With the influx of arguments from all over the globe about
unfair testing of athletes in sport, especially in women, one has to ask the
question… Is it worth it?
New studies have shown that some women may have considerably
higher testosterone levels than others.
They argue that these women should not be classified as non-female, but
“unlucky”, because of their genetic predisposition. Then of course there is the issue with
intersex female athletes. Many people
don’t know or care that these intersex women would have unnaturally high
testosterone levels due to their internal ‘testes.’ But does it constitute producing the same
levels as a man, who on average have 10 x higher levels than its female
counterparts?
The current ruling in athletics is that intersex women can
compete if they can prove that their receptors are androgen resistant. Androgen is the hormone that makes men
strong, fast, grow beards, be aggressive etc.
Unfortunately for these intersex women athletes, it doesn’t matter
whether they have their internal ‘testes' removed or can prove that their
receptors are androgen resistant, because they would already have had a huge
advantage over any normal born female athlete.
This is due to the development of the individual from childhood into
adulthood. Growing up with male hormones
in a womans’ body would have obvious advantages to the physical potential of
the individual. Combine this with years
of training and the result will be exactly what it is. A male in female form… The results are everlasting. The evidence can clearly be seen in how the
intersex women are built and their masculine facial features. Once muscle growth has been established by this
process in women it is easily maintained by proper diet and regular exercise.
The misconception about steroid use is that it is a wonder
drug that makes you superhuman, overnight.
Male athletes who use steroids, do so to establish new peaks once their
performance has reached a plateau. These
periods of steroid use in men are only temporarily useful, as the body can only
hold the excess hormones as long as the half-lives of the hormones allows. The only way to stay at high levels is to
continuously use the chosen steroid, but even this has its downside. The receptors become saturated by the dosage
and more of the steroid needs to be injected or ingested to maintain the same
result of positive nitrogen balance in the muscle. The excess testosterone also causes the body
to try and counteract the imbalance by producing Estrogen. If not properly controlled, this could have
the opposite effect on the person. Some
side-effects include crying for no reason, excess fat storage, hardening of the
nipples to name but a few.
The downfall for men is that they have already reached their
natural testosterone peak in their early twenties and it just goes downhill
from there. It is a scientific fact that
hormone levels reduce drastically after 30- and even more so after 40 years of
age in men. In women, once they start
playing around with male hormones the change is a drastic one. Increased facial hair, increased libido,
enlarged clitoris, deepening of the voice, oily skin and hair, pimples and of
course the only desired result in sports, increased muscle mass and
aggression. If steroids are used for
long periods of time by women, most of these side-effects become permanent. Testosterone has the opposite result in men,
as the male body returns to its original testosterone levels with proper post
course treatment.
This brings us to the point of how they can justify it
unfair for women who have higher testosterone levels, to be excluded from
competing with other normal Testosterone levelled women?
Would it be acceptable to the pro activists, to have Caitlyn
Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner, an Olympic Gold medalist in Decathlon
for men, compete with women just because he had a sex change? Same difference, don’t you think? Although he is a woman now, he is still in
essence a man and he proved that he could compete with the best of them.
The answer is simple.
If you test higher than your peers you are not a normal woman in the
strict sense of the word and should be classified as such. Is it not more unfair to the majority of
female athletes who have normal levels to compete against women who have a
mans’ testosterone levels, than it is to let the ‘unlucky’ ones compete with
unfair advantage?
Another option of course would be to not test athletes at
all. After-all, sport is no longer a
passion or a hobby, as it was in years passed, but merely a driving force for
money under the cover of entertainment.
I for one, don’t watch sport anymore.
What is the point? Everyone is clearly
cheating at International level. It is
not a question of using steroids anymore, it is more a question of what steroid
and how much. It has become a required necessity
to be one of the elites in modern day sport.
One can but only hope our youth understands this predicament and see it
for what it is…
I say don’t test them anymore, let them make a spectacle of
themselves.
After all… that is what entertainment is about, isn’t it?
(The views in
this article are not necessarily the views of the writer)
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