
The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes - pmcpinto
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/the-humiliating-practice-of-sex-testing-female-athletes.html?_r=0
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emjoes1
Amazing that we still do not have true competition today. Why are male/female
still separated? Not related to this article but it is interesting that we
have this form of segregation today - NBA & WNBA, etc. Is this and testing in
itself sexism?

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throwaway2016a
I think that question can be answered empirically. If you start with the
assumption that players of both gender's push themselves to the maximum they
can (i.e. they don't stop just because they are "good enough") then it's a
matter of measurement...

Take the max/mean/median/mode of a random sample of the stats you can find
broken down by gender. If the female stats are close to the male stats then
segmentation in that sport is probably artificial.

However, my hypothesis (and I may get down-voted for this) is that for many
sports the increased weight, height, and arm/leg length will provide an unfair
advantage. I think your WNBA/NBA example may be a good example.

But like all hypothesis it would need to be tested.

Then we have the sports where there are no female leagues at all... for those,
woman should at least be allowed to try out for the teams.

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dmarcos
I've played soccer in a co-ed league and I could see ways to bring it to
professional team sports. Imagine mixed gender leagues of basketball or soccer
where you need a certain quota of men/women per team. That would balance
things out. I really think it could be fun to watch.

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informatimago
It's natural, in a time where sex changes are a fact of life, that sex-testing
become a requirement for more and more occasions.

Wouldn't you want to sex-test for a true XX chromosomic set before you'd marry
a wife to have children? Better safe than sorry, and be sure you don't marry a
XY like you with whom you cannot have natural children!

And it's not new either: how ironic to name it sex-TESTing, when the term
comes from popes' testicules being tested to ensure popes were male!

