Their primary duty is to ensure that somebody does not die
The Telegraph’s chief sports writer Oliver Brown points out that someone could get killed.
Boxing, in case you have not already noticed, is based on trying to knock someone out as the quickest route to victory. It is the sporting realm where sexual dimorphism is most pronounced, since men are biologically favoured with not just wider shoulders and longer reach than women, but 90 per cent increased bicep strength and 162 per cent greater puncher power.
To spell this out, this means that a man’s average punch has over 2.6 times the force of one delivered by a woman. It is a stark illustration of the responsibility that boxing’s authorities must carry when they match fighters up. Quite simply, their primary duty is to ensure that somebody does not die. And yet the International Olympic Committee has decided that two fighters who failed testosterone and gender eligibility tests only last year have fulfilled the criteria to compete in the women’s category in Paris.
I guess that’s because it’s only women who could die, so meh.
Imane Khelif of Algeria and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting were both thrown out of the world championships in Delhi last year amid questions over their biological sex. Lest anyone imagines this is some state secret, it is openly acknowledged in the official Olympic profiles for both athletes. But where the International Boxing Association (IBA) saw fit to disqualify the pair, the IOC have given them a free pass to go up against female opponents in the most dangerous sport, and on the grandest stage of all.
Women, you see. Women don’t matter, unless of course they’re really men.
“You have to understand the unfairness,” says Dr Emma Hilton, a developmental biologist and a leading expert in how differences between the sexes translate to sporting performance. “Seeing three DSD athletes on the podium of a women’s 800m race was shocking, but at least you knew that nobody had risked their life. But this is a risk that is now being contemplated at the Olympics on ideological grounds. Instead of the IOC saying, ‘No, these athletes can’t be in a female sport, especially not in boxing’, they are trying to balance fairness, inclusion and safety. But safety is not about balance. Safety is a cut-off. If it is not safe, nobody cares if it is fair or inclusive. You canot do it.”
Unless of course you simply don’t give a shit if women are killed by men who claim to be women.
Men being allowed to box women??
Allow me to reprise two comments I have made:
1. What woman in her right mind would step into the ring with these blokes?
2. Why don’t women walk out in protest of this shit?
I’m obviously missing something essential here, being neither female nor an athlete. Please enlighten me.
Well I don’t think the pressing questions have to do with why don’t women do something. I think the pressing questions have to do with why do the Olympics officials allow this, why does anyone allow this, why don’t all the people with the power put a stop to it? This isn’t women’s fault.
Are there differences in cranial toughness?
How these trans “controversies” are related to marketing is what I’d like to know. Schadenfreude sells, as does depravity. Now add misogyny and inspire outrage. Just put ads along with it. Cash in on the current fad.
Suckers.
I’d sooner watch grass grow.
Colin — one of my hobbies is physical anthropology (specifically, “bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology”), and one of the basic things that “we” do is try to determine the sex of a skeleton. Among the diagnostic differences between males and females are details of the skull: the male skull is overall more robust, and displays “brow ridges”, and a pronounced muscle attachment point at the back. It’s not like males need these because they have a different diet or anything — I believe that males, more than females, evolved to survive heavy blows to the face.
I hasten to add — not in all cases. The sexes of some skulls are more obvious than others. There are “robust” females and “gracile” males. But generally speaking, yeah, male skulls are tougher.
@Mike
A woman athlete who walks out has possibly just lost everything she’s worked for her whole life— her match, her eligibility, her standing, her reputation, and at least some of her friends. A group of women walking out simultaneously might manage to make a majority, but there will always be true believers and upcomers to step into their places on the team. Remember that the moral melodrama being trumpeted high and low is that transwomen are in the same position black athletes once were. You boycott, you take on the role of someone skipping class so they don’t have to sit next to a colored.
This battle can’t be fought by an easy solution like a walkout unless the scale is massive and the numbers close to unanimous— and even then they need the science. The organizers have to change.
Thanks. A sad situation all around.
What Sastra said. And what Ophelia said. Your solution sounds good on the surface, but it, as usual, leaves it to the women to lose out to men. It really isn’t any different in effect than ‘why didn’t she stay at home’ or ‘why did she wear that’ or any of the other things done that shift the blame to the women.
If you are a woman who has reached any sort of career high, you have put up with male shit most of your life, and are almost certainly still putting up with it. If you do anything, like walking out, you sacrifice all the work, all the fighting, to get where you are. The man will not usually lose; hell, even when they rape or molest women, more often than not it is the woman punished, not the man.
Putting the onus on the women, to sacrifice their careers, their potential awards, their reputations, is the wrong solution. I know, the idea is to force someone to do something, but in all likelihood, no one will.
Probably the best thing to do is go ahead and do your utmost, and when audiences see big brutes of men beating up on women, standing on the podium with a boner accepting a woman’s medal, perhaps that will fuel more public outrage and bring this to a halt.
If the women walk out, the trans control the narrative. If they stay, and lose, and have to stand beside the male winner, the picture will say more than the narrative ever could. People can tell the difference between the sexes, but it is often a visual impact that jolts complacent people back to reality.
Sonia Twigg just wrote an article for the Independent about trans in the Olympics. She left out the two men who are going to be allowed to beat up on women in boxing. True ignorance on her part or sin of omission time?
Beautifully said.
[…] a comment by Sastra on Their primary duty is to ensure that somebody does not […]
@Southwest88
I don’t think these two men identify as trans. I think they have DSDs, or claim to. In any case the IOC knows very well that they’re males.
Emma Hilton is brilliant. I was going to try posting this in the miscellany room but it might as well go here.
https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1818259369420620176