Gender Wars: Brave New Olympics, it’s not so simple.

AS THE world deliberated on the controversy surrounding Algerian boxer Imane Khalif, who had previously failed a gender test by the International Boxing Association (IBA), matters were coming to head in a long-standing legal dispute involving South Africa’s Caster Semenya, 32, who was born with ‘differences of sexual development’ (DSD).

Caster cannot cannot compete in female track events without taking ‘testosterone-reducing drugs’. World Athletics updated its rules in 2023 to state ‘DSD athletes would be required to reduce their testosterone level to below 2.5 nanomoles per litre for two years in order to compete internationally in the female category in any track and field event.’

The South African disagrees, stating:”World Athletics is showing discrimination against athletes with her condition” and her allegation is supported by Athletics SA and the SA government with the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights scheduled to deliver a final ruling.

Whither Weight Divisions?

Enter the Paris Olympics which has focused attention on the paradox presented by affected persons who include the ‘intersexed” — two boxers have been roasted on social media for competing in women’s events, even though under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules, those who transition from one sex to another, or who lack the chromosomes we traditionally associate with the two sexes, may yet be allowed to compete, under their respective, reassigned or altered genders.

Yes you read that right, the controversial opening ceremony with its drag queens and pagan references, was all about ‘reflecting equality and inclusivity’ for which the IOC now prides itself, no harm there, except if you happen to be a man pretending to be a woman, just to get a gold medal?

Though transgendered persons may possess a right in law to claim ‘womenhood’ for instance, they do not possess an automatic right to compete within many sports codes outside of the Olympics, for obvious reasons. If the trend continues so far as the Olympics is concerned, women’s events will invariably be dominated by cisgendered men at the expense of cisgendered women, — weight divisions are being further eroded by those who claim such distinctions are fat-phobic?

Hang-on a Minute, what about Blade Runner?

Just about nobody suggests that South Africa’s ‘blade runner’ Oscar Pistorius is being discriminated against for not being allowed to compete alongside able-boded athletes in the men’s 100m, since the use of a prosthesis and certain types of track shoes are also banned alongside performance boosting drugs, blood doping and other controversial medical interventions.

Allowing the intervention of technology (in this case gene or hormonal therapy) should always be considered an unfair advantage, much the same ways as a range of airfoils and engine designs are also banned in F1 racing.

Woke or Broke?

During a heated online debate on the subject I found myself being inboxed an article Shades of Gray: Sex, Gender, and Fairness in Sport, which at the face appears to make out a reasoned case that ‘hormones are all that separates men from women‘, even though on its own account, this isn’t actually true — the tragic reality of the human condition is our biology determines performance, with factors such as stamina, muscle torque, and relative weight and height – the same paper woefully proceeds to issue forth in utter ignorance of its own data.

Being a ‘cisgendered male’ competing in a women’s event (or somewhere inbetween) whilst undergoing hormone therapy or other therapies, clearly provides unfair advantages of reach and gait, whilst making a mockery of the division of the sexes. Does the Olympic event require a separate league for the differently-abled — those who may fall outside of standard definitions of what it is to be a man or a woman?

Do we know what the term ‘Woman’ refers to these days?

Spare a thought for biologist Richard Dawkins who was banned by Meta this week. His crime, being the author of an essay which had this point to make: “Sex is not defined by chromosomes, nor by anatomy, nor by psychology or sociology, nor by personal inclination, nor by “assignment at birth”, but by gamete size. It happens to be embryologically DETERMINED by chromosomes in mammals. … But it is universally DEFINED by the binary distinction between sperms and eggs.”

CONTRA: Do Hermaphrodites enjoy the same rights as so-called Gays and Lesbians?

WITH the impending legalisation of same-sex marriage, our legal system now has the go-ahead to clear-up some logical ambiguities relating to the status of inter-sexed and trans-gender individuals. Unfortunately the old “gay and lesbian” rubric is like the group areas act of gender ideology. Not only is the supposed duality heuristically incorrect, but it seemingly negates queer culture by enforcing gender stereotypes.

The refusal to acknowledge other forms of identity and personal mythology has been the hallmark of South Africa’s anachronistic gender struggle – the “gay and lesbian” morass of sexual politics from a time before HIV, is not only dated, but has quixotically managed to divorce itself from women’s politics, and even the mens movement. Perhaps this will all change with the acceptance of same-sex marriage and the advances of a post-apartheid Queer Culture that includes freedom of sexual orientation, i.e. the freedom to reformat and reboot ones own gender identity, whatever the case, gay, straight, transexual or bi?

It is no surprise that rumblings can be heard of an expansion in the semiotic maelstroom that includes new age, post-gender politics in all their trans-sexualized, polymorphic nuances.

From the old school “G & L” still stuck in the closet, to the new-school B L T G I Q, which stands for Bisexual, Lesbian, Transgendered, Gay, Intersexed and Queer, that pretty much includes everyone with an IQ, except of course, Heterosexuals in an overt, butch sort of way. So what does one do if, like so many transexuals these days, one is actually, well, macho and straight?

The new Queer Culture includes everybody, not merely the dualistic clones of feminised masculinity or metrosexualised raging queens — biologically diverse examples of the human race, cross-gender indeterminate mutants. The real question – why not identify oneself as simply Queer (straight or square) and avoid the rush to evacuate the group areas act of gender ideology?

[copyleft, some rights reserved, reprint with permission]

HEADBLOG: Is Triangle Project Guilty of Gender Discrimination?

THE Triangle Project recently placed advertising in local newspapers calling for “gays and lesbians” to continue the struggle for same-sex marriage rights — thus continuing a long tradition in South Africa’s alternative community of distinguishing gays from lesbians. Is this sheer perversity, moral convenience or something more sinister like gender discrimination?

Whatever happened to the notion of equality? Plain old androgeny? Freedom of sexual orientation?

While it may appear like mere heuristic convenience to
partition people between male and female, gay or
straight, or gay or lesbian labels, the Out in Africa ideology of
Triangle’s version of gaydom loses some of the more nuanced
aspects of sexual freedom and arguably does harm to a much
broader struggle that includes womens rights as much
as the rights of hermaphrodites and transexuals.

The problem seems to be the tricky notion of what it
means to be gay as opposed to queer. According to
Michel Foucault “there are no homosexuals, only
homosexual acts” in other words, ones sexual identity
is not dependent exclusively upon the sex act, but is
rather part of a far more complex personal mythology
in which any number of sex acts may conspire towards
presenting a sexual persona that is independent of
social mores, gender values, and stereotyping.

Of course people will disagree with me — the new
anti-queer mainstream as exemplified by the Triangle
Project and its nemesis the Legal System seeks to
prove with gay science, the scientific fact of a gay
and lesbian divide that is historically incorrect
(aren’t lesbians also gay?). The result is merely a
rehash of the dominant “straight” ideology and the
intention however misguided, the ultimate replacement
of straight society with gay society, along with the
marginalisation of queers and those who shun gender
distinction?

In such a pitched battle, cast in shades of pink, the
struggle is doomed to failure, as much as straight
society is doomed to repeat its own closet-minded
attack against the rights of the homosexual. In effect
a dismantling of the rainbow nation as the legal
system finds new ways to protect religion above
reason, and tradition above logic.

Lets remind our courts then — not only are lesbians,
bisexuals and straight people still very much out
there, but there is also a sizeable population of
transexuals some of whom consider themselves straight,
as well as straight people like myself who consider
themselves queer. The solution is not simply to make
room for queerdom but to allow the demise of gender as
a biologically determined fact (that defines all
sexual relationships).

[copyleft, some rights reserved, reprint with permission]

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