Olympic Committee Responds To Transphobic Attack Demanding Caitlyn Jenner Be Stripped Of Gold Medal

[dlwickham]

The International Olympic Committee is not known to be especially responsive to the general public. In the year leading up to the Sochi Winter Olympics, the LGBT community and allies around the world demanded the IOC ensure LGBT people participating in and visiting the Games in Russia would be safe, in light of Vladimir Putin's anti-gay campaign and laws criminalizing public acknowledgment of homosexuality. The IOC stayed silent until public pressure was overwhelming.

But in a rare event, the IOC has responded to an ugly and transphobic petition at Change.org calling for the Olympic Committee to strip Jenner of her 1976 Montreal Olympics gold medal.

"It has recently come to light that gold medalist Bruce Jenner is in fact transgender, and therefore, identifies as a woman," the petition, nearing 15,000 signatures, reads. It claims, "this creates somewhat of a problem as Ms. Jenner (as talented as she is) claims that she has always believed herself to be truly female, and therefore, was in violation of committee rules regarding women competing in men's sports and vice versa."

The IOC issued a response denying the call to strip Jenner of her gold medal.

"Bruce Jenner won his gold medal in the 1976 Olympic Games and there is no issue for the IOC," the Communications Director for the IOC, Mark Adams, told Yahoo News.

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/_olympic_committee_responds_to_transphobic_attack_demanding_caitlyn_jenner_be_stripped_of_gold_medal

[Kalidurga]

1. Change.org has seen fit to maintain the petition

It's an ugly petition and I don't like it on Change.org. I frequently sign petitions there. However, I think some good can come of it. The more people see the ugly side of conservationism and the louder they get the more people are going to realize they are horrible people.

[paulkienitz]

7. I don't want change.org to be cherrypicking which petitions they deem acceptable

...maybe if there was a referendum-like public process for purging hate content?

[tonekat]

2. This is an interesting situation

Most Transgender Women are not famous, and don't have the spotlight on them. Most Transgender Women don't have to drag an internationally known past behind them. Or you can keep all your friends and "transition in place" instead of moving away and starting over. She does not have the option of being anonymous.

[Initech]

3. Signing that petition says more about the person signing than about Ms. Jenner.

Even though most people don't know that it was a hoax started by 4Chan.

[paulkienitz]

8. it was 4chan? that actually makes a lot more sense

The whole thing has a sort of Sacha-Baron-Cohenesque satirical quality about it, rather than being straightforward wingnuttery.

Of course, this means there's even less excuse for anyone who signed it unironically.

[Initech]

9. That's what I heard. It makes sense.

No excuse for the bigots who signed it though.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. I really thought I had seen just about everything - until I saw this...

[AlbertCat]

5. Regardless of how Jenner feels or felt....

He has an X and a Y chromosome and was living the life of a male when he competed so.... shut the fuck up.

[thesquanderer]

6. Interesting point you bring up...

Should someone with an X and a Y chromosome be permitted to compete on a woman's team? If so, does it depend on whether they have had gender assignment surgery or not?

Maybe the answer is there should not be separate woman's teams in the first place, and all athletic competition should be co-ed? It's kind of an artificial barrier to begin with. Maybe it should just be about being "the best" and not "the best man" and "the best woman." I mean, you could just as easily split competitions into "the best white person" and "the best black person" (and segregated sports teams were a fact not too long ago). Or "the best person over 5'10 and the best person under" or any arbitrary way of splitting humans into categories.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

10. There was a male professional tennis player named Richard Raskind

Who underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1975 and came out of it as a woman with the name Renee Richards. She applied to play in the US Open in 1976 and was denied. She sued the US Open Committee and won, the judge ruling that she was a woman. She entered the US Open in 1977, lost in the first round of the singles (to Virginia Wade), but made it to the finals in doubles with Betty Ann Stuart — the pair lost a close match to Martina Navratilova and Betty Stove.

She played a bit more professional tennis, but went back to her real job as an ophthalmologist.

[AlbertCat]

11. X & Y

Biologically , in Humans, that makes you a "male"....physically. Because of genetics, men tend to have stronger upper bodies and women tend to have stronger lower bodies....but this of course is hugely generalized. But it could slightly make a difference in certain kinds of sports, I suppose. And like I said...huge generalizations....so there are many exceptions.

[LostOne4Ever]

12. It is more complicated than that

[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]There are many women who have Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. This means they have an XY chromosome but their bodies can not react to male hormones, so they develop in almost every single way as a female.

In fact, when the Olympics did genetic screening women with this condition were constantly caught up and it is a part of the reason they no longer continue that practice. Funny thing, not being able to be affected by male hormones makes them immune to the effects of many types of steroids.

It is my understanding that part of the reason there is a separation of the sexes is that average women have about 1/2 the muscle mass of the average man. However, iirc, the process of transitioning causes transwomen to lose their former muscle mass over the first couple of years of HRT.

The Olympics does create other categories to separate people. Most notably weight classes. Wrestling someone who has 100lbf on you is kind of a handicap.[/font]