The Harrison Bergeron olympics.

We appreciate Bermon and colleagues’ (2013) engagement with our critical reflection on the new hyperandrogenism policies from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) (Karkazis et al. 2012) and thank them for characterizing it as “exceptionally thoughtful and thorough.” In the spirit of continued dialogue, we would observe that the authors’ response to our analysis repeats the case presented in the policies themselves, yet includes neither new argumentation nor new evidence. We have already addressed our concern that the new policies incorrectly boil the issue of “advantage” down to testosterone levels alone, so we do not elaborate that point here. Instead, we have limited our response to two areas: (1) the absence of evidence to support such policies; and (2) the questionable assertion of benevolence regarding athletes’ health.