Reply to Harrison Bergeron: The Ruling in the Caster Semenya Case Shows Us Where We are Going

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[quote=Anonymous]NP.  I read this interview with David Epstein, who is apparently a sports journalist at ProPublica and author of a book on the science of sports.  I found this quote interesting, especially the bolded:

"On Twitter, a lot of people were sharing a picture of Michael Phelps’ arms, with people saying, “He’s got long arms, and that’s natural. So why would we regulate Caster Semenya for high levels of testosterone?” Well, on the Paula Radcliffe side, the problem with that argument is that [b]we don’t divide sports by arm length. We do divide it by sex. If you’re going to have a female classification, it has to mean something. The reason we have the female classification is because there’s tremendous value in having women’s sports. If we only had one competitive classification for all comers, then the best women wouldn’t be able to compete with the best man. [/b]The question is, how do you define who is allowed entry into that female classification? Again, we don’t divide sports by arm length or height. But testosterone is not height. A man in the low level of the typical male testosterone range still has testosterone several hundred percent higher than a woman at the top of the typical female range."

As to this particular ruling, he says:

"So actually this ruling is very narrowly applied to women with XY chromosomes and elevated testosterone to which they are at least partially sensitive, and only if they are competing in a small range of events from the 400-meters to the mile."

He also speculates at the end of the article that it could get ugly if Semenya decides to move on to another event, and they effectively chase her to try to regulate any event she competes in.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/05/caster-semenya-cas-ruling-testosterone-track.html[/quote]

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