A woman, after all
The NY Times gave “Rachel” McKinnon an op ed slot to instruct the world on why it’s fine for him to compete against women despite the physical advantages that a male body gives him.
People love to claim that I cheated. I didn’t. Cycling’s governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, has no doubts that I followed all of the rules. I completed an antidoping test to ratify my world record. I didn’t use any suspicious or dangerous tactics in any of my races.
This from a philosopher. “Look, this official body has no doubts, therefore it is absolute truth that I didn’t cheat! There’s no other way to look at it! It can’t be that the official body is wrong and that I’m exploiting a fashion in order to cheat and win medals and fame and op ed slots at the Times! There is absolutely no difference of any kind between what an official body says and the actual truth of the matter. None!” Very philosophy, much rational.
Many want me to race against men. I have news for them: I’m not allowed. I’m legally female. My birth certificate, passport, driver’s license, U.S. permanent resident card, medical records and my racing license all have an “F” on them. The Union Cycliste Internationale, USACycling, Cycling Canada, the Canadian and United States governments and the state of South Carolina all agree that I’m female.
The rules require me to race in the women’s category. That’s exactly where I belong: I am a woman, after all. I am female as well.
“After all” is the argument. Convincing, yeah?
Trans women are women. We are female. And we are not taking over. No openly trans woman has set an open elite world record in any sport (remember: mine is in masters racing). No openly trans woman has won an elite world championship in any sport, let alone a medal.
There haven’t been any reported cases of gender fraud, where a male athlete is given a female passport or birth certificate by an unscrupulous nation, for the purposes of slipping a “man” into a women’s Olympic event. If there were going to be mass gender fraud, we’d have seen it by now.
Another killer professional-philosopher knock-down argument: we’d have seen it by now!
We have seen it by now, in fact, it’s just that shits like him are pretending otherwise. We have seen multiple cases of men who say they are women taking prizes away from women or knocking them down or breaking their legs or smashing their faces or all of the above. We have seen it already, and it’s early days; the longer it goes on the more of it we will see. He is part of it, and he’s an academic of sorts, so the Times publishes his gossamer-thin “arguments” in support of this grotesque injustice.
Government refuses to list a trans person on official documents as their declared gender: “this is outrageous discrimination and bigotry! We are just asking the government to acknowledge the plain and indisputable facts!”
Government agrees to list a trans person on official documents as their declared gender: “you see, I am this gender, my official documents say so. QED.”
Maybe. But…when male-bodied people race against female-bodied people, that is gender fraud. How can he be sure that all the men given female birth certificates are, in fact, legitimately female? Since there is no way to independently verify that, based on the TRA definition of woman, then in fact, that could legitimately never be the case. There could be no cases of fraud if the definition of woman is “anyone who says they are a woman”.
Anyone who was born male, reached puberty as a male, especially those who competed as a male so they were already in shape for athletics, and yet is competing against females, is a gender fraud. They are taking advantage of the very physical advantages that led to the creation of women’s sports in the first place. McKinnon himself is a gender fraud.
“… but gosh, if that ever happens, I’ll be sure to rethink my whole position on trans women in women’s sports. Really. BWA HAHAHA!”
McKinnon races in Masters events. The Masters category is for cyclists 35 yeas or older; presumably because people that old are at a disadvantage against younger cyclists. How would McKinnon feel if a 25-year-old decided to enter by declaring herself a Venusian and, therefore, really 40 years old?
One of the things I find endless fascinating about this weird dude with the pink hair who beats women and brags about is what a lousy philosopher he is for a person whose profession is philosophy. He should have argumentum ad verecundiam tattooed on his thigh.
All his documents are fraudulent lies. That makes it better somehow.
And whatever he did to get all his documents falsified, there’s nothing to prevent him undoing that, and changing them back. So, to say that he *can’t* race in the men’s division is just another lie.
“Assertion that I am female. Assertion that I am female. Assertion that I am female. Assertion that I am female. See? All those assertions mean I am definitely female.”
McKinnon’s philosophy specialisations – ethics in sports, and iirc truth and veracity of assertions in dialogue – are both total shams.
No, you’re not.
No. You’re not. Emotionally blackmailing people into saying it is so won’t make it true, either.
So you took a potentially once-in-a-lifetime award away from a woman. This is intended to exonerate you? You’re also not female, so that last bit is vacuously true, at least.
But they don’t come in man shape.
Three more women’s experiences you have denied women. This is not helping your case.
Lemme sum up this sophomoric sound-bite of an argument.
i. Perfect fairness is impossible.
ii. If perfect fairness is impossible, then perfectly fair sport is impossible.
iii. Therefore, we should not care about fair sport at all.
This is seriously the sort of argument you would get from a teenager.
Irrelevant. If I suck at a game and cheat, yet still don’t win more than my share, I nonetheless have an unfair advantage. If the outcome were the critically relevant feature of fairness, then win-shares would be distributed equally regardless of performance. That, however, would be counter to the sort of fairness that matters in competition, so your argument is absurd and facile.
As before, irrelevant.
Still irrelevant.
But the practice of sport within a category in which you are not entitled to compete is not. Wrestlers and boxers and fighters do not have the right to compete in weight classes for which they are too heavy. Male people do not have the right to compete in female divisions. I don’t have the right to walk onto the Olympic track and race against the best in the world, because they are way out of my league. None of this infringes on the right to “practice” sport.
Within those classes and divisions for which we qualify.
Not as long as you continue to embody immoral narcissism.