How journalists get their "accurate information"; Dem VP choice Tim Walz, extreme "folksy" leftist; GOP needs to lean into principled rhetoric and goals
How journalists get their "accurate information"; Dem VP choice Tim Walz, extreme "folksy" leftist; GOP needs to lean into principled rhetoric and goals
To say Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting are "clearly men" is both cruel and shockingly ignorant. You cannot know whether someone has two X chromosomes simply by looking at them. There are many biological women in this world who are tall, square-shouldered, and have "mannish" features. I'm one of them. While I have never been mistaken for a man, I have female friends (all with PCOS or other conditions outside their control) who have, and it is intensely painful for them. Having elevated testosterone -- as Khelif allegedly does -- is a symptom of a *female* hormone disorder. Further, as being transgender is illegal in Algeria, the accusations that Khelif is secretly a man could put her in legal and physical danger once she returns home. Regardless of your opinion on women boxers generally, please do not claim to be an authority on a woman's chromosomes based on what you judge to be the femininity of facial features whose formation are outside her control -- especially when these same features may be a source of enduring pain and inecurity. A little Christian charity, please.
I'm not going to be bullied into denying that we can see what we see.
This playbook is getting worn out. We've lost our culture by caving in when someone says we're "unkind" for noticing what is right in front of our faces. We were unkind when we said abortion is wrong. We were unkind when we said it would harm children for marriage to be compromised. We were unkind when we said a man cannot become a woman -- and then, having silenced ourselves, the world went ahead and killed, maimed, and abused children.
I'm 63 years old. I've seen a whole lot of women and a whole lot of men. I can tell the difference between an unfeminine woman and a man! Everyone can. Notice that I don't claim any of the other very strong, very boxer-like women are men. They are obviously women. It's not about boxing. It's about calling a man a woman and expecting to silence anyone who dares say anything different.
If you have friends with PCOS, then you know their condition renders them unlikely to win any boxing championships. We can strike that one -- besides, he already said he doesn't have a DSD. I'm not cruel to women with hormonal or other conditions, and am not up for being told that I am.
It's simple -- let him take a test to show his chromosomes. Funny that he doesn't do that.
I'll tell you what puts him in danger if he is a woman -- riding on another man's shoulders in victory. Sitting with his legs spread out wide. Standing up and adjusting his male anatomy. I am half Egyptian -- my Egyptian father and my Egyptian stepmother were Muslim -- and I can tell you that these things simply would never occur to a middle eastern woman to do. A Muslim father or mother, even a westernized one, would have no trouble saying "I will kill you if you do such a thing." So if he is a woman, I wonder how it is he does all that.
I am not in any way likely to silence my opinion by being called cruel or anything else. I regard it as more important to tell the truth about what we are being asked to do. It's not about boxing or any one person, it's about the exertion of power over people to make them lie about what they see.
I'm sorry, I should have specified in my original post: I have PCOS and am a former competitive athlete and current fitness instructor and bodybuilder. The other women I'm talking about are also either former or current athletes and active in the fitness world. (No coincidence there: if you spend all your time at the gym, that's where you're going to make friends.)
I'm therefore confused about your comment re: women with PCOS being "rendered unlikely to win any boxing championships." I have PCOS to thank for my height and broad shoulders, which have given me a lifelong competitive advantage in my sport. High testosterone also means I build muscle easily, which has been terrific for me now that I'm a bodybuilder. While PCOS has been difficult in many ways -- and I'll get to them in a moment -- it has made me the athlete I am. Indeed, it's no accident I have so many friends from the sports and fitness worlds who have this or another hormone condition: girls who are tall and broad and strong are more likely to be encouraged to join sports teams than those with more typically feminine frames.
I imagine Imane Khelif has enjoyed similar benefits because, again, she was found to have elevated testosterone. Ironically, this testosterone would only be useful to her (as it is to so many female athletes, myself included) if she does *not* have an intersex condition. If she has androgen insensitivity syndrome, then she has XY chromosomes and elevated testosterone which her body would be unable to use. In other words, I, a woman with XX chromosomes, would have a competitive advantage.
Further, if she does have XY chromosomes (and all that has been reported so far is elevated testosterone), that would still mean she has female genitals -- so by calling her man, you are saying that men can have vaginas. This seems out of keeping with your overall position on biological sex.
That said, we don't know what Khelif's chromosomes look like. It's quite possible not even she knows; while intersex conditions are diagnosed young in the US, they're rarely diagnosed at all in developing countries. And, frankly, I don't blame her at all for keeping the information private, if she even has it. Obama was harassed for years to produce his birth certificate; his reluctance to do so was taken as evidence that he was born outside the US. When he did produce his birth certificate, it changed the mind of not one single conspiracy theorist -- no more than robust evidence of the moon landing has changed the minds of those who believe the whole thing was staged. Whatever results Khelif produces, it will be said they were faked, or doctored, and she will be called a liar. She can't win.
I'll also point out that the IBA could very easily publish the tests they supposedly have which prove Khelif has elevated testosterone (again, *not* XY chromosomes). They have not done so. I wonder why?
Speaking of her birth certificate, it reflects that Imane Khelif is a woman. This could not have been changed in a country which does not allow sex reassignment. Again, whatever Khelif's chromosomes look like, her visible anatomy was identified at birth as female, so your comment about her "adjusting her male anatomy" is both vulgar (my goodness, why were you looking there?!) and impossible.
As for the norms of Middle Eastern cultures...may I suggest that what was typical in Egypt in the 1970s does not hold true for Algeria, an entirely different culture, many decades later? This is not to say Algeria isn't a patriarchal country with strict gender norms; if you did your research, you'll know that Khelif's father did not want her to box because she is a girl. In other words, her family and community have always accepted her as female.
However, I expect Khelif had an experience much like mine. If you're the biggest, strongest girl on the playground, and the other girls think you look like a boy, then you're probably going to end up playing with the boys -- and adopting their mannerisms. This is as true in Algeria as in America. Behavior is learned. And masculine women -- that is to say, women with XX chromosomes and female anatomy who happen to have square jaws and short haircuts -- exist everywhere in the world and always have. The word you're looking for is "butch." Unless you're arguing that a person can change their sex simply by changing their behavior?
I want to circle back to the question of cruelty, and particularly the idea of bullying, which you brought up in your comment. I was bullied horribly throughout my school years for my appearance (which is a lot like Khelif's). I was called a man (as you are calling Khelif). As a result, I was totally alienated from the company of other girls and became boyish in my style and behavior as well as my appearance. This was not the result of my secret male anatomy (because I don't have any). It was just kids being mean, and then adults being mean. It was people believing their eyes rather than the biological truth -- exactly the thing you claim to deplore.
No one is trying to silence you. I am simply suggesting that your eyes are not infallible. No one's are. When you say you can look at a woman and tell she's a man, and that woman looks like me and a lot of other women I know -- all of us with female anatomy and XX chromosomes -- then the obvious explanation is that your eyes are not sufficient evidence to disqualify someone you've never met from a sporting event you know nothing about.
I am not transgender. I'm pretty sure I'd be the first to know.
Speaking of chromosomes, interestingly enough, the boxer the IBA claimed had XY chromosomes -- Lin -- is the boxer Khelif (identified by the same body as having only elevated testosterone) beat to win gold. Both Lin and Khelif have also been beaten many times by more "feminine"-looking women throughout their careers. If Lin's XY chromosomes make her a man, in your estimation, that means a woman beat her to win the Olympics. If the IBA missed something and Khelif does have XY chromosomes, that means female boxers have beaten two men on multiple occasions. As someone who has boxed (though never professionally), this is astonishing to me: I would never go up against someone with XY chromosomes and expect to win. If Lin and Khelif both have XY chromosomes, and their records reflect hundreds of losses to XX-chromosome-having women, then this is a statistical victory for women, and I might need to rethink my roster of sparring partners.
I expect you'll respond with more vitriol about how women who look like me aren't women at all, and how this is something you can tell just by looking at us. I doubt I'll respond. I've heard it before. Though I've embraced what makes me different and found a niche in which it is celebrated, this entire conversation has reopened old wounds I'd thought long-healed. I will pray that God opens your heart and mind to the possibility that you are mortal, and capable of making mistakes.
Since you end your comment by assuming what I will say -- in a most uncharitable way -- and in fact are bullying me into agreeing with you by your assumptions, I can't engage with you.
Note that at no point did I say anything about "what you will say" or that "you are cruel" or offer passive-aggressive prayers for your morality.
It's those tactics that betray the agenda. And I'm not having it.
To say Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting are "clearly men" is both cruel and shockingly ignorant. You cannot know whether someone has two X chromosomes simply by looking at them. There are many biological women in this world who are tall, square-shouldered, and have "mannish" features. I'm one of them. While I have never been mistaken for a man, I have female friends (all with PCOS or other conditions outside their control) who have, and it is intensely painful for them. Having elevated testosterone -- as Khelif allegedly does -- is a symptom of a *female* hormone disorder. Further, as being transgender is illegal in Algeria, the accusations that Khelif is secretly a man could put her in legal and physical danger once she returns home. Regardless of your opinion on women boxers generally, please do not claim to be an authority on a woman's chromosomes based on what you judge to be the femininity of facial features whose formation are outside her control -- especially when these same features may be a source of enduring pain and inecurity. A little Christian charity, please.
Sorry, they are men.
I'm not going to be bullied into denying that we can see what we see.
This playbook is getting worn out. We've lost our culture by caving in when someone says we're "unkind" for noticing what is right in front of our faces. We were unkind when we said abortion is wrong. We were unkind when we said it would harm children for marriage to be compromised. We were unkind when we said a man cannot become a woman -- and then, having silenced ourselves, the world went ahead and killed, maimed, and abused children.
I'm 63 years old. I've seen a whole lot of women and a whole lot of men. I can tell the difference between an unfeminine woman and a man! Everyone can. Notice that I don't claim any of the other very strong, very boxer-like women are men. They are obviously women. It's not about boxing. It's about calling a man a woman and expecting to silence anyone who dares say anything different.
If you have friends with PCOS, then you know their condition renders them unlikely to win any boxing championships. We can strike that one -- besides, he already said he doesn't have a DSD. I'm not cruel to women with hormonal or other conditions, and am not up for being told that I am.
It's simple -- let him take a test to show his chromosomes. Funny that he doesn't do that.
I'll tell you what puts him in danger if he is a woman -- riding on another man's shoulders in victory. Sitting with his legs spread out wide. Standing up and adjusting his male anatomy. I am half Egyptian -- my Egyptian father and my Egyptian stepmother were Muslim -- and I can tell you that these things simply would never occur to a middle eastern woman to do. A Muslim father or mother, even a westernized one, would have no trouble saying "I will kill you if you do such a thing." So if he is a woman, I wonder how it is he does all that.
I am not in any way likely to silence my opinion by being called cruel or anything else. I regard it as more important to tell the truth about what we are being asked to do. It's not about boxing or any one person, it's about the exertion of power over people to make them lie about what they see.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/does-imane-khelif-belong-in-the-womens-ring-olympics-boxing-transgender-ideology-b227f2cd
I'm sorry, I should have specified in my original post: I have PCOS and am a former competitive athlete and current fitness instructor and bodybuilder. The other women I'm talking about are also either former or current athletes and active in the fitness world. (No coincidence there: if you spend all your time at the gym, that's where you're going to make friends.)
I'm therefore confused about your comment re: women with PCOS being "rendered unlikely to win any boxing championships." I have PCOS to thank for my height and broad shoulders, which have given me a lifelong competitive advantage in my sport. High testosterone also means I build muscle easily, which has been terrific for me now that I'm a bodybuilder. While PCOS has been difficult in many ways -- and I'll get to them in a moment -- it has made me the athlete I am. Indeed, it's no accident I have so many friends from the sports and fitness worlds who have this or another hormone condition: girls who are tall and broad and strong are more likely to be encouraged to join sports teams than those with more typically feminine frames.
I imagine Imane Khelif has enjoyed similar benefits because, again, she was found to have elevated testosterone. Ironically, this testosterone would only be useful to her (as it is to so many female athletes, myself included) if she does *not* have an intersex condition. If she has androgen insensitivity syndrome, then she has XY chromosomes and elevated testosterone which her body would be unable to use. In other words, I, a woman with XX chromosomes, would have a competitive advantage.
Further, if she does have XY chromosomes (and all that has been reported so far is elevated testosterone), that would still mean she has female genitals -- so by calling her man, you are saying that men can have vaginas. This seems out of keeping with your overall position on biological sex.
That said, we don't know what Khelif's chromosomes look like. It's quite possible not even she knows; while intersex conditions are diagnosed young in the US, they're rarely diagnosed at all in developing countries. And, frankly, I don't blame her at all for keeping the information private, if she even has it. Obama was harassed for years to produce his birth certificate; his reluctance to do so was taken as evidence that he was born outside the US. When he did produce his birth certificate, it changed the mind of not one single conspiracy theorist -- no more than robust evidence of the moon landing has changed the minds of those who believe the whole thing was staged. Whatever results Khelif produces, it will be said they were faked, or doctored, and she will be called a liar. She can't win.
I'll also point out that the IBA could very easily publish the tests they supposedly have which prove Khelif has elevated testosterone (again, *not* XY chromosomes). They have not done so. I wonder why?
Speaking of her birth certificate, it reflects that Imane Khelif is a woman. This could not have been changed in a country which does not allow sex reassignment. Again, whatever Khelif's chromosomes look like, her visible anatomy was identified at birth as female, so your comment about her "adjusting her male anatomy" is both vulgar (my goodness, why were you looking there?!) and impossible.
As for the norms of Middle Eastern cultures...may I suggest that what was typical in Egypt in the 1970s does not hold true for Algeria, an entirely different culture, many decades later? This is not to say Algeria isn't a patriarchal country with strict gender norms; if you did your research, you'll know that Khelif's father did not want her to box because she is a girl. In other words, her family and community have always accepted her as female.
However, I expect Khelif had an experience much like mine. If you're the biggest, strongest girl on the playground, and the other girls think you look like a boy, then you're probably going to end up playing with the boys -- and adopting their mannerisms. This is as true in Algeria as in America. Behavior is learned. And masculine women -- that is to say, women with XX chromosomes and female anatomy who happen to have square jaws and short haircuts -- exist everywhere in the world and always have. The word you're looking for is "butch." Unless you're arguing that a person can change their sex simply by changing their behavior?
I want to circle back to the question of cruelty, and particularly the idea of bullying, which you brought up in your comment. I was bullied horribly throughout my school years for my appearance (which is a lot like Khelif's). I was called a man (as you are calling Khelif). As a result, I was totally alienated from the company of other girls and became boyish in my style and behavior as well as my appearance. This was not the result of my secret male anatomy (because I don't have any). It was just kids being mean, and then adults being mean. It was people believing their eyes rather than the biological truth -- exactly the thing you claim to deplore.
No one is trying to silence you. I am simply suggesting that your eyes are not infallible. No one's are. When you say you can look at a woman and tell she's a man, and that woman looks like me and a lot of other women I know -- all of us with female anatomy and XX chromosomes -- then the obvious explanation is that your eyes are not sufficient evidence to disqualify someone you've never met from a sporting event you know nothing about.
I am not transgender. I'm pretty sure I'd be the first to know.
Speaking of chromosomes, interestingly enough, the boxer the IBA claimed had XY chromosomes -- Lin -- is the boxer Khelif (identified by the same body as having only elevated testosterone) beat to win gold. Both Lin and Khelif have also been beaten many times by more "feminine"-looking women throughout their careers. If Lin's XY chromosomes make her a man, in your estimation, that means a woman beat her to win the Olympics. If the IBA missed something and Khelif does have XY chromosomes, that means female boxers have beaten two men on multiple occasions. As someone who has boxed (though never professionally), this is astonishing to me: I would never go up against someone with XY chromosomes and expect to win. If Lin and Khelif both have XY chromosomes, and their records reflect hundreds of losses to XX-chromosome-having women, then this is a statistical victory for women, and I might need to rethink my roster of sparring partners.
I expect you'll respond with more vitriol about how women who look like me aren't women at all, and how this is something you can tell just by looking at us. I doubt I'll respond. I've heard it before. Though I've embraced what makes me different and found a niche in which it is celebrated, this entire conversation has reopened old wounds I'd thought long-healed. I will pray that God opens your heart and mind to the possibility that you are mortal, and capable of making mistakes.
Since you end your comment by assuming what I will say -- in a most uncharitable way -- and in fact are bullying me into agreeing with you by your assumptions, I can't engage with you.
Note that at no point did I say anything about "what you will say" or that "you are cruel" or offer passive-aggressive prayers for your morality.
It's those tactics that betray the agenda. And I'm not having it.