Celebrate da diversity
NPR’s manipulative language was to introduce a conversation with a pediatrician.
Often missing from the culture-war aspect of the debate is a focus on the type of questions that Dr. Eric Vilain has spent much of his career researching. Vilain, a pediatrician and geneticist who studies sex differences in athletes, says there are no good faith reasons to limit transgender women’s participation in sports, especially at the high school level. Vilain has advised both the International Olympic Committee and the NCAA, and says these laws generally aren’t based in scientific evidence, but rather “target women who have either a different biology or … simply look different.”
Easy for him to say. It’s not his rights that are being rapidly carved away by men who say they are women.
Supporters of these bills say they are meant to eliminate any competitive advantage that transgender athletes may have. So I’d like to ask you if there is data on this and what does it show?
We know that men have, on average, an advantage in performance in athletics of about 10% to 12% over women, which the sports authorities have attributed to differences in levels of a male hormone called testosterone. But the question is whether there is in real life, during actual competitions, an advantage of performance linked to this male hormone and whether trans athletes are systematically winning all competitions. The answer to this latter question, are trans athletes winning everything, is simple — that’s not the case.
Oh yay, it’s simple. It’s not credible, but it’s simple.
And lastly, I would say that every sport requires different talents and anatomies for success. So I think we should focus on celebrating this diversity, rather than focusing on relative notions of fairness.
Aw yes, what a beautiful thought. Let’s celebrate the diversity of men destroying women’s sports, because what could be more inspirational and diverse than that? It fair makes my eyes well up with tears of joy!
I’m curious about how that 10-12% is calculated, and what it really means. At first blush, it doesn’t sound like much, but in sports, small differences can mean huge disparities in results. It reminds me of that factoid about how humans share 90%+ of our DNA with (fill in name of species) — I’m never quite sure what that is supposed to mean to me, as obviously that <10% makes for some rather important differences.
Oh, and while this obviously isn't a comprehensive study, just a few numbers I pulled up quickly:
At the 2016 Summer Olympics, in the 100m running, the men's gold medalist ran 9.81 s, the women's 10.71, meaning the man's time was 8.4% shorter. But that's a huge difference in practical terms — the 8th place man (i.e. who came in last in the final heat) posted a 10.06 time. If you were an American sprinter, any time of 10.16 or better earned you an automatic invite to the U.S. qualifying competition, while a woman needed just 11.32.
In weightlifting, the weight categories complicate things, but there's a 69 kg category for both men and women. Scores were based on the sum of your best of three attempts at a snatch lift, and the best of three attempts at a clean and jerk. The men's medal winners posted scores of 352, 351, and 338. The women's medalists were 261, 259, and 255. The women's gold medalist finished well below the "bottom" men's score (not counting a couple of disqualified contestants who fouled out) of 296.
Some more instances of dishonesty:
Testosterone facilitates / encourages changes to the physique of a person and so can be considered a root cause of the disparity, but this passage is misleading in that it implies it is the current T level that does this, neglecting any mention of T levels during childhood and especially puberty.
And another:
The questioner asked about the possibility of “competitive advantage” in sports, but this dude shifts the question to whether “trans athletes are systematically winning all competitions.” Obviously the answer to this substituted question is no, but again, the question is a substitution.
If “men have, on average, an advantage in performance in athletics of about 10% to 12% over women”, then how can it possibly be the “simple” answer that trans athletes don’t have an unfair advantage? “Winning” doesn’t happen at the 10% level, it happens at the fractions of a percent.
Dr. Vilain weasles his way around it by craftily saying trans athletes aren’t winning everything. So maybe they’re not winning, um, archery? Ping pong? Curling?
Maybe he means that trans men aren’t doing so well. Next we’ll have to find a way to make their participation “fair”, too.
Screechy, I think it is usually look at in terms of speed – the man will run roughly 10% faster than the woman, at least at the elite level. But as you note, the advantage expands greatly when the focus is not on track and field but on raw strength; I have heard people say it is “at least 30%” or “30-40%” in weightlifting.
Yeah. Because they are not women. They are men.
As for not winning everything, I think they focus on the every now and then wins that a woman will make over a transwoman (man) as evidence that there is no advantage. See? This man may have won 9 competitions way ahead of the women on the team, but this one…this tenth one…he didn’t win. So, no advantage. Never mind that the one he didn’t win was one where for some reason he was running/lifting/fighting/throwing way below his usual level, having a bad day, etc.
And NPR should have asked about the studies that show a male does lose some muscle mass, etc, when he takes female hormones, but still retains a large differential over women. They don’t want to ask about that, because it doesn’t fit the narrative. And since the narrative seems to be that there really isn’t a differential anyway, that is just a western construct, such a study would be unacceptable to them.
A study would itself be a Western construct and unacceptable to them. And no, I’m not being flippant, unfortunately.
Peter N,
When was the last time you saw a transwoman win in women’s figure skating? Hah! Checkmate, TERF!
Screechy Monkey,
I always think of Katie Ledecky. She’s a remarkable long-distance swimmer; she currently holds the women’s record for 1500m freestyle at 15:20.48 (she also holds the records for the 400m and 800m freestyle). She’s set the record six times, the last five times breaking her own record. Lotte Friis is the all-time second fastest woman in the 1500m at 15:38.88; Ledecky has beaten that mark 9 times.
The record for men is Sun Yang’s 14:31.02. Ledecky wouldn’t even come close to the top 25 men all time–the 25th is Eric Vendt at 14:46.78.
The difference between Ledecky’s and Yang’s records is less than 10%, but 49 seconds in swimming is huge.
I imagine that 10% to 12% is also a significant advantage when a man is violently attacking and overpowering a woman.
So what’s the point of women’s sports at all, if there’s no advantage from biology?
musubk — To validate women. All those cis woman that can’t pass half as well as trans women need a way to be validated as women.
Let us return to our favourite competitive cyclist, Rachel Ivy Rhees as a point in case. How many other trans cyclists did s/he have to beat?
The other issue almost never brought up in this context is the matters around the sport that facilitates a girl or woman’s access to it: the change rooms, shower facilities, the toilets and so on. I rather expect that quite a few female athletes would be prepared to compete and take whatever comes, even losses, but cannot take showering with their new male teammates.
Coach Linda Blade was saying how regretful she was that they’d put in all the work they had to encourage culturally diverse girls to play, and how it will all be lost once families realise that boys are on the team, and those dads will pull their daughters off the team, because their religious texts or cultural practices won’t allow it.
(Roj, you used a different address on this comment, that’s why it was held; I switched it back to your usual one.)
Hold on.
But “different biology” is the basis for the different treatment.
@ Holms, exactly. Otherwise I’ve got a bone to pick with my GP, who has never offered a prostate check, and my IVF provider who never checked my sperm count. If biological differences are not the basis for different treatment, then matter of me not having a prostate, or sperm to count shouldn’t matter.
Seriously? His name is Doctor Badguy?
Why not? We’ve already got Morgane “The Ogre” Oger…
As to, “TWs are not winning everything,” that’s not the sole measure of fairness. Every male allowed to compete in women’s sports has cheated a woman out of her rightful place in the competition.