Archive for the 'International Sport Events' Category

IAAF – Releases Today HA Regulations – Explanatory Notes re Hyperandrogenism – Continued Aggression, Oppression and Medicalization of Women Athletes.

A tremendous setback for women’s participation in sport, human rights and Olympic Movement.

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“Despite the well documented sorry history of the medicalization of women, it medicalizes the definition of womanhood one more time, taking the expression of embodied gender identity out of the hands of the very humans involved, and setting up many other young people for the devastating treatment that Caster Semenya experienced. Moreover, it flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence of the tremendous hormonal variability among humans.

What is further shocking, the IAAF and IOC projecting the athletes health is at risk and or see as “abnormal” to purposely publicly mislead to legitimize their policy and unsupported actions.  Where in-fact most high performance female athletes have raised level of androgens for various natural reasons, ad that that they are some of the healthiest women on the planet.  Only to be presumed “unwell” when being ONLY confronted by the IAAF and IOC.

In the elite  mens division, there are are no set limits – in-fact promoted and take advantage of to push the male human performance barriers.

This is a social ethics problem, which in-fact has whatsoever nothing to do with the athletes themselves.  This is an entrenched  and historical problem of sport, IOC and IAAF and how ALL women are perceived as high performance athletes as women in sport.”

Kristen Worley – Canadian High Performance Elite Athlete/Gender Educator

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“The bad news is that the new policy seems sexist in its philosophy. Indeed, it is so sexist that it may even count as a violation of Title IX, which will matter because the international policies will undoubtedly trickle down to school-based sports.

The hormones in question are not naturally exclusive to men. Women and men naturally make androgens — sometimes called strength-building hormones — including testosterone.

Yet despite the fact that testosterone belongs to women, too, the I.O.C. and the I.A.A.F. are basically saying it is really a manly thing: “You can have functional testosterone, but if you make too much, you’re out of the game because you’re not a real woman…”

“…Yet this newly proposed biological reduction of women to a hormonally disadvantaged class of people — one medically made disadvantaged, if necessary — struck many of us as regressive from the standpoint of women’s rights. Indeed, it reminds me of those itty-bitty shorts that college women’s volleyball players must wear. They each sexualize the bodies of female athletes as a requirement of play. They each insist that a woman never be manly.”

NYTimes April 24th, 2011 – Redefining the Sexes in Unequal Terms
Prof. Alice Dreger, clinical medical humanities and bioethics.
Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.
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“How can the I.O.C. and I.A.A.F. claim that they support the full inclusion of women when they reimpose a medical test for their very identity? It’s a huge setback for human rights and the integrity of the Olympic movement.”

April 24th, 2011 – Redefining the Sexes in Unequal Terms
Former Canadian Olympian, Dr. Bruce Kidd
University of Toronto.

Download Official IAAF Document PDF Release “Click Here”
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Other Supporting References of the Historical Impact of Gender Testing
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Journal of Human Sport & Exercise
An approach to the biological, historical and psychological repercussions of gender verification in top level competitions

JOURNAL OF HUMAN SPORT & EXERCISE – VOLUME 5 | ISSUE 3 | 2010 _________________________________________________________________________________________
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The University of Western Ontario Medical Journal
Gender verification testing: Necessary for the integrity of international athletics, or inexcusable breach of personal privacy?

Volume 79, Number 2 – Endocrinology -Published Spring 2010

Published May 2nd, 2011

This article  is a reflection of Canada’s commitment and leadership to diversity, social ethics and inclusion. In April, we convened in Ottawa as a select panel, hosted by the Canadian Centre of Ethics in Sport.  Unanimously condemning gender testing and the Stockholm Consensus despite the sorry history of which they were designed too medicalize women and the definition of womanhood, taking expression of embodied gender identity out of the very hands of the very humans involved , and setting up many other young people for the devastating treatment that Caster Semenya experienced. Moreover, it flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence of the tremendous homonal variability among humans.

NY Times ESSAY – Sports
Redefining the Sexes in Unequal Terms
April 23, 2011

The good news is that the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for track and field, have worked hard to come up with a new policy to deal with athletes whose sex development is unusual.

Although sports officials contend that this reworking is not a specific response to the fiasco surrounding the South African runner Caster Semenya, what happened to Semenya constitutes reason enough to seek reform. Surely no athlete should learn from watching television, as Semenya did, that her sex has been called in question on the international stage. And no athletes should have to face the previous patchwork policy on sex testing, wondering what will happen if their particular condition is not clearly explained in the rules.

The new policy no longer allows any room for a simplistic “I know it when I see it” approach to who counts as a female athlete. Women who test in the male range for functional testosterone will have to have their levels chemically squashed in order to play. (Functional testosterone means not just the amount the body makes, but also how the body responds to it, because some people’s cells lack receptors to respond.)

The bad news is that the new policy seems sexist in its philosophy. Indeed, it is so sexist that it may even count as a violation of Title IX, which will matter because the international policies will undoubtedly trickle down to school-based sports.

The hormones in question are not naturally exclusive to men. Women and men naturally make androgens — sometimes called strength-building hormones — including testosterone.

Yet despite the fact that testosterone belongs to women, too, the I.O.C. and the I.A.A.F. are basically saying it is really a manly thing: “You can have functional testosterone, but if you make too much, you’re out of the game because you’re not a real woman.”

To my knowledge, there is no equivalent of this biochemical policing in men’s sports. If a man has a mutation that gives him a big advantage — say he makes lots of testosterone — he can count that as a natural advantage. Indeed, at least now, men and women are allowed all other advantageous biochemical mutations.

The idea behind this policy is to make a move toward creating the mythical level playing field. But what is really being leveled here is the bodies of female athletes. Thus the game being played seems to be a kind of controlling who will count as a sexually appropriate woman: submit to being made sexually “normal” through hormone treatments or you cannot compete.

The I.O.C. and the track federation would probably say that the typical man’s functional testosterone level is orders of magnitude higher than the typical woman’s. True enough, but the same large variations could be true for other naturally occurring differences between classes of athletes, and yet it is only women who are being limited in terms of natural biochemical advantage.

At a meeting hosted by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport last week in Ottawa, a group of us mulled over this problem. We were all sympathetic to the I.O.C. and I.A.A.F.’s struggle. Sports has surely grown up past the age of sexual innocence, but it has not found its way. There is no perfect solution, one that is reasonably objective, universally applicable and universally satisfying.

Yet this newly proposed biological reduction of women to a hormonally disadvantaged class of people — one medically made disadvantaged, if necessary — struck many of us as regressive from the standpoint of women’s rights. Indeed, it reminds me of those itty-bitty shorts that college women’s volleyball players must wear. They each sexualize the bodies of female athletes as a requirement of play. They each insist that a woman never be manly.

In Ottawa, I met the former Olympian Bruce Kidd, a leader in international sports policy who served for nearly two decades as the dean of the faculty of physical education and health at the University of Toronto.

In a follow-up e-mail correspondence, he wrote: “How can the I.O.C. and I.A.A.F. claim that they support the full inclusion of women when they reimpose a medical test for their very identity? It’s a huge setback for human rights and the integrity of the Olympic movement.”

Alice Dreger is a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.

Goto Full Article – “Click Here”

Published April 26, 2011

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Bolt redefined “limit” of how fast a “MAN” can run – Johnson
Jamaica Observer
Monday April 18th, 2011

Timely Article – Interview with Usain Bolts coach Brooks Johnson speaking on how
Usain’s performances changed the landscape on what the limits are to human performance and pushing those limits.

Important to note:

Coach Johnson must be speaking about “MENS” performances as there are “NO” placed “LIMITS” based on ones MALE gender and or physiology or naturally producing high hormone levels. In-fact, those very facets are exploited and pursued in male high performance sport, as coach Johnson suggests about Usain Bolts unique competitive advantage and physiology is in-fact seen as taking to a whole new level and chasing human limitations.

Where in the case of women, as the IOC and IAAF have just done by further the medicalization of women and their gender, which flies in the face of overwhelming evidence of the tremendous hormonal variability in women, of which most most if not the majority of high performance women have, which assists like the men, with other physiology qualities makes them high performance competitors in their given sport.

The IOC and IAAF, feel they are empowered OVER women to DENY women the fairness and ability to compete, perform at their very best, by regulating imposing standards of womens gender and physiology. Solely imposing standards by men of womens gender, and allowing men to run and or participate with NO LIMITS in-fact promoted, by men for men.

Coach Johnson’s comments reflects the true narrative of the issues of gender in sport as it pertains women and mens development and participation in sport.

“MONTEGO BAY, St James — Legendary American track and field coach Brooks Johnson says that the exploits of Jamaican sprint superstar Usain Bolt is helping to change people’s perception of the limit of the human body to run faster.”

Coach Johnson further stating:

“The beautiful thing about Bolt is that he can inspire people in other events to do what he did in his events, to totally change the landscape, to totally change the perception of what is the limit or close to the limit of human performance and that is what you see…”

For Full Article Review “Click Here”
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Another Key Reference:

Hold on to your hats: scientists do not know how fast people can run. A leading expert believes it could be many years before we understand the limits of human performance
By Anna Kessel

The Observer
Sunday 21 November 2010

As Anna notes unknowingly, when we speak of “scientists do not know how fast people run or human physical limits,”limits, as her article indicates is based on solely mens performances… Her article specifically reflects this.

As the IOC/IAAF have created continued physical barriers for women to seek the same and or above performances. Of which, MEN the “PEOPLE” she is speaking of, are in-fact just MEN. WOMEN are not “PEOPLE” in sport thus justifies humiliating practices of gender testing to prove womanhood, and barriers to women’s position in sport, moreover to seek best performances with NO LIMITATIONS as men have enjoyed in high performance sport.

Gender testing, Stockholm Consensus and recent statements by the IOC/IAAF reflect this very clearly, to continue to oppress ALL women, women performances and excellence at the International and Olympic levels of sport participation.

Published April 18th, 2011

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Immediate Response to  IAAF approving the adoption of new rules and regulations governing the eligibility of females with hyperandrogenism to take part in women’s competition:

The Guardian “IAAF approves new rules on hyperandrogenism”
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Press Association

IOC Press Release – IOC addresses eligibility of female athletes with hyperandrogenism – Adopts the Coalition of Athletes for Inclusion in Sport (CAIS) Recommendations.

The Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) today confirmed the need to set up clear rules to determine the eligibility of female athletes with hperandrogenism in female competitions, starting with the Olympic Games in London next year.

“Important to Note: This statement by the IOC is a public omission that “gender testing” of female athletes was never needed. Many athletes in the last several years so physically and publicly violated (human rights/discrimination) by gender testing which proves nothing, could have been so simply dealt with as simply as a blood test within the anti-doping model.”

IOC Coalition of Athletes for Inclusion in Sport (CAIS) Recommendations:
For Full Document Release: “Click Here”

Coalition of Athletes for Inclusion in Sport (CAIS) Recommendations:
The Guiding Principles for Inclusion in Sport “Click Here”

An incredible moment (6) years of hard work and amazing support from experts around the world and support of Canadian Sport leaders made it possible.  We will never see one more athlete in modern sport history receive such harm by failed policy as it pertains to ones individual diversity and or identity.

Published April 5th, 2011

YouTube – Mianne Bagger – Tournament in Spain 2010/Talks about gender challenges in sport

Entrevistas 425 : Mianne Bagger

For Full YouTube Interview “Click Here”

Published March 29th, 2011

Oscar Pistorius sets new personal best to fuel Olympic Games dream
24 Mar 2011

Oscar Pistorius’ dream of competing at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games at London 2012 has moved a step closer after the South African sprinter set a new personal best.

Double amputee Pistorius clocked 45.61 seconds to win the 400 metres at the Provincial Championships in Pretoria last night. This time is under the ‘B’ standard qualifying time for the World Championships – which take place in Daegu, South Korea in August and September – and the Olympic Games.

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For Full Article “Click Here”

Does it get any better than this… What a week for breaking barriers and go forward for diversity. A sweeping change how we do sport is coming!!

Published March 25th, 2011

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Lancet 2005; 366: S38 María José Martínez-Patiño
Personal Account A woman tried and tested

“As I was about to enter the January, 1986, national championships, I was
told to feign an injury and to withdraw from racing quietly, graciously, and
permanently. I refused. When I crossed the line first in the 60m hurdles, my
story was leaked to the press. I was expelled from our athletes’ residence, my
sports scholarship was revoked, and my running times were erased from my
country’s athletics records. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. I lost friends, my
fiancé, hope, and energy. But I knew that I was a woman, and that my genetic
difference gave me no unfair physical advantage. I could hardly pretend to be
a man; I have breasts and a vagina. I never cheated. I fought my
disqualification.”

Download Full Review “Click Here”

Published March 22nd, 2011

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An approach to the biological, historical and psychological repercussions of gender verification in top level competitions

Martínez-Patiño et al. / Gender verification in top level competitions JOURNAL OF HUMAN SPORT & EXERCISE – VOLUME 5 | ISSUE 3 | 2010 |

MARÍA JOSÉ MARTÍNEZ-PATIÑO1, COVADONGA MATEOS-PADORNO2, AURORA MARTÍNEZ-VIDAL3, ANA MARÍA SÁNCHEZ MOSQUERA1, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA SOIDÁN1, MARÍA DEL PINO DÍAZ PEREIRA3, CARLOS FRANCISCO TOURIÑO GONZÁLEZ1
1Faculty of Science Education and Sport, University of Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain.
2Department of Physical Education, University of Las Palmas, Campus Universitario de Tafira, Spain
3Special Didactics Department. Faculty of Science Education. University of Vigo. Orense, Spain

Download Complete Review “Click Here”

Published March 22nd, 2011

USA TODAY – Born with one leg, Arizona St. wrestler wins NCAA title
By Gary Michoces, USA TODAY
March 19th, 2011

PHILADELPHIA — Arizona State’s Anthony Robles hopped off the mat at the NCAA wrestling tournament after a perfect season. Penn State coach Cael Sanderson, familiar with perfect seasons, notched the Nittany Lions’ first team title since 1953. And an ex-Penn Stater brought Arizona State another title with a pin of one of Sanderson’s young stars.

Born with one leg, Robles took the 125-pound title Saturday night with a 7-1 win over defending champion Matt McDonough of Iowa. Robles’ three-day performance here earned him the Outstanding Wrestler award.

For Robles, it was the finish to a 36-0 senior season and a journey begun when he took up wrestling as a high school freshman in Mesa, Ariz. He was anything but a dominator at the start.

“I was a terrible wrestler, only about 90 pounds, but my mom told me God made me for a reason, and I believe that reason was for wrestling,” says Robles, who was given a standing ovation on the podium by a sellout crowd of 17,687 at the Wells Fargo Center.

For Full Article “Click Here”

Published March 20th, 2011

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Olympics Wise Up On Gender Testing, Finally
Jeremy Hsu
Originally Published August 5th, 2008

“No competitive advantage

Good intentions did not turn up any imposters during gender screening. Instead, the gender tests punished athletes with disorders that affected their sex chromosomes or genitalia appearance.

“It was unfair not to allow them to compete, particularly since there’s no plausible reason to think they would have had an advantage,” Simpson said.”

“I lost friends, my fiancé, hope and energy,” said Martinez-Patino in a 2005 editorial in the journal Lancet. “But I knew that I was a woman and that my genetic difference gave me no unfair physical advantage.”

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Lancet 2005; 366: S38 María José Martínez-Patiño – Personal Account A woman tried and tested

As well…

An approach to the biological, historical and psychological repercussions of gender verification in top level competitions
Martínez-Patiño et al. / Gender verification in top level competitions JOURNAL OF HUMAN SPORT & EXERCISE – VOLUME 5 | ISSUE 3 | 2010 |

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Genel when referring to Santhi’s case at the Asian Games December 2006 in Doha:
“My suspicion is that she has one of these rare disorders of sexual development,” Genel said. “The way it was handled with all the publicity was totally inappropriate. Part of the rationale to come up with concrete procedures was to avoid this.”

For Full Article “Click Here”

Published March 18th, 2011

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The University of Western Ontario Medical Journal

Gender verification testing: Necessary for the integrity of international athletics, or inexcusable breach of personal privacy?

Colin Meyer Macaulay (Meds 2012), Moska Hamidi (Meds 2013),
and Karline Treurnicht-Naylor (Meds 2013)
Faculty reviewer: Dr. Cheril Clarson, Department of Medicine, UWO

Download Full PDF Review “Click Here”

Volume 79, Number 2 – Endocrinology
Published Spring 2010

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Published March 18th, 2011

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CBC’s The Passionate Eye – Too Fast to Be a Woman
Wednesday March 9 at 10 pm ET/PT & Saturday March 12 at 7 pm ET on CBC News Network

As Caster Semenya achieved her dream of winning the 800m World Championship in 2009, rumours of a failed gender test spread. A vicious and voyeuristic media storm erupted and Caster’s triumph was turned into public humiliation. With exclusive access, this film follows the shy teenager from a remote South African village as she struggles to come to terms with what has happened and fights to return to competition.

With the support of her family, and a top legal team, Caster takes the fight to the IAAF, the world’s leading body for the sport of athletics. As international lawyers and eminent scientists thrash out what it means to be a woman, the 19 year old at the centre of the storm wants only to run. A heart-rending and uplifting story of a young woman who overcame incredible odds to become the world’s best, only to find that her biggest challenge still lay ahead.

Produced and Directed by MAXX GINNANE, Rise Films Ltd., for the BBC.

For Full Online Review of Documentary – “Click Here”

As a personal note, the Canadian connection, and Canada’s commitment and engagement to stopping the horrible acts carried out by false developed policy against women leading to HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE AND RAPE by the IOC/IAAF over several decades, touching on the extreme simple and vulnerability of the women, Caster, Santhi Soundarajan and other great women and athletes who lives have been devastated do to the “social ignorance” of the IOC/IAAF as it relates to gender.  The women, coming from rural areas of their countries – and the viciousness and vulnerability to an athlete is massive, with little to no recoil with those who committed the harm in the first place. Now with the understanding, their policies and practices prove nothing other then great harm.

It is important to note with all the sensational reporting that created a hyperbole of hysteria of a global proportion in international sport never seen in our history. Experts and international sport those engaged behind the scenes for the 11 month period recognize the IOC/IAAF had committed tragically the worst human rights abuse and rape of young healthy women in international sport history.

We have ethical protocol, set standards and guidelines through our universal anti-doping program citing the highest standards, to protect the very identities of athletes who are using drugs and other techniques to cheat the sports system. In-fact, millions of dollars are paid to the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) by governments around the world as part of the commitment to the Olympic family. But when it comes to a person(s) gender, the most private and very essence of a human being, we project globally – The IAAF goes even one step further Friday September 11th, 2009, STATEMENT ON CASTER SEMENYA, creating a Press Release of her very personal matter making it the worlds business.  Where in-fact in the end, sadly none of it was true.  Only to be seen as furthering the tragedy, moreover the incompetence, lacking ethics and accountability of the IAAF and IOC, and assuring Caster the athletes privacy and her protection.

The production touches on IOC/IAAF did not want to see this go to court, as it would open pandora’s box, regarding gender testing and the history and impact on dozens of women, over several decades. The hesitation of Caster’s reinstatement back into World Athletics had nothing in-fact to with Caster. But all to do with the IOC/IAAF concerns of the public awareness in-fact what they had done to her and women before her. Hence the (2) line press release by the IAAF the first week of Tuesday July 6th, 2010, releasing Caster into competition anywhere in the world, without any explanation from the IAAF.

Logistically for the IOC and IAAF, a public relations nightmare was about to unravel for them. Ironically, if there is any found humour in any of this, sadly they got caught up in their own policies and practices around gender, gender verification testing and Stockholm Consensus, committing the offenses themselves.

For Full Online Review of Documentary – “Click Here”

We society, sport leaders and media let it happen, thinking the IOC and IAAF new what they were doing. In-fact, we accepted and we felt we could punish the athletes and felt we even had a right to do it, for (their) normal human difference due to our own ignorance.  In-fact like so many athletes, Caster being one of them deserved it!

It is the IOC and IAAF that need to be punished and held accountable now, not the athletes. This is a man-made issue at the highest level of international sport.

THAT’S ABOUT TO CHANGE… AND CANADA IS LEADING THE CHARGE! AWESOME!

This production put a smile on my face, and to know having such amazing effect and reaching those and making a difference for those around the world.

HUMAN DIVERSITY IN EACH ONE OF US IS TO BE CELEBRATED!

I don’t say this very often as there has been few well-done productions that articulate the issues accurately around gender in sport –

Bravo CBC and BBC! GO CANADA GO!

We will TOGETHER stop this, and assure safety and inclusion for all to participate in sport and in society, no matter ones individual diversity.  This will only happen through a collective effort and education on how we understand NORMAL human development and what “diversity” really means.

Caster will be the last woman this will ever happen too!

For Full Online Review of Documentary – “Click Here”

Published March 13th, 2011

Sportinglife.com: PISTORIUS: I’LL BE IN LONDON
March 12th, 2011

Oscar Pistorius insists he would be “extremely surprised” if he does not qualify to compete at the 2012 Olympics alongside able-bodied athletes.

The South African Paralympic sprint champion, famously known as ‘The Blade Runner’, is closing in on the required qualification time after winning his battle to be allowed to compete at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2008.

For Complete Article “Click Here”

Published March 12th, 2011