Thoughts on the Angela Carini Olympics Battery Situation

(I refuse to put the offender's name in the title because every other article leads with that.  We center women and victims here).  

Regarding this abhorrent, disgraceful situation at the Olympics (one of several):  You can probably already guess my stance if you're a long-time reader, but I'm going to give it anyway because I'm so sick to death of this kind of thing I feel it can't be ignored.  First of all, I find it absolutely disturbing how many people are just parroting what the media is saying about this XY intersex person being "female" simply because (s)he identifies that way.  The killing part is that it's the "follow the science/facts over feelings" crowd crowing the loudest.  I have to wonder if people are playing dumb to an extent when they say things like "But her birth certificate says "Female!" or simply "SHE IS A WOMAN!!!!!11!!1!"

How s/he "identifies" doesn't count for shit in a contact sport like boxing unless you're hoping to see her opponent die in the ring.  High levels of testosterone--whether occurring naturally in a male or intersex person or administered to a female or trans person from exogenous sources--confer advantages in sports that are so numerous they're hard to quantify but I'll try.  These include increased lung capacity, muscle mass & strength, aerobic endurance, height, stronger/larger bones & higher hemoglobin levels to name a FEW. When the person has gone through male puberty the advantage is even more pronounced.  This leg up can easily turn deadly when introduced into a sport like boxing.  In addition, women get concussions more easily than men due to leaner nerve fibers so this is even more dangerous.

Identify however you want in your everyday life but a line must be drawn in the boxing ring and other sex-segregated sports (like they've always been).  When your T levels are so high you've failed gender tests, THERE'S THE FUCKING LINE.   ----------------

Whoomp, there it is.

Now let's talk about how this tiny minority's feelings are being given consideration over the physical safety & Olympic aspirations of a majority of female athletes who lack this advantage.  Read that again: a minority's FEELINGS are being given consideration over a majority's SAFETY.  That's never okay no matter who the minority/majority are, though clearly some would beg to differ.  Nobody's claiming the intersex athletes asked for this advantage, but nevertheless they have it.  The misogyny lies in the fact that they are being allowed to put the safety and hard work of the female athletes in jeopardy despite being a tiny minority & having an unfair advantage.  Sound like any other group you know ⚧f?   

Go ahead & support this mess, but what you not gonna do is convince me that this is the progressive moral stance because it isn't.  It's most likely the fetish of some sick SOB at the top of the Olympic committee who gets off seeing women get beaten bloody by men.  The Olympics have a long and storied history of sexism and misogyny so this year shouldn't be any different.  The mainstream media is no better.  Literally every article & think piece is focused on Khelif and their feelings/experience, not the woman who got a broken nose in 46 seconds in the ring with them.  If you don't see the blatant woman-hating bias in that, it might be time to step back from Twitter & your other echo chambers and look within because I can't help you.  You sound indistinguishable from the "equal rights, equal lefts" crowd and clearly just want to see women brutalized for sport.  Great, then just fucking say that & quit hiding behind the "she's a real woman for really reals real!" nonsense.  At least the right wing owns their hatred of us.  Well, at least when they're not hiding behind the Bible and blaming God for their misogyny.  

Fuck, it really sucks being a woman in 2024.    😞

This is Caster Semenya 2.0, it's just that the world's gone mad in the intervening years.  The exclusive focus on Khelif's feelings and POV and not the woman he assaulted tells us everything we need to know about the respective sexes of these parties.  Women's physical safety has always come a distant second to the feelings of men.  Not that I'd expect the "words are violence but physical violence is fine" crowd to understand. 

YIKES.  WTF does race have to do with anything?

Khelif is scheduled to fight another woman from Hungary in the next few days and I'm sure that'll go great too.  He'll either throw the fight or bludgeon her to death if she doesn't tap out like Carini smartly did.  Either way I won't be watching because I saw enough male-on-female violence where I grew up to last a lifetime.  Yes, I said male.  No woman has XY chromosomes, excess testosterone, undescended testes & a malformed penis.   And this is why it's so vital that our leaders are able to answer the question "What is a woman?" in a direct and straightforward manner.   A woman is an adult human female with two X chromosomes & large gametes (eggs) with estrogen & progesterone predominating in the reproductive years.   But it's also about what she DOESN'T have:  a penis, testes, sperm & an excess of testosterone.  Sure this question is pedantic and annoying, but the fact that nobody's asking "What is a man?" should bother everyone because it indicates that this entire discussion is one-sided; that women are the only ones whose identities & hard won rights are up for debate or a vote. 

Again, facts are not amenable to your feelings and this is just the reality.  While Khelif may ALSO have a vagina and some other female parts, the presence of testosterone is what makes her/him male for the purpose of contact sports.  Please look into Klinefelter Syndrome because that's likely what (s)he has and it's not nearly as much of a grey area as they're making it out to be.  It's a spectrum and some men with it can even make babies.  This is a testosterone-insensitive male who was marked as female at birth due to the absence of a normal penis and testes, though the testes are simply undescended.  However they still produce testosterone in amounts exceeding normal female levels, hence the failed gender test.  As this doctor points out, there are likely a high concentration of these people who are high-level athletes because of their natural advantages, which is unfortunate for both them and their opponents who are now all being subjected to this controversy. 

I believe it's high time that trans & intersex people have their own leagues and divisions so they can compete in an equitable way that's fair for everybody.  Either that or compete in the men's.  "Women" has become a catchall category for females, intersex people, transwoman and transmen, which is absolute horseshit.  The fact that some of us aren't taking it lying down has clearly angered the woman haters among us who believe it's our duty to quietly bear the burdens of men in their many incarnations.  To them we say you can die mad because we're not doing it anymore.  You may continue to oppress us but you'll never stop us from speaking out against our oppression.