Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: Bonehead on May 22, 2009, 09:56:11 pm
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So there's this tennis girl who had a dick once and now there's a chance she won't be able to compete with the other, penis-less ladies. Talk about being stuck inbetween everything that's divided by gender.
Sarah Gronert, a 22-year-old pro from Germany, finds herself under scrutiny from her opponents and their coaches, who believe that a unique gender issue from birth should make her ineligible for the woman's tour.
Three years ago, those issues almost caused Gronert, ranked No. 619 in the world, to abandon her career. Though she has since returned to competitive tennis, the dialogue that continues to surround her relates not to her ability, but to her biology.
Gronert was born with male and female genitalia. After undergoing surgery, she's now medically certified as a woman. That's not good enough for some, though.
"There is no girl who can hit serves like that, not even Venus Williams," said Schlomo Tzoref, the coach of Julia Glushko, who Gronert recently beat on her way to winning the Raanana tournament in Israel in early March. "When I heard her story, I was in shock. I don't know if it's fair that she can compete or not. She does have an advantage, but if this is what the WTA have decided, they probably know best. If she begins to play continuously, within six months she will be within the Top 50."
It's tough to piece together the details of Gronert's story. Her story has yet to really reach American shores, so facts have to be parsed together from various foreign language websites. Yet Tzoref isn't the only one who sees the potential for Gronert to climb the ranks of the women's tour, which will surely lead to more conversation -- and infamy -- around the world regarding her standing on the tour.
We do know that, at 19, the harsh words and treatment from peers almost led Gronert to retire. Instead, she underwent surgery to remove the male genitalia and, after a struggle with the WTA that needed a petition and special committee to resolve, was allowed to compete again.
Gronert has appeared in nine tournaments in the last three years, winning two -- the Raanana tournament on March 2 and the German Kaarst tournament on January 19 -- this year. The purse for both titles was $10,000 each. Her competitors feel she had an unfair advantage towards winning those purses which will lead her to continue to rise in the sport unfairly. The longer Gronert competes, the more fevered the conversation grows (her Wikipedia page was deleted due to constant abuse by users).
"This can not be. This is not a woman, it's a man. She does not have the power of a woman and no woman has such a technique," Tzoref said. "She serves like a man. It's very strange."
I always enjoyed watching women's tennis, but now I'm pretty scared that there actually might be some extra weight hidden under those short skirts and a gutural moan screeching through the speakers instead of.. yeah, ya know, girlie moans. Lol this could be twisted into a horrible question but meh; What's your thoughts on hermaphrodites in society? Should they really be banned from stuff simply because they have "the edge"? Also.. higher salaries if they were actually men before?
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Why'd she remove her penis? Was it horribly abnormal anyway or did she just want to compete with the girls THAT BAD.
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Well, she had both penis and vagina I think and it might get awkward in the lockerroom and public toilets having that. I guess if she had err closed the vagina instead, she would've had a disadvantage with guys? No idea lol.
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But yeah.. why the hell didn't her parents let doctors remove one genitalia when she was born?!
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Why'd she remove her penis? Was it horribly abnormal anyway or did she just want to compete with the girls THAT BAD.
Really? You don't see why someone in that situation would want to just get rid of the penis hanging off her?
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I think which way you would go on that one would depend on which gender you're more like in daily life and/or if one set of genitals is...deformed or something. This chick got rid of her penis, she's a chick. They're just being 'dicks' (HAR HAR) about this.
If she's stronger than a woman then UP YOUR GAME. You see those huge fucking bodybuilder women, it's pretty shitty to just go "BUT...BUT WE'RE GIRLS....WE CAN'T DO THAT GOOD...", you can't disqualify her for being too good for a girl.
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Female tennis players don't play the full amount of sets and are awarded less prize money in the same tournaments too. Nobody takes them seriously apart from the williamses and that's only cause they be amazon women all about pumpin iron.
It would be bad for the game if to compete girls had to get all muscley cause then there wouldn't be any cute lil russians in short skirts bending over waiting for their opponent's service. I for one wouldn't watch it
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isn't there research on this? does being born with male genitalia also result in male hormones and increased muscle mass? from what ive known about........hermies.......... they dont have testicles which seems important. she seems pretty slight and not in any way obviously physically altered from having more testosterone present in her system or whatever
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Well, she had both penis and vagina I think and it might get awkward in the lockerroom and public toilets having that. I guess if she had err closed the vagina instead, she would've had a disadvantage with guys? No idea lol.
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But yeah.. why the hell didn't her parents let doctors remove one genitalia when she was born?!
i think fausto-sterling has some pretty good things to say about that but given a gender binary and given loads of shit i don't understand and half-remember about increased suicidality in people who had genital corrective surgery as babies, it's probably better to let people decide for themselves which they wanna be. it's not like a kid needs unambiguous genitalia, and they're pretty androgynous until at least 8 anyway
depends, some have testes and some have ovaries and some have a lil bit of both
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Really? You don't see why someone in that situation would want to just get rid of the penis hanging off her?
If I had the choice between keeping my penis and playing profession tennis, I'd probably keep my penis! But maybe that's just me? :fogetshrug:
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hahaha
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If I had the choice between keeping my penis and playing profession tennis, I'd probably keep my penis! But maybe that's just me? :fogetshrug:
No. You don't seem to understand.
She had a penis AND a vagina. She had both. She got rid of one (the penis) and now they are saying "well you used to have a penis, so you cannot play with women". It's not like she was 100% dude, then got her dick chopped off. She had BOTH.
edit: and even if you did read the article and are saying this knowing she had both, I'm not too sure you really would. Imagine how confusing it would be, especially as a young child, when you have both genitalia. Eventually you'll see something that will make you realize "hey wait a second...somethins wrong in my underwear..." and as a teenager you'd just feel really really bad and awkward!
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Female tennis players don't play the full amount of sets and are awarded less prize money in the same tournaments too. Nobody takes them seriously apart from the williamses and that's only cause they be amazon women all about pumpin iron.
It would be bad for the game if to compete girls had to get all muscley cause then there wouldn't be any cute lil russians in short skirts bending over waiting for their opponent's service. I for one wouldn't watch it
not true, my great uncle loves watching professional girls tennis and softball. Granted because he's an old perv and they're hot as fuck but he really gets into the sport too.
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She's ranked 619 in the world, who cares?
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She's ranked 619 in the world, who cares?
Weeeell, Schlomo (what kind of name is that anyway?!?) seems to think that she'll be in the top 50 in six months. Like Bionic Womantm or something, ya know?
isn't there research on this? does being born with male genitalia also result in male hormones and increased muscle mass? from what ive known about........hermies.......... they dont have testicles which seems important. she seems pretty slight and not in any way obviously physically altered from having more testosterone present in her system or whatever
This was what I was thinking too. Like, she seems to have way more estrogen than testosterone (boobs) and since they didn't cut off her penis when she was young, you can only assume that she didn't eat any sissy pills either. But then Schlomo claims that she serves like a dude and it makes it more complicated. I don't know shit about tennis, but is there really that big of a difference between a male serve and a female equivalent? Like.. some gravitational phenomenom due to the mass being distributed between boobs versus balls? Are there some kind of graphs that show how much faster/stronger a male can become?! I wanna agree with Velfarre here since I've seen women that are waaay more manlier than even the manliest man (me for example), but still.. there's a reason why there's not many professional cross-gender sports out there.
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I don't know, this sounds more like the the women who lost to her are just angry and are looking for a way to get her off their way.
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how did anyone even find out? also does anyone kinda wish that they allowed steroids and other performance enhancers in sports, just to see what insane stuff happens?
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I'm checking out her photos on Google Images, and she looks very feminine to me. Basically, I'd hit it.
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Even though from what you guys are saying (I haven't looked into it really) she's more feminine than masculine, I don't really think that the whole male muscle mass thing really matters. You have to work in order to make those muscles worthwhile, as well as PRACTICE TENNIS and all that, this doesn't just happen because of testosterone. How would you even know if her strength was because of the testosterone or because she WORKED OUT A LOT? You can't disqualify her on account of it being unfair when maybe she actually got that strong on her own.
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What headphonics said. How is having a dick related to playing tennis? You don't play with your dick, you play with your muscles and if she has the muscles of a woman who cares (tennis-wise)? Hormones and thus muscle growth and all that yeah, that's related, but I don't see what the dick has to do with anything.
If I've got big enough man boobs can I play with the girls?
Velfarre, can't they just do hormone tests and ask some biology guy how human hermaphrodifdas work? And yes, hormones do matter. You have to work yeah yeah, but having your muscles grow faster helps. It doesn't make you Sampras overnight but it definitely helps.
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It's all a bunch of jealous players who want to get rid of someone who is better than them.
And who's to say Venus and Serena don't have dicks, not like they've done nudes.
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"This can not be. This is not a woman, it's a man. She does not have the power of a woman and no woman has such a technique," Tzoref said. "She serves like a man. It's very strange."
Schlomo Tzoref deserves to be found drowned in a puddle of his own urine. What a horrible thing to say.
Imagine what would happen if someone proved Federer had a vagina. "He can't play with the real men! The girly moans are really distracting!"
Bloody misogynists.
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yeah I saw that, but I thought it was funny because it really reads like someone with an accent and the guy's last name is TZOREF. I was picturing some confused old-world guy from like azerbaijan. zis woman?? ehh, not so much. she is, how you say, a man? yes?
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should have gone with lithuania. I googled tzoref and the first thing to come up was the surname records of keidan, which is apparently one of the oldest cities in lithuania.
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Velfarre, can't they just do hormone tests and ask some biology guy how human hermaphrodifdas work? And yes, hormones do matter. You have to work yeah yeah, but having your muscles grow faster helps. It doesn't make you Sampras overnight but it definitely helps.
I know it helps but fuck a lot of people in sports have unfair advantages. That's part of being fucking human. Sports is retarded if you're leveling the playing field, who's to say you can't just go "BUT...BUT SHE'S BETTER THAN ME.....I DEMAND SHE IS REMOVED FROM THE GAME..."
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DICKS
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yeah, this is pretty ridiculous. she should be able to play among the women. even if she did have extra testosterone from her genetic disposition, you can't automatically remove those who are biologically better built for some sports. like for instance builds of swimmers and gymnasts. it would be ridiculous to say that michael phelps can't swim because his build is too efficient for swimming.
i do realize that the biology of sarah gronert and michael phelps are different issues because hers is on the border of defining the game type that she plays... but i just feel like it would help if people looked at it with less stigmata.
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I know it helps but fuck a lot of people in sports have unfair advantages. That's part of being fucking human. Sports is retarded if you're leveling the playing field, who's to say you can't just go "BUT...BUT SHE'S BETTER THAN ME.....I DEMAND SHE IS REMOVED FROM THE GAME..."
Yeah, and at the other end of the slope you have 11 year old girls with one leg competing against Boris Becker. No point here.
I'm not sure I get what you're arguing here. Hormones are the reason why women and men compete separately, are you saying the whole division is stupid? My point is that if you get a borderline case of "is she a man or a woman?" make your decision based on the reason women and men are separated at all, not the catholic way of "Yup, I feel something round, just a sec, yeah, there's the other one too. We're clear here!"
EDIT: Tired: If she has a bit more testosterone than the average woman that's fine of course, but if her hormonal systems are that of a man she should compete with men. Probably not though, because she still looks like a she, but if you want to do some tests, this is definitely better than "is most of her genitalia inside or outside?"
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there are division because men are idiots who believe that women can't compete with men. But let's not forget a little tennis match between Billie Jean King and some guy who's name I can't remember atm because she kicked his ass!
Has nothing to do with hormones or whatever excuses you want to make up. It's all about sexism.
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Nah sorry it's ability
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There's a reason women have their own leagues/divisions. It's because they can't compete with the men. If I was a female or the coach of one who had to compete against this person, I would be pissed too. This is a pretty difficult issue to address because there are two sides to the coin here and neither one is necessarily wrong.
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Has nothing to do with hormones or whatever excuses you want to make up. It's all about sexism.
Bullshit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_metres#Fastest_100_metres_runners
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10000_metres#All-time_top_25
Of course the difference isn't big in tennis as it's a very technical and tactical sport compared to running, but it's a fact that men, thanks to faster muscle growth and whatever other physical traits, I'm no expert on these, always have an advantage, and it's not only marginal (check those links).
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God made Men stronger. Its a Fact.
Deal with it girls.
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It's so ridiculous... she should be left with the women. Also, they can't prove or disprove that she's good because of the increase of male hormones (which is a ridiculous statement anyways). It's a she. She = woman. The others are just jealous
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i don't understand this at all, being a man and a woman should qualify you to compete in mens AND womens tennis. as it stands she's a medically certified woman, which i imagine is more than what the other players have. regardless this is just a little bit of scandal if she's been playing 3 years after this came out.
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Of course the difference isn't big in tennis as it's a very technical and tactical sport compared to running, but it's a fact that men, thanks to faster muscle growth and whatever other physical traits, I'm no expert on these, always have an advantage, and it's not only marginal (check those links).
Tell that to the thousands of female bodybuilders who could twist you into a preztel. It's not that they CAN'T get muscle, it's that society tells them they shouldn't because it isn't 'ladylike'.
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uhhh, testosterone is a natural steroid. men are like women on steroids! women can achieve the same results it'll just take twice as long, so if they both start training at the same time the man will be considerably stronger.
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Tell that to the thousands of female bodybuilders who could twist you into a preztel. It's not that they CAN'T get muscle, it's that society tells them they shouldn't because it isn't 'ladylike'.
Female bodybuilders are pretty much all on steroids and male hormones.
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Tell that to the thousands of female bodybuilders who could twist you into a preztel. It's not that they CAN'T get muscle, it's that society tells them they shouldn't because it isn't 'ladylike'.
Is Marge a professional male bodybuilder? Because, uh, I suspect he is not and therefore that is a ridiculous comparison to make.
All female tennis players are better than I am at tennis. That is because I, despite being a man, am not good at tennis. However, the best male tennis players hit harder then the best female players. Do you see how I am not claiming to be superior due to my having balls?
Many bodybuilders are in crummy shape anyways. Having GIANT MUSCLES doesn't mean you're capable of running around for two hours like most athletes have to. They are strong sometimes, but often they'll be weak as kittens before a show because of their crazy sudden abstinence from food.
I don't get the "LOOK AT FEMALE BODYBUILDERS" argument. I would indeed enjoy watching a bodybuilding player tennis, it would be quite a retarded spectacle! "but but they can be strong" yeah, but can they be overall as strong as men while retaining the same level of agility? Rarely! Men are bigger, so they can hold more muscles without them interfering with each other negatively. FACT
"Oh you've got a ladies hormones" "gr9 let me at 'em"
or
"Sorry the power of testicles flows through you"
"Darn"
Tennis is a game of skill, anyways. Being slightly more powerful doesn't mean you automatically win. TENNIS SCANDAL
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its a known fact that men are built differently that women.
this is besides sexism and chauvinism, put a man of medium build into a tennis court with a woman of medium build and the man will preform better athletically. Maybe or probably not technically but definitely athletically, thats why they put men and women in different divisions in the first place. So being a smartass about it and trying to be funny trolling over it like anyone saying "MEN ATHLETICALLY STRONGER" is dumb or something is just stupid and annoying.
Now whether or not this lady/guy should have been in either division should have been studied much more extensively then it was. Yes, you can have female body builders but you can also have male bodybuilders, that I guarantee you if they were set at the same division they would lift much more than the women of the same division simply because of muscle mass and testosterone production.
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Ha ha, surely, I was watching tennis one time(god forbid, that it's boring for me), and I saw this "woman" playing tennis, but the face looked like a guy, thought she may of had a sex-change, or her face was tanned or something like that.
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Is Marge a professional male bodybuilder?
Maybe the man boobs I was talking about are of pure muscle. I definitely have the fat percentage of a bodybuilder.
Hey when she's good enough she could play as a one person team in mixed doubles?
I'll get my coat.
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"omg, his opinion is different than mine.. TROLL!"
Brilliant arguement. And btw, I wasn't saying a female bodybuilder would be good at Tennis. The point is, women can do anything men can it's not a question of ability it's only a question of what women and men are 'expected' to be able to do.
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i think it had more to do with your appearance than your opinion imo
societal pressures are pretty strong but i'm pretty sure their influence ends before the hormonal level. men grow beards because it's expected of them, it's not a matter of ability because women can grow beards too.
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"omg, his opinion is different than mine.. TROLL!"
Brilliant arguement. And btw, I wasn't saying a female bodybuilder would be good at Tennis. The point is, women can do anything men can it's not a question of ability it's only a question of what women and men are 'expected' to be able to do.
Dude you don't get it. Men are physically bigger and stronger than women. There are always exceptions like the "bodybuilding women that can twist you into a pretzel," but statistically women are not as strong, which is the basis in their argument.
Of course there are politics in it, but the fact of the matter is, she will do well because she has an unfair advantage.
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The question though is how much of an advantage??? She's medically classified as a woman, but I don't know if that counts just for genitalia or if it counts for hormones too. But, idk I think if THE DOCTOR SAYS then fuck it let her play.
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Yea I agree.
Personally I would love to see a hermaphrodite excel in generally any situation like this! There are few enough of them that there will probably not ever be regulations regarding it, but it will definitely pave the way or at least set a model for the future.
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i think it had more to do with your appearance than your opinion imo
societal pressures are pretty strong but i'm pretty sure their influence ends before the hormonal level. men grow beards because it's expected of them, it's not a matter of ability because women can grow beards too.
I've seen plenty of women with facial hair.
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Instead of arbitrarily dividing every sport into 'male' and 'female' on grounds of some 'average man' and 'average woman' that only exist in a statistical fairyland, just have different leagues: the sport-specific equivalents of lightweights and heavyweights (like, how hard they can hit a ball or something). If it IS true that men are on average better than women, you'll find more men in the more powerful tiers and more women in the less powerful tiers, and a few intersex people here and there, and then that's that. No problems.
I'm fine with the argument that more than 50% of men are better at sports than more than 50% of women. But 'every man is stronger than every woman' is bullshit. Who's this Everyman anyway?
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I wanna see some of the top tier Tennis women take on Rafael or Federer or Djokovic. heh jankovic vs djokovic
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Tiers are for queers
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I dunno but I personally think this is ridiculous. Unless they can prove that what they claim to be unfair advantage is a major one, this is very unfair and seem like politic to me :/
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I've seen plenty of women with facial hair.
it's nice to know you're dating but that's exactly what i said and it was a stupid example, the average man grows a beard a lot faster than a woman
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W/E, she's got a female reproductive system. GAME ON!
It must be awesome to be her because she could punch a woman, not go to jail over it, and still give a nice "where's my dinner, bitch!?" black eye.
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I think 4dsheep's idea is pretty great and I would love to see that standard.
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Why does this whole thing remind me of when Tiger Woods started reigning the golf tourneys? So what if she's different, or better, it just means the rest of them have to up their game.
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Wow. People are idiots. Whatever happened to the days where people based you off of your skills and not sex...ual issues? :p (I didn't know how else to put it) The main thing is she did have both. And it wouldn't necessarily be the testosterone causing her strength. Some women are naturally strong. /shrug Let the woman play!
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Whatever happened to the days where people based you off of your skills and not sex...ual issues?
probably the same thing that happened to all the other days that never existed
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I never understood how one person could fit a penis and vagina down below, it must get crowded.
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a vagina doesn't take up much room at all...........
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Wow. People are idiots. Whatever happened to the days where people based you off of your skills and not sex...ual issues? :p (I didn't know how else to put it) The main thing is she did have both. And it wouldn't necessarily be the testosterone causing her strength. Some women are naturally strong. /shrug Let the woman play!
climbtree is right for once, when did you think this happened? The world is JUST NOW trying to get out of doing this, and still aren't there, what times are you referring to?
I never understood how one person could fit a penis and vagina down below, it must get crowded.
ahahahaha
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I don't know, this sounds more like the the women who lost to her are just angry and are looking for a way to get her off their way.
This. Honestly, if she can pass for a woman and has the body of a woman naturally (you know, other than the penis), I'd think that her hormones geared her to being a woman, and she should compete with the other women. Honestly, the whole "this is not a woman, she serves like a man!" thing from the coaches is probably crap. In fact, I'd say it's pretty offensive. They just need to get their players to work harder/stop being lazy/dicks.
Is no one else mourning the loss of her penis for her?! It seems like if she got it cut off at 19, she must have been very attached to it (if you'll excuse the pun). I think it's extremely depressing that she had the choice to either a.) Chop off an appendage that had nothing to do with how she plays (it might have even slowed her down, who knows?) or b.) Keep it, but never be allowed to play the sport that she loves. So sad. :(
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I never understood how one person could fit a penis and vagina down below, it must get crowded.
Think of a vagina with a massive clitoris