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Considering the effects of the hormone testosterone in the physique, how is it fair for other women participants? Most medical articles point out increased testosterone levels to either diseases or a result of some other drug. Testosterone is naturally occurring in women, I agree. However, my question still stands. Women with more bone density, more muscle mass and leaner hips etc will have advantage in sports.
I was going to say I can’t believe this discrimination but unfortunately I can 🙄
Namibian female sprinters Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi can no longer compete in their signature events. These are the two latest African women to be banned from track events for not fitting into the World Athletics organization’s definition of womanhood.
At a meet in Poland, Christina Mboma won the women’s 400 meters in 48.54 seconds, one of the fastest times in the world this year. This came two months after another Namibian teenager, Beatrice Masilingi, ran 49.53 over 400 meters in Zambia. Those two results raised suspicions among World Athletic officials who sent doctors so the two18-year-olds could undergo “medical assessments.” The tests revealed that neither runner was doping, but the examinations found that both women’s bodies produce a naturally high level of testosterone. According to World Athletics, both women’s bodies produce enough natural testosterone to violate their rules and make them ineligible to participate in events from 400-meter to 1600-meter. These same contentious rules have sidelined South Africa's Caster Semenya. It also affected all three medalists in a race at the 2016 Olympic games: Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, and Margaret Wambui of Kenya.
Women and only women, whose levels of natural testosterone exceed a limit World Athletics established in 2018, are barred from events, and faced with a choice. They can take drugs to artificially alter their natural hormone levels, with potential side effects; or they can switch events, even if it puts them at a disadvantage. But they are not sick. They don’t need drugs.
There’s a difference between anabolic steroids and naturally produced testosterone. Their production of testosterone happens to be their default hormonal setting, they were born as women that way. That default hormonal setting is no more unfair than better eyesight in MLB or being taller in the NBA. The testosterone rule should be seen as a regulation created in a toxic place where Eurocentrism, racism, sexism, and transphobia overlap. It demonstrates how easy it is to undermine women by shifting the requirements for entry into womanhood. These rules send a disturbing message to young female athletes in general, and Black girls in particular.