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Comment by look_lookatme | Hacker News Reader

In track and field the 800m race is my favorite race because it's every bit training and determination as it is natural ability.

Here are the results of the women's Olympic 800m championship in Rio in 2016: https://www.olympic.org/rio-2016/athletics/800m-women

Here are the results of the 2016 Texas UIL 5A high school boys 800m championship in 2016: https://tx.milesplit.com/meets/224994/results/451208/formatt...

If those boys had competed in the same race as the Olympic women -- women athletes who have the benefits of the best sports science in the world at their disposal -- the boys would have taken the top 4 spots and it wouldn't have been close.

At the class 1A level, which means high schools with enrollments of less than ~100 kids, the top boys runner in 2016 would have beat the womens olympic gold medal winner.

Here is the satellite view of the dirt track he trained on.

https://goo.gl/maps/azHysT8zDYgVJwim9

View on HN

In the women's 800m in Rio, the top 3 all had XY chromosomes and lived with high testosterone levels through puberty.

- Caster Semenya[1] (1st place). Here is an interview with her.[2]

- Francine Niyonsaba[3] (2nd place). Here is an interview with her.[4]

- Margaret Wambui[5] (3rd place). Here's an interview with her.[6]

I see a lot of people saying things like, "Where are all the world class transgender athletes that are dominating men on a routine basis?" Well they've failed to notice the intersex XY people who are dominating women's events.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeQYdyDsioY&t=1m03s

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francine_Niyonsaba

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTC3B2sgYf4

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Wambui

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpCPnTBAWF4

> “Where are all the world class transgender athletes that are dominating men on a routine basis?"

Who says this? Most people I think naturally assume that’s not going to ever happen.

I was quoting verbatim from this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23242020

You are moving the goalposts by switching from a highly skilled game like basketball to one that is mostly dictated by physiology. There are certainly athletic competitions in which the gap between men and women differs.

I also notice you chose a race in which Caster Semenya won. I don't know it that was intentional, but that specific race highlights the ridiculousness and arbitrary nature of a ban on transgender athletes. By seemingly all credible accounts she was born, raised, and identifies as a women however she has a genetic condition that gives her some characteristics of a man. Should she be banned from competing against women? If so, what precedent does that set? Do we need to test the chromosomes of all athletes to see if they have rare genetic conditions? Are XX males allowed to compete against women even if they identify as men? What if they are on testosterone therapy?

> You are moving the goalposts by switching from a highly skilled game like basketball to one that is mostly dictated by physiology. There are certainly athletic competitions in which the gap between men and women differs

There are no goalposts, but this is just an internet argument for you so I can see why you'd think that.

As for Semenya I don't know what the right answer is. Intersex is hard. It's also rare. So I don't know. Despite being easily the most elite 800m female runner in the world she wouldn't have even touched the top 150 high school boys times that year, so it's hard to know what to do. Forced downregulation of natural T levels just to compete seems immoral.

Let me leave this moving video here about a "right answer" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP6eZAfO0Yg

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