2024 Paris Olympics megathread

[crazy canuck]

Boxing is a mess with no federation in place, and the IOC saying without one it won't be an Olympic sport in future.

[Josquius]

How much traction is the boxing match getting in your neck of the woods?

Being reported but not top story.
It is popping up on social media a lot though. Seems to have the scum absolutely enraged with the old trans panic card... Despite this being a cis woman who failed one chromosome test-something most sport dropped back in the 90s due to being unreliable and a rubbish way to check gender

[Gups]

It was the top Olympic story yesterday in the Guardian and the Times along with Murray's retirement from tennis.

[Barrister]

How much traction is the boxing match getting in your neck of the woods?

Being reported but not top story.
It is popping up on social media a lot though. Seems to have the scum absolutely enraged with the old trans panic card... Despite this being a cis woman who failed one chromosome test-something most sport dropped back in the 90s due to being unreliable and a rubbish way to check gender

Yup - count on you to go with the most left-wing response.

So true - a lot of people seem to be saying the Algerian boxer is trans.  She is not.  She was "assigned female at birth" as the activists like to say.

It's hard to get details but it does seem like the Algerian boxer has DSD - Disorder of Sex Development.  It's very much the same story as the South African runner Caster Semenya.

These are complicated questions.  In men's sports we don't disqualify someone who has a freakish genetic disorder that makes them better at a sport.  But women's sports?  The entire concept of a separate women's category means we accept the idea that certain people (let's call them "men") shouldn't compete against women.

So should this Algerian boxer not compete?  Again it's complicated.  The IBA has disqualified her - but then again the IBA has been disavowed by the IOC.  Contrary to Jos chromosomal testing is not "unreliable" and "rubbish" (back in the day they did physical genital exams), but neither is it the be-all and end-all.

So for me - I think what sways me is that this boxer is hardly dominant at the sport, with a very mixed record.  I know the Italian boxer complained about how hard she was hit, but given how many other women have beat the Algerian it's hard to say she has an unfair advantage.  How can we say this is just completely unfair and the Algerian boxer shouldn't be allowed to compete.

But is this a fair conversation to have?  Absolutely.  At some point people who are female-presenting but with DSD are so close to men that they should not be allowed to compete against women.  Where do you draw that line?  That's the tough part though, isn't it.

And we shouldn't allow the fact that some bad-faith actors (on both sides) are trying to use this story to further their own agendas from acknowledging what the controversy is.

[Josquius]

No bad faith needed here. The truth serves those who favour rationality and women's rights just fine.

The hate brigade are usually very keen to pretend intersex people don't exist, or are thoroughly irrelevant to the "debate"- despite being the entire reason sports have gender checks in the first place.
So if it turns out she is so... Well they'll just ignore it and find something else. But the evidence is there and supports the balanced position on trans women in sport.

Needs highlighting though - we don't know if she's intersex. Trust you to go to the most right wing response. After years as a boxer (presumably being tested many times) she recently failed a single, known to be unreliable, test.

[Grey Fox]

It was fine in 2021 for the Tokyo Olympics, it is still fine in 2024.

AFAIK, she's not trans, never identified as a male, she's always been a woman. She's stronger than other people but not all, too bad.

[Gups]

What's so problematic about a simple swab test?

[Gups]

It was fine in 2021 for the Tokyo Olympics, it is still fine in 2024.

AFAIK, she's not trans, never identified as a male, she's always been a woman. She's stronger than other people but not all, too bad.

She almost certainly has an XY chromosome but not the receptor that creates external genitalia. It's called 5-ARD.

IOC did test with a cheek swap up until 1996 but discontinued the tests despite more than 90% of female athletes supporting them.

But the IOC doesn't give a fuck about women and is happy to see them smashed up rather than undertake a simple test or have to decide on a policy

[Grey Fox]

It was fine in 2021 for the Tokyo Olympics, it is still fine in 2024.

AFAIK, she's not trans, never identified as a male, she's always been a woman. She's stronger than other people but not all, too bad.

She almost certainly has an XY chromosome but not the receptor that creates external genitalia. It's called 5-ARD.

IOC did test with a cheek swap up until 1996 but discontinued the tests despite more than 90% of female athletes supporting them.

But the IOC doesn't give a fuck about women and is happy to see them smashed up rather than undertake a simple test or have to decide on a policy

Yes, nature gave her an advantage against other female boxer. Sorry, not sorry.
Like Phelps with webbed fingers & toes and his lover level of lactid acid production. No one cry fouled back then.


If the Italian women was black instead of white, none of this would have surfaced. Racism wrapped in the arms of (un)righteous anti-transism.

[Zoupa]

I don't think they intended to insult anyone. It is just very hard to do anything in the age of social media and not have a reaction of outrage from somebody.

I went back in this thread and realized I never commented on the opening ceremonies.

First of all - the idea that it wasn't intended as a Last Supper parody is laughable.  Obviously it was.

Second - yes a lot of right-wing trolls were just looking for something to be offended by.

Third - no, they never would have done anything like this for Islam.

Fourth - and my main point - it's just so tired and lazy.  I mean making a mockery of The Last Supper with drag queens would have been edgy in the 1980s, might have got you prosecuted for blasphemy in the 1960s (not up on French blasphemy laws from the 1960s), but in 2024 I feel like the only ones who would get seriously offended (not the online trolls) would be your great-grandmother.

I don't think anyone has ever beat the 2012 London opening ceremony, with Rowan Atkinson / James Bond and Her Majesty being involved.  And that includes beating the 2010 Vancouver games with Wayne Gretzky in the back of a truck in the rain for some inexplicable reason.

It wasn't about the last supper painting. Not everything lines up with your religion of choice dude. We literally couldn't care less in France.

[Gups]

Fine  if that's the policy, that's the policy but the IOC  could actually be honest about it.

Edit @GF

[Gups]

If the Italian women was black instead of white, none of this would have surfaced. Racism wrapped in the arms of (un)righteous anti-transism.

So you actually have to imagine other people's reaction to an event that didn't happen to justify this. Wow.

[HVC]

If the Italian women was black instead of white, none of this would have surfaced. Racism wrapped in the arms of (un)righteous anti-transism.

They're also mad the boxer beat an Asian woman, if that makes you feel any better.

[Sheilbh]

So mentioned before there's always a sport I've never watched before that I get really into at the Olympics. Apparently this year it's BMX - and the GB athlete Beth Shriever is really strong.

[Gups]

Watching that now. It's great fun