Author: Mick Hartley

cent years, individual sport federations have tightened up eligibility rules regarding trans athletes and those with male DSDs. (These are totally separate, although conflated by trans activists who use DSDs to “prove” sex is not binary but a spectrum.)…

What we see in Paris women’s boxing is the IOC’s ludicrous, dangerous, misogynistic principles given full rein. Since it banished the International Boxing Association (IBA) for unrelated corruption issues, the IOC has run Olympic boxing itself. After being disqualified from IBA world championships for failing gender tests Khelif and Lin, tellingly, did not appeal.

They knew the Olympics beckoned where there was neither sex testing nor testosterone rules. Mark Adams said it was enough they had female passports, a document anyone can change. In other words, the IOC allowed eligibility to women’s boxing — a sport that for safety reasons never stopped being sex-based — to be based purely on self-ID.

This calamity is not merely the IOC’s fault — it is precisely what it wants. This is sport run according to its stated principles of gender inclusion and the obliteration of sex classes. For Paris it even issued a glossary for journalists of “terms to avoid”, including “born female” and “biologically male”.

Yet fewer people will now be censored. The IOC is not just at odds with sport federations but many current female athletes, including female boxing champions who are refusing to fight Khelif and Lin. As the tide goes out on pernicious gender ideology, why does the IOC still deny science? Perhaps to court US sponsors or stay “relevant”.

But mainly because it is profoundly institutionally sexist. In 2015, it allowed any male who reduced testosterone (to a rate still ten times the female average) into female sports without consulting a single woman. It discriminates against female athletes by denying their biology where once it used it against them, banning women from the ski jump until 2014 because it might damage their wombs.

And it abolished a simple test that would have stopped Paris being remembered for televising male violence. Bring back the cheek swab: for female boxers the bad old days are now.

Letters to the Times today:

Sir, The British Medical Association has a variety of roles including acting as a trade union for doctors and producing a weekly medical journal that publishes rigorously evaluated research. One may take a view about the recent strikes, which have pitted the welfare of junior doctors against the smooth running of the NHS. Today, to my astonishment I read that the BMA has voted to oppose the findings of the Cass report and to try to reintroduce the prescribing of hormone blockers to children (news, Aug 1). The Cass report finally brought scientific rigour to the highly politicised and toxic debate on this matter. For the BMA to dismiss science in favour of wokery is an absolute disgrace. I have resigned my membership after 42 years and expect that many others will do the same.
Dawn Black
Consultant psychiatrist, London NW11

Sir, The British Medical Association has revealed its true colours with its decision to oppose implementation of the Cass review on puberty blockers. The BMA’s leaders are a self-serving bunch of political activists who happen to be doctors. In reality, the BMA is just another trade union and should stick to its core role of trying to improve our working conditions.

The BMA says that it intends to carry out an evaluation of the Cass review but it is not a scientific body like the National Institute for Health and Care Research or the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. We should ignore anything that the BMA has to say about this matter and I would urge all members who believe in evidence-based medicine to cancel their membership, especially if they want to protect children from these quacks.
Professor Jonathan Beard
Consultant vascular surgeon, Sheffield

set-image at-xid-6a00d83451ebab69e202c8d3b76268200c img-responsive” src=”http://mickhartley.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/mt_imported_image_1758239694.jpg” style=”width: 550px” title=”Epstein-4″ />
“Sitka Spruce (Tree of Life), Olympic National Park, Washington” (2021)

“Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, California” (2022)

“Coastal Redwood (Boy Scout Tree), Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, California” (2022)

“Bald Cypress, Black River, Cape Fear, North Carolina” (2023)
[All images © Mitch Epstein]

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In contrast:

The picture of Majid Kavousifar, displaying his bravery before execution in Iran, next to the Islamic Republic Leader’s terrified face, has gone viral on social media! It’s almost like the regime’s attempt to silence their opponents backfired, turning their leader into the newest… https://t.co/GwIIVfi6zU pic.twitter.com/eBYWXUl4La

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) August 1, 2024

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bones, stiffer tendons, more muscle, less body fat and more efficient leg drive resulting from pelvis shape. Men’s shoulders are broader. Male blood carries more oxygen per litre than female blood. Male hearts and lungs are bigger. The effects of puberty on both male and female bodies are mostly irreversible. Polycystic ovary syndrome, a medical condition that affects only females, may cause raised testosterone levels, perhaps 3-4 nanomoles per litre , along with other health issues. But this is a small fraction of normal male levels (10–35 nanomoles per litre). Naturally high testosterone is not doping, although it gives some performance advantage. Women with PCOS are over-represented in women’s sport. This is not controversial since they have not gone through male puberty.

Why do DSDs matter in sport?

Most DSDs affect fertility and health, not sporting performance. The main exception is when a DSD leads to a male person being incorrectly registered female at birth. Athletes with 5-ARD are hugely over-represented in women’s sports. This is the condition Caster Semenya has, and male sporting advantage is why the Court for Arbitration in Sport has ruled that 5-ARD athletes can be barred from women’s competitions. It is inaccurate to refer to such people as female, or as “women with high testosterone”. They are male, with testosterone in the normal male range. Their bodies are fully responsive to the male levels of testosterone they produce. Including them in women’s sports is unfair, since it allows male sporting advantage into the female category.

Is testosterone reduction the solution?

No. Suppressing testosterone will not shrink the athlete, or change his skeleton. Muscle mass may decline slightly, but not to female levels. In sport, where winning margins can be fractions of one percent, most of the 10-30% male advantage is retained. The only way to protect fair and safe competition for female athletes is to exclude all athletes who have been through male physical development, even if they were registered female at birth or have changed their documents.

The last interview.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh toured an exhibition of "Islamic lands" in Tehran on July 30, 2024 with the mayor of Tehran and leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Ziyad Nakhalah, where he gave an interview to SNN.ir that was uploaded to the media outlet's Telegram channel. Haniyeh said that 'false civilizations' that are based on plundering and bloodshed are not destined to last, while the Islamic civilization, which is based on "divine shari'a" is destined to last for eternity. 

Well, he wasn't destined to last.

Meanwhile, in New York, the protests about Haniyeh's assassination make explicit what was always implicit in these gatherings: it's all about Islam:

On July 31, 2024, following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and top Hizbullah military leader Fuad Shukr, Within Our Lifetime held a rally in New York City. Protesters, waved flags of Hamas, Hizbullah, Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam, and held up photos of Haniyeh and Shukr. Some protesters made an inverted triangle gesture towards NYPD officers. According to the ADL, the inverted triangle hand gesture is "used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence in many popular anti-Zionist memes and political cartoons." Nerdeen Kiswani, the leader of Within Our Lifetime accused Israel of raping children. A protester with his face covered by a keffiyeh held up a framed photo of Haniyeh, pointed at it and chanted: "The martyr is beloved by Allah! Israel is the Enemy of Allah!" Abdullah Akl, a student at Harvard University and the advocacy director of MAS Staten Island Center, also led chants at the protest. Footage of the rally was streamed live on Status Coup News on YouTube.

A powerful and important intervention from female British boxing champion @NicolaAdamsOBE. https://t.co/0o4wJhCO66

— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen) August 2, 2024

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BBC News presenter Christian Fraser gets his arse handed to him by Sharron Davies:

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— Samantha Smith (@misssamsmith) August 1, 2024

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ding-left: 40px”>Speaking after the bout, Meloni said: “I have been trying to explain for years that, when taken to the extreme, some theses risk impacting women’s rights.

“I think that athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to women’s competitions. Not because we want to discriminate against anyone, but in order to protect the right of female athletes to be able to compete on equal terms”

The Italian PM added: “I regret it [Carini’s withdrawal] even more. I was emotional yesterday when she wrote ‘I will fight’ because the dedication, the head, the character, surely also play a role in these things.

“But then it also matters to be able to compete on equal grounds and, from my point of view, it was not an even contest.”

style=”font-size: 11pt”>However, the BMA argues that this ban is “discriminatory” against transgender children. It has vowed to lobby ministers and NHS leaders to “oppose the implementation of the recommendations of the Cass review”.

The only "transgender children" are those poor wretches who've been fooled into thinking that they've been born in the wrong body – a philosophical nonsense – having been sucked into the social contagion of gender ideology. That the doctor's trade union should be supporting this absurdity is absolutely astonishing.

Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at human rights charity Sex Matters, said: “It is scarcely believable that the doctors’ trade union voted in favour of a motion making baseless claims about methodological weaknesses in the Cass review. This wide-ranging work took four years and is far and away the most authoritative synthesis of the evidence concerning the treatment of gender-distressed children and young people.

“It is a sign of how far fringe ideas about gender identity have progressed in medicine that this motion was not dismissed out of hand. The secretary of state for health should stand firm and continue to implement the Cass review in full.

“The many academics and doctors who appreciated Dr Cass’s painstaking work should tell the BMA’s leadership that it does not speak for them. Too many gender-distressed children have already been harmed by clinicians who put ideology before their patients’ health and wellbeing.”