Please read
I don't know if this is needed right now or if this has been said before, but:
I'm not someone who has read too much of this thread and I haven't seen what people were saying when Semenya was racing, but recently I was thinking about a solution to the problem with transgender women in sport, especially after watching BBC coverage where Paula Radcliffe, Michael Johnson and Denise Lewis were all agreeing that there is no solution at all to the problem.
I think I've thought of a solution
I don't know if it's good or not. But it's a solution
In the future, transgender people are going to become more common, and 'gender fluidity' and related things will become more widespread
This could become an issue in athletics as not just the Women's 800m, but other events, have women who are transgender potentially 'taking over' their discipline
My solution (which could work in a world where transgender people exist in some numbers) would be to have 3 Gender Categories
This might sound weird. Let me explain:
1: Men (XY and XX chromosome, although transgender men are unlikely to be as physically competitive as born male (XX) men)
2: Women (ONLY XX BORN WOMEN)
3: Transgender Women (Women born XY e.g. Semenya)
With this solution, XX women (women born female) will be able to compete for gold, and so will transgender women.
Some problems and solutions:
1. If you were Caster Semenya and you were told you couldn't compete in the women's 800m, it might not come across very well if you get what I mean. But I don't think this is much of a problem, there is now a gender category that is more specific to her than before
2. There aren't that many transgender women (yet) that are competitive at the highest levels of their discipline. I was aware of at least 4 transgender women in this year's 800m (the 4th person is a Ugandan person who reached semis), but the medals could pretty much be determined even before the race has begun (Semenya, Niyonsaba, Wambui) so the achievement of being world championship medallist is less
3. In other events, I don't know any transgender athletes (apart from Dutee Chand, the Indian sprinter) but this could be solved by only having 2 gender categories in other events (only 3 where necessary)
As transgender female athletes who are the best in their discipline begin to appear, very slowly, timing this solution change would be difficult
Thanks for reading, this is my solution, sorry if someone already thought of it (I don't know), and please tell me if it's good or if it's bad
EDIT: Response suggests this is the worstest idea of ever (oops)