No, as a matter of fact, it’s not
McKinnon is working on motivation. Athletes need motivation.
‘Is this what a world champion would do?’ is a question I use often to get through the hardest workouts. I’m putting together a killer garage gym for my lifting needs. I’m designing up a personal motivational poster. Thoughts?
I have a thought. My thought is that R. McKinnon is not a genuine world champion, but instead is a man who stole a world championship from a woman by competing against her. My further thought is that the exhibitionistic bragging about this feat is quite astonishingly repellent. Even if you buy the fairy tale that men can “become” women by saying the magic words and doing some hormone-fiddling, it still doesn’t follow that they are justified in then using their physical advantage to trounce women in athletic competitions.
Shorter: R. McKinnon is not a genuine world champion and looks like a sleazy fuck claiming he is.
Just wait until a 24 year old self-identifies as Masters-eligible and starts dominating that category.
Most competitors in age-restricted categories in most sports do not take themselves nearly as seriously as that.
“Is this what a world champion would do?”
What, cheat?
Probably, if they thought they could get away with it. I mean, lots have…
I mean, most genuine world champions don’t go around announcing the fact. They don’t need to. Most geniuses would not refer to themselves as a genius, stable or otherwise. Their accomplishments speak for themselves. McKinnon’s accomplishments don’t do that, because he competed against people who had a disadvantage. Seriously, would they take him seriously if he had competed at the Special Olympics being an able-bodied adult? No. Would they take him seriously if he played Little League and trounced people much smaller than himself? No. Would they take him seriously if he went to a geriatric league and used his young body to trounce old people? No.
But when you are cheating women, people allow you to call yourself a world champion, even though your opponents are smaller and lack the same musculature. We are not disabled, we are not old, and we are not juveniles, but we do have a definite disadvantage. Even the largest of women still have a female musculature.
The correct response when he calls himself a world champion is to pat him on the head, chuckle, and say “of course you are, dear. Now go out and play with the big boys”.
Graham Douglas @ #2 – I was thinking of Lance Armstrong, and then read your reply. Bingo. Cycling has been rife with attempts, successful and otherwise, to cheat the anti-doping system, and Armstrong’s is simply the best known in the U.S. The McKinnon situation is a potentially interesting twist in the ongoing story of scandal in cycling.
clamboy #4
All sports, really. We have a bit of an ongoing thing here with two members of the visiting Australian cricket team having only recently returned from suspension following cheating a couple of years back. They’re being given a hard time by the home supporters about, too.
And wasn’t there a big fuss some years ago about a female South African athlete who had to basically prove that she was female because she had an unusually masculine-looking body?
Yes, Caster Semenya. There was a recent ruling that Semenya is in fact male.
Yep. Caster is an XY male with a sex development disorder. And he has known this for at least ten years. This is well documented. He is a knowing cheat.
I think that is a bit harsh on Semenya – she is in the unfortunate position of being close to unique, but grew up believing she was female and being identified by everyone around her as such. There seems to me to be a very real difference between that and someone who has willfully opted into a category that they were not originally eligible to compete in. There really is no competition where Semenya fits.
I wish there were a “like” button for the posts here.
Ok, thanks. I’d lost track, having completely forgotten about it until just now.
Naif @#8 –
Yep. Caster Semenya’s case is really, really difficult in a way that McKinnon’s simply isn’t; and even if (for the sake of the argument) it isn’t difficult, it *is* qualitatively different.