or mastectomy or for what reasons, she will never become a man. She can wear jeans and a t-shirt, get mud on her boots and wear a three piece tuxedo on Saturday in comfortable shoes, and she will never be a man. She can have a flat top, a mullet, or be as bald as a cucumber; she can raise more hell, drink you under the table and ride her Harley through Sturgis in August like she was the Mayor himself, and She will never become a man. She can drive truck, serve in the military, run a bulldozer, or be CEO of a Fortune 1000 company.. and she will never be a man. And that is just fine by me.

On the other hand.. our brothers here and elsewhere always were, regardless of where they are in their lives, what they wear,  or what anyone in this world of mortals thinks. So what is there to become?

Just my opinion..

[Cindy]

This young woman seems to be being treated with terrible cruelty. Whether she is intersexed or hormonally imbalanced doesn't seem to be significant. "We have done visual checks" was one report. How demeaning! She must have passed chromosome testing, which is very simple. I feel very sorry for her. Imagine representing your country and being regarded in such a manner. Yet you can go to the first world athletes and it's a guess what designer drug some one is on. You won't detect it and it's not really cheating 'cos they need the money and have trained every day for ever, so deserve the help (yuk).

Sorry a bit of a rant.

Cindy

[Jamie-o]

"I felt much more attracted to women and just felt like a man. But I knew I was not lesbian," Krieger recalls. She thought her coaches were feeding her vitamins, when in truth she was one of the estimated 10,000 East Germans who were given anabolic steroids. In Krieger's case, it pushed her so far into becoming a man that the sex change operation he had 12 years ago merely confirmed the process. He is now married, and just to complete the caricature of the butch eastern bloc athlete, runs an army surplus store.

I'm curious what any of you think about this quote, particularly the bit I put in bold?  Do you think there is any potential truth in the statement, or do you think he was simply "lucky" enough to have been a talented athlete in a country that fed him the hormones he needed to masculinize, after being born trans?

[Cindy]

I may be and I am usually wrong but I thought Kreiger was interesexed (XXY) apparent physical female but male. Hormonally male and given extra T developed male muscle structure. Which is the problem. I have not seen anything so far that this young lady is anything but. I quallify myself, cheats are cheats, and should be banned. Who is cheating on this girl? Is it the country she represents? the coaches who train her? or her?

BTW nice discussion, I have done some research work into blood doping in sports. Incredible.


I've been amazed at what people will do.

Love and Hugs


Cindy

[metal angel]

hrmmm... I've been bottling up a rant for a while, and I think this may be a nearly appropriate time. I'm not sure if this is the misogynistic male in me, or the fanatical feminist in the female me... um... pretend it's whichever gets less flaming?

Why do we have women's sport at all?

We could solve all the gender-testing issues by just scrapping the whole gender divisions in sport thing all together couldn't we? Yes in some fields women are less muscular etc. and with maximal training the best woman will often never be as good at the sport as the best man. But we don't have a Caucasian division? Or Asians? Africans are generally faster runners. Why discriminate and segregate on gender in particular? I guess gender is usually pretty black and white (sorry about the pun) whereas in my example of race some people think that the races are not distinct groups at all, and they might be right. I guess there are far more mixed race people than there are intersex people? But there ARE intersex people? The exceptions that prove the rule? But how about something like height, is quite easy to define, but we don't have a short-people's basket ball division? I guess we have The Paralympics, but being female isn't a disability, it's part of the normal variation!

I will concede that in some close-contact one-on-one sports gender divisions make sense for two reasons. Firstly different "out of bounds" body-regions in a fight would be hard to police fairly.  Also, these sports already have weight divisions, so another division which crudely defines body composition (if a man and woman are the same weight, the man will have far more muscle) kinda makes intuitive sense to me. But generally, I just don't "get" women's sport.

I guess most of the things I have a competitive attitude in are intellectual, where the gender divisions are more blurry, but if I can't beat the born-men, I don't think I've really won at all! I think it's just patronising to be the "best woman" at something. I resent all those sexist feminist organisations that award prizes for best woman scientist/businessman/etc. I'd rather be regarded as "third best X in the country" than "best woman X in the world"! Am I odd? I've probably already been on this rant, but on graduation awards night in high school I got the school prize for best student in science, but I was also awarded "best girl in maths and science" by some external women's organisation. I really should have turned that down, it was like getting up on stage saying "despite the stupidity my ovaries cause, I struggled through and still did ok". Sexist nutters! *seethe*

Maybe I feel this way cos I don't quite want to be woman at all even if I'm the best? Are there some "real women" out there who really think it's an achievement to be the best woman at something? (Well any more than best in your own country, or best in your own school... or other arbitrary sub-division.)

Maybe my feelings that gender shouldn't mean anything are just my Aspie "wrong planet" syndrome side? Maybe some people like being seen as their gender? Being seen as "pretty good, for a girl"?

Or maybe women's sport is just the last PC place for gender-discrimination to lurk?

Post Merge: August 22, 2009, 05:04:46 AM
p.s. i don't think kreiger could have had kleinfelters syndrome, XXY individuals are usually slightly on the male side of intersex i think? It seems unlikely he would hav been assigned female at birth if he was XXY, unless he had male but underdeveloped genitals and they decided to surgically feminise him... which would be kinda a cruel journey for this guys gender if it was the case, but i think even relatively clear males who just were a bit small in the wedding tackle department were often castrated and re-assigned and raised as girls for a while in the second half of the 20th century?

ooh and the name Krieger means "warrior" which is kinda fittting for a throwing athlete.

[Cindy]

Thanks Metal Angel,
Thought provoking as usual. I cannot see any value in having the best boy or girl study topic. As you state that is demeaning to all. To go furthere we could have the science prize for the intellectually disabled. However I must admit when I was at school the years were streamed into IQ classes so that high IQ where all in one class etc etc down to the dummies in the fourth stream. So you could well be top of the class for dummies. BTW I do not mean these comments cruely, just the way things were looked at, at the time.
But as for sport, I'm not sure of there are any top class sports were M&F can compete equally or rather fairly.  Yes plenty at the non-top level, maybe that's were there is an opportunity. When I was playing squash the professional level females were all in top grade male teams, otherwise they couldn't get a competitive game. I think the same happens for athletics and tennis etc.

But I don't think it would work at the pro level. Maybe a handicap system could be brought in, if Usain Bolt gave me 95 meteres I may have a chance!

I suppose another point is what is sport for? At school etc I thought it was to promote healthy life style, exercise, competition, socialisation, meeting people. Now? Making money.

Cindy

[metal angel]

hrmmm... i was thinking about it and when there are other divisions (in local comps etc.) like "juniors" and "masters" and "under 12s", or weight divisions, gender maybe makes sense as an extra way to divide compeditors up into groups to get challenging and closely matched compeditors where effort and dedication are the deciding factors rather than natural attributes.

But i keep thinking about it, and can't quite explain or justify why they keep the gender division in particular right up to olympic level? I guess they have a "masters games" but i don't think there's an age maximum on competing in the main olympics?

Hrmmm... there's a paralymics and a bit of fuss about whether they should be allowed to compete in the main games, but that is more to do with different rules of the competition. The Paralympians are allowed mechanical aids that may give them an unfair advantage in some cases, or at least it is hard to compate whether a mechanical aid fully compensates or over-compensates for a disability, like those carbon-fiber "chetar" legs, and one wheelchair on an able-boddied basketball court could certainly cause a scuffle. If a one-armed swimmer could beat the able-boddied swimmer unaided i assume they'd let him try.

[Jamie-o]

Sports have gender divisions because a man in top physical condition is a lot stronger than a woman in top physical condition.  For the longest time I didn't realize just how much difference there was.  I figured, if I could bench-press 80 lbs, the average guy could probably bench-press, say, 120 lbs.  I've since come to realize that it's not unusual for a guy to be able to lift more than his own body weight.  Women would be at such a physical disadvantage in most sports, that almost none would have a chance.

Interestingly enough, I think many close-contact fighting sports would put women at the least disadvantage.  I used to fight in karate tournaments, and have fought guys considerably larger than I was and won.  (I've also fought guys considerably larger than I was and lost.  )  Obviously, if it's a sport that requires physically overpowering your opponent (like wrestling, for instance) that strength difference would be a major factor.  But in a fighting system played for points (like karate, or fencing maybe) it would be less so.

I will agree, though that separating boys and girls in elementary and middle school is silly.  What pisses me off a lot more is when women aren't allowed to participate in a particular sport at all, like baseball or sabre fencing.