Guest post: A story of “top down” change
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Life-changing opportunities are missed.
Wallwork says it’s the IOC’s doing, and that’s true, and they suck, but it’s Hubbard’s doing too, and I think we absolutely can keep saying so. He’s blatantly cheating, and he knows it, and it’s simply revolting
Yeah, he didn’t end up on that podium accidentally, nor was a gun held to his head. “Validation” trumps fairness.
Also, would the New Zealand Olympic team be as silent if other nations fielded male ringers, if their own women’s team was made up solely of, you know,women? Or what if other countries had bigger, burlier, stronger TIMs on their “women’” weightlifting rosters? Are they good with cheating as long as they’re the only ones doing it? And as long as they’re winning? An “advantage” in the rules like this one disappears as soon as others start to join in.
Just imagine an athletic arms race in which women are wholly supplanted by TIMs in certain sports. If it’s permitted, it will be done. Pretty soon everyone is building battleships, and pushing as much through the loopholes as is possible. “It would never happen,” has already turned out to be a lie in plenty of other instances (see for example: prisons). How likely is it to remain an improbable, scaremongering fiction if money and fame are on offer?
This has been very much a story of “top down” change, with institutional capture being inecessary for the success that trans activism and gender ideology has so far attained. How far can this be imposed on the rest of the general public? Perhaps appealing to the sports viewing audience might be of some use. I think many people are completely oblivious to all the furor and controversy that blows up on twitter and in academia. Their first exposure to the issue could very well be the intrusion of boys and men into female athletics, maybe watching Hubbard in Olympic competition. How many members of the average public will actually understand that they are seeing cheating men invading women’s sports? (Though it is not likely they will learn this from captured broadcasters and media outlets.) Will they see this as fair or just? Will the average member of the public stand for this? Do they really want to watch men cheat? Not “transgender” or “transwomen” athletes. MEN. This is why the fight for clear language is important.
Perhaps we have seen the high water mark of genderism, and that the apparently sudden, and growing, institutional concern over legal risk exposure at having been misled by Stonewall, marks a changing of the tide. I’m hoping there’s a potentially huge load of peak transing just about to happen…
A few days ago, Linda Blade (with Barbara Kay) published Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport. Amazon delivered my copy last night. I feel happily surprised by how comprehensive it is.
Chapter 12 “Biden Skews Title IX” is certainly up-to-date, considering Biden’s inauguration was January 20, 2021. I am not a lawyer, but I’ve been following the wording of these issues closely, and this chapter accurately describes how the Biden administration is taking the US Supreme Court Bostock reasoning and extrapolating it to erase sex-based rights for women in general.
To be clear, I don’t mean to put words in the authors’ mouths, who wrote about sports. But that chapter is an accurate reference for issues beyond sports.
There are countries where it seems they actively recruit individuals with DSDs that cause genetic males to appear female at birth, but then masculinize at puberty, 46XY DSD. That is the condition Caster Semenya has, and the two other medalists in the 800 meter at the Rio Olympics have as well. What is to stop the active recruiting of trans athletes? There are counties that will pay athletes to become citizens so they will compete for them in the Olympics. Countries that have never won a medal can put together a team of transwomen and dominate the competition.
This thought has occurred to me, too. Most of the discussion is focused on individuals but if one or more TIMs in a woman’s team significantly increases the chance of the team winning, then their participation in women’s teams will quickly move from ‘encouraged’ to ‘normal’ and to ‘mandatory.’
The real marketplace might not be at the level of individual selection, but group (team) selection, which is even more dangerous for women’s sport.
There may be pushback when the general public sees men on the winner’s dias alongside women.
Back in the day, the East German women’s swimming team was notorious for doping. They won lots of medals, yes, but when they stood up their in their swim suits it was obvious that there was something wrong/improper/unfair going on. People talked about it. People were put off by it.