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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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When someone refers to Caster Semenya, Imane Khelif or other intersex individuals with female presenting genital as a man, they have changed the definition of man and woman. They are applying a new modern definition over words far far older than chromosomes were known to exist for. Historically intersex people like Semenya and Khelif would have been women, it is the changed definition that says otherwise.

This is simply not true. Historically, most males with 5ARD (which is the condition that Semenya and Khelif have) would be considered men after going through puberty.

This varies between cultures, obviously, but for example, in the Dominican Republic boys with 5ARD are called guevedoces (literally: penis-at-twelve) and they are considered men who only grow a penis when they hit puberty. They aren't considered women, which makes sense, when they don't have any of the traits of women: they don't have breasts, wider hips, they don't have ovaries or a uterus, and cannot give birth. But they can impregnate women, like men, just like Caster Semenya has.

So historically, intersex males with 5ARD have been considered men, not women. You are changing definitions if you insist that Semenya and Khelif are women.

There's actually an incredibly easy way to check this simply by looking at how Semenya and Khelif were treated before their intersex conditions were known. Semenya was assigned female and raised as a girl, and lived through her life as a woman. Likewise Khelif was also assigned female, raised as a girl, and lived through her life as a woman. Their specific lives were as girls and women.

This varies between cultures, obviously, but for example, in the Dominican Republic boys with 5ARD are called guevedoces (literally: penis-at-twelve) and they are considered men who only grow a penis when they hit puberty. They aren't considered women, which makes sense, when they don't have any of the traits of women: they don't have breasts, wider hips, they don't have ovaries or a uterus, and cannot give birth. But they can impregnate women, like men, just like Caster Semenya has.

Yes it does vary among cultures, which is a great example of how even biological categories can be really fuzzy. After all, categorization systems are created by humans for humans. The map is not the territory.

It also depends on the intersex condition in question too, there is way more than just 5ARD so even if every case of 5ARD in every single culture throughout all of history was treated as men, we would still have tons of other fuzzy conditions to consider. And things like the SRY gene test can not be following the historic definition, as genes were not known until very recently. It is literally impossible unless time travel is invented and someone taught our ancient Germanic/Norse/whateverelseispartofEnglish ancestors about genetics.

You're dodging the central point, which is that ancient cultures already knew that geuevedoces weren't women. They called them "penis at twelve" exactly because they thought of them a special kind of boy that only grows his penis when he hits puberty (when most boys are born with them). They weren't considered women.

Khelif was also assigned female, raised as a girl, and lived through her life as a woman

No, she didn't live life as a woman. She lived as a girl until puberty. Then when girls started to develop into women, Khelif developed into a man. He grew taller, with broad shoulders, and narrow hips, while his female peers developed wider hips and started menstruating. Khelif has never had a period in his life, because he lacks any female organs, which is how he knew he was male. He must have figured it out at age 15 or 16 at the latest. Since then, he has been living a lie.

It also depends on the intersex condition in question too, there is way more than just 5ARD

Sure, but 5ARD is the most common and it is what Khelif and Semenya and a bunch of other male athletes who competed in women's sports have. Let's start by getting the gender ideologues to acknowledge that, then we can move into more obscure conditions.

And things like the SRY gene test can not be following the historic definition, as genes were not known until very recently.

Humans knew about the male and female sex before the discovery of chromosomes. You don't need to know the genetic details to understand that males and females are built differently. In any case, it doesn't excuse the current state of the world. It's settled science that Imane Khelif is a man in all ways that matter for the purpose of boxing.