Letter to the Editor at The Guardian, Response to Sisonke Msimang’s "Caster Semenya is the one at a disadvantage"

24 August 2016   

The Guardian

Letters Editor

guardian.letters@theguardian.com

RE:  Sisonke Msimang’s Caster Semenya is the one at a disadvantage, 24 August 2016, 08.00 BST, http://tinyurl.com/hf5mh6p

Dear Letters Editor & Sisonke Msimang,

In Caster Semenya is the one at a disadvantage, Sisonke Msimang wrote: “The idea that testosterone levels could constitute an unfair advantage in this climate is laughable.” Msimang is entirely wrong. Nearly every Olympic sport divides competitors by sex, i.e., holding separate men’s and women’s competitions.

Why? The justification for that rigid separation of the sexes is not rooted in historical precedents handed down from the Olympics of the ancient Greeks. Nor is it rooted in some religious tradition’s mandating a particularistic and antiquated contestable conception of morality in public places. Rather, the justification for separate men’s and women’s sports competitions comes from the widespread recognition that men and women have highly significant biological differences, including systematically different levels of testosterone. If different testosterone levels did not obviously confer a great advantage on men, then there would be no good reason to hold separate women-only Olympic events. Indeed, if different testosterone levels did not confer great advantage on men, then modernity, secularity, and simple fairness would compel our ending sex-segregated sports events.

Bottom line: testosterone counts.

Sincerely,

Seth Barrett Tillman 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SethBTillman ( @SethBTillman ) 

Seth Barrett Tillman, Submitted as a Letter to the Editor at The Guardian, Response to Sisonke Msimang’s "Caster Semenya is the one at a disadvantage," New Reform Club (Aug. 26, 2016, 1:00 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2016/08/letter-to-editor-guardian-response-to.html>, <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2829314>; 

My prior post: Seth Barrett Tillman, The Stuarts: Voluntary Compliance with Government Fiat, The New Reform Club (Aug. 23, 2016, 7:25 AM)