Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

Thank you. Understood. Apology accepted. Sorry I misunderstood you.,

 

Hawk Tuah Girl and Kangaroo Kid would be a great double feature.

 

It helps to remember that the same people who claim they are so concerned with men beating up women would also tell those same women that if those men raped and impregnated them that they are just shit out of luck.

 

OK, but when I defend the Algerian boxer do I have to accept that I am defending men beating up women?

 

Nope, because the Algerian boxer is a woman.

 

I think it was referenced many pages ago, but I finished "Tested," the very informative podcast from NPR and CBC about athletes with DSDs. It first details early efforts and motivations to do sex testing, such as the surprisingly short-lived (about two years) "nude parades." There also appears to be a documentary on the topic called "Category: Woman."

I'd say it's worth everyone's time. I was kind of curious what other people thought of it so I looked at some reviews. Most were very positive, though one said it "offered no solutions other than to reinforce a narrative of oppressor and oppressed." I'm honestly not sure what you would do to solve that at this time. The CAS decision (which includes an audio clip) basically declared "yes, this is discrimination but it's necessary discrimination to protect the female category" and it appears that the stance of World Athletics and CAS is that if you want to compete you can chemically mutilate your body or else, tough shit. I'm not sure how you fight that other than perhaps to try and get an injunction against the organizers of a meet and World Athletics on the grounds of unlawful discrimination, and even then I think CAS largely exists as a sort of binding arbitration that prevents things exactly like that from happening (i.e., global organizations being dragged into domestic courts) and to do that would be the sort of "government interference" that organizations like that tend to frown upon.

The podcast touches on this, though not as much as they probably could, but I think they could have gone more into the fact that racism and sexism have a pretty significant role in these debates. As I mentioned a while ago, a significant number of the women caught up in these issues are from sub-Saharan Africa, including all three medalists from the women's 800 (South Africa, Burundi, Kenya) in Rio. Shifting gears a little, which American female athlete's gender is most frequently called into question? Brittney Griner. Not every DSD athlete is going to look and talk like Caster Semenya. I kind of get the feeling that a lot fewer people would care about "protecting women's sports" from athletes from the global south and who look like Semenya than they would care about "protecting women's sports" from someone who is from a major country and looks like Keely Hodgkinson, no matter what her chromosomes look like. And considering how much of women's athletics and how many administrators of women's athletics deliberately target the male gaze, I kind of wonder how much some of these athletes (including the boxers) are guilty of being fast, non-white, poor and conventionally unattractive.

 

Maybe there are some legitimate, non-bigoted conversations to be had about it. But they’re not happening.

BTW, it was a woman who accused me of defending men beating up women. And no, there is no fucking way this boxer was mistaken determined to be a female at birth. That mistake never happens.

Nobody had a problem with her until she beat an undefeated Russian boxer last year. I wonder why.

All these years of boxing and she never had to take whatever test it was until last year?

 

You need to lose some "friends" on whatever social media app where these people are harping on you about that. I've muted dozens of people until after the election because they're grievance farming like their lives depend on it.

 

Will breaking be part of the Paralympics too?

 

I am convinced that smallpotatoes is running some elaborate, multi-decade bit with this board. He always, and I mean always comes here after getting into an argument with someone who has the worst views on whatever is the current topic of the day (or in this case, a month late).

I alternate between getting irritated at him continually getting into these monstrously stupid debates; or admire his commitment to the bit - he's been doing this act for 20 years here.

I mean, there is no way this cat smallpotatoes is a real person.

 

I believe smallpotatoes to be an Andy Kauffman-level genius of comedy, a comedian involved in part art installation, part comedy routine done for an audience of one.

It is a work of astounding dedication and craft and we are but unassuming bystanders. Books will be written about this work and we will be the butt of the joke.

 

You’re giving me too much credit. Flattered by the Andy Kaufman comparison, but I’m no Andy Kaufman.