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comment by mk
mk  ·  2000 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 'I Am A Woman': Track Star Caster Semenya Continues Her Fight To Compete As A Female

    Seeing how testosterone levels are what causes secondary sex characteristics in men, and also the main reason why men are much stronger than women, this makes complete sense to me.

But that's the rub, right? What definition of "men" and "women" are you using?





rthomas6  ·  2000 days ago  ·  link  ·  

In this context, I meant cisgendered men and women. Cisgendered men are stronger (and faster, and have faster training recovery) than cisgendered women primarily because of higher testosterone levels. So primarily caring about testosterone levels, to me, sidesteps all the gender politics and focuses on what matters for athletic performance. I rather like this method of doing things, because it's just defining a boundary for a competition class. Weight, equipment allowed, supplements allowed, gender, and now testosterone level allowed. It makes sense to me. In a sense it doesn't even matter how the competitors define themselves.

mk  ·  2000 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I assume you mean cisgendered in a biological (XY or XX) sense?

If so, then it seems that chromosome is a better divisor as testosterone levels aren't consistent in one individual, and as testosterone is just one factor in numerous downstream biological differences due to the sex chromosome difference.