“NO real scotch “I wouldn’t have thought of that.” “Don’t eat that, that’s poison!” “Good people We support this policy.” Is that person a real woman?

Humans like to think in absolute categories, a trick that worked well on the savannah plains of Africa, where we spent most of our evolution. You don’t have time to explain to your savanna child that the lethality of these fruits depends on the dosage. Just say, “This poison‘ and instill fear. It is needless to explain that the tribe’s success is a combination of practical and magical beliefs, combined with common sense, opportunism, and the occasional sneaky crushing of enemies, like all human groups. Just say we are ‘favored people’ and assume their loyalty.

People love categories and essences, but here’s the problem: scientific progress is related to the fact that nature consists of: processes, not essences. And when we apply our magical ideas about essences to practical problems, we can often go seriously astray.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll be aware that two Olympic boxers are causing controversy. Are they women? Algerian Imane Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-ting will be competing for gold medals in their respective weight classes as women.

People try to figure it out in terms of chromosomes, hormone levels, and physical appearance, but all of these processes typically caused by one thing—the SRY gene. And the process can go awry.

The condition these boxers almost certainly had is called 5α-reductase deficiency, and it causes those with male gametes to not respond to testosterone the way most men do. But they still get a big dose of testosterone at puberty, and their bodies develop things like bone density, muscle mass, and lung capacity that no amount of testosterone suppression can eliminate. Evolution designed men competing with each other physically. The fact that some women can compete with some men underscores how extraordinary these women are. It doesn’t make it fair, just as it doesn’t make it fair for someone to naturally compete against an athlete who has taken steroids (and still beat them). HE the situation is fair.

These boxers have male gametes but suffer from conditions that prevent their expression (such as descended testicles or penis development) from occurring normally. As there is much confusion (some of it deliberately spread) here is an example of the range of DSDs; this graph clearly shows that gender is binary, not a ‘spectrum’. The old term ‘intersex’ (which I have used in the past) seems to have aided reproduction.

Summary of DSDs and karyotypes for clear separation of male and female disorders

Source: Copyright Daysgobygoby

Disorders of sexual development (or differences in sexual development, if you prefer) are vanishingly rare. However, I almost had to devote a chapter to them in my book because confusion about the fact that women evolved under their own (separate) selection pressures (rather than being defective men) is one reason why the study of the female orgasm is so difficult.

By the way, none of this is about ‘transgender’. The question of whether people with gender dysphoria, who have had some form of surgery or hormone therapy, should be able to identify in women’s sports is a separate issue. People with DSD do not have gender dysphoria.

But let’s get back to sports and look at why understanding gender categories is important.

Anyone who doesn’t think that some athletes, from coaches to competitors, would use any kind of immoral perspective to succeed is perhaps naive. Examples abound, but here’s my favorite: all The Spanish basketball team faked their level of intellectual disability in order to win the gold medal at the 2000 Paralympics. This meant no athletes with intellectual disabilities at the next two Olympics, ruining thousands of careers.

It’s completely irrelevant that some women beat some men. A disabled person can beat an able-bodied person. Richard Browne, who has only one leg, can run 100 metres in 10.83 seconds. You can’t do that and neither can I, but that doesn’t mean that losing a leg isn’t a disability.

Similar explanations also apply to: All The many categories we include in sports to ensure fair and meaningful competition for as many people as possible: age, experience level, weight and gender in combat and powerlifting sports.

Most sports organizations have noticed this but for various reasons it has not happened here. However, testing has been done and these boxers have XY chromosomes.

And coaches know this. Some are scouring the world for athletes who fit their profiles because it’s a known glitch in the system that can be exploited. So much so that at the 2016 Olympics, all The podium for female winners was DSD men. The athletic sports organizations in this sport have recognized these gaps and have removed them. Boxing has fallen behind for a variety of reasons, but the situation here is not only unfair, it is downright dangerous. Boxing has experienced more than its fair share of dangers without importing new ones.