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Saturday, August 3, 2024

Olympic boxing, sex & gender

At the 2024 Olympics, Imane Khelif of Algeria won her opening Olympic boxing bout when Angela Carini of Italy quit after just 46 seconds. Almost everyone heard about that.  Then came the allegations that Khelifis a man, and counter-claims that s/he is not.

Let me complicate the debate.  Khelifis is male or female depending on how one defines sex.  

The sex of a baby is usually apparent at birth.  But in one birth out of about 15,000, the infant appears female, in fact is is an undeveloped  male.  The undeveloped male clinically appears to be female, but has no way to product gametes upon puberty.  Usually, there are very underdeveloped male components that are also sterile.  The person has no sex, thus it is incorrect to call the person a third sex.

Anyway, the usual clinical procedure to determine sex is just to look.  But when the genetics are there to make a baby male, but those genes don't get expressed for some reason, the baby boy is identified as a girl. If the infant survives, s/he will appear female but rarely develop breasts, and will have full or partial set of male hormones.  A less-functional version of a womb may develop.  Because there is something like a womb in place,this fe/male can be implanted with an embryo and even carry the embryo to term.

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I recall CNN interviewing a fe/male someone about 35 years ago.  The interviewer appeared to be  a young woman.  The interview got no farther than the questions of, "Do you want to have sex?" and "Do you need intimate human relations?" repeated several times.  The interviewer was dumbfounded.

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More information on this rare form of human (non)sexuality is posted at a Novo Nordisk article entitled  More Women Than Expected Are Genetically Men


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