On the way to becoming
Listen don’t even think about it, ok? Everybody is trans. Move on!
Hate to tell you, but in a way, everyone is trans. As writer T Cooper observed, all of us in life’s competitive arena are on the way to becoming someone profoundly different than we were, and keeping score is just a way to track the arc of a person from youth to prime to past it. If you subtract the aim of becomingness from competition just because you’re afraid of a Lia Thomas and make it strictly about the chance to win a prize, then you might as well go to an amusement park and shoot a squirt gun at a clown face because it will have about as much meaning.
Wut?
I’d expect a jumble of nonsense and pretension like that from a very relaxed blogger (much more relaxed than I am, you understand), but not from a Washington Post columnist. Deep insight: people aren’t exactly the same from one minute to the next therefore men can be women. Yes, I can be grumpy one minute and even more grumpy a minute later, therefore daffodils are the Greenland ice sheet. The logic is impeccable.
And then there’s the profundity about athletic contests and how they should be about a guy’s aim of becomingness as opposed to the women’s aspirations to win – the trouble with that is that competition is the whole point of competitions. That’s why we use the same word for both. It’s entirely possible to swim for the sheer joy of swimming and nothing else, but competitions are what they say they are. Lia Thomas could go do his becomingness thing in the water to his heart’s content without messing up anyone else’s life, but by doing it on the women’s team he is necessarily ruining it for all the women, and by the way ruining their becomingness into the bargain.
And that’s just the first paragraph.
We look to facts to rescue us when a subject becomes heated, but here, the science remains unsettled. No one arguing the issue really wants to admit it — when is the last time you heard a doctor or any other expert say the words, “I don’t know”? But we don’t know. Therefore, to exclude trans athletes from elite competition, out of our own constricting fears and uncertainty, is wrong, harmfully so.
We don’t know? We don’t know that Thomas has a huge advantage over his teammates?
Yes we do. We do know. Of course we do. Look at him. Look at his shoulders. Look at his scores. Of course we know.
What is the real aim and value of NCAA competition? Is it not to grow people? Surely, it’s about more than just vaulting a small subset of young talents on to a podium for the sake of name-image-and-likeness deals and spots in the Olympics.
No, it really isn’t. This is one reason I’m not interested in school sports in general – I think they are in tension with the goals of education. But given their existence, I think they should at least be fair in the sense of not cheating the girls and women who participate out of their chances.
It’s supposed to be about exploring who you are, whether on the pool deck or starting block or basketball floor, and the truth is that “every person has multitudes in them,” as Cooper’s wife, journalist Allison Glock, observed in her own work. That’s the real worthwhile inquiry of college sports.
No, it isn’t. It’s not about multitudes. It’s very focused. Yes it can teach a lot of useful and even valuable skills and habits, but it’s not about “exploring who you are.” If what you are is a dreamy poet with no interest in physical discipline, you won’t enjoy the swim team and it won’t enjoy you.
Using this as a starting point in the Thomas debate seems a much smarter approach than the uncivil fearmongering over bone density and hand size. And it allows you to ask without insult: Is Thomas’s presence preventing other swimmers from finding out who they are?
Irrelevant. It’s not about “who they are.” It’s about how fast they can swim.
H/t What a Maroon
It’s not just about prizes though. In my view the entire ethos of amateur sport is damaged by inclusion of trans women in women’s categories.
I’m an amateur runner. When I run in races (like open marathons etc, not elite competitive races) I’m not running for a medal, recognition or glory, just to challenge myself and see what I can make my body do. I don’t spend ages obsessing over it, but I do look at my position overall (usually near the back) and also my position in my sex/age category (F/40-50). Usually I’m somewhere near the middle of that.
I compare myself with those other 40-50 year old women because we face the same limitations of our physiology, age, and yes, even effects of socialisation during our upbringing and adult lives. It’s a fair comparison. Of course, we are all different – for example I am five foot ten but I have a very narrow chest; another woman may have bigger lungs but shorter legs – but none of us have all the inherent advantages that mean the top places in virtually every race are taken by men. I do not believe that a trans woman faces comparable limitations, even if she has reduced testosterone. If the women’s results table includes trans women, all those cis women who take part in amateur events purely to find out what they can do, are being denied some level of reward and personal satisfaction for their effort.
‘“every person has multitudes in them,” as Cooper’s wife, journalist Allison Glock, observed in her own work.’
Cooper’s wife is a bit of a plagiarist.
‘Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)’
–Walt Whitman
It’s a bit dishonest to use Chris Evert beating Renee Richards in 1979 to illuminate the question: “when has raw size or strength ever been the main determinant of victory”. In 1979 Chris Evert was 25 and Renee Richards was 45.
With all the discussion of differences in muscle mass, bone density, testosterone levels, lung capacity, etc., doesn’t the mere fact that Thomas ranked #462 (or whatever) among male swimmers and immediately ranked #1 compared to female swimmers immediately indicate the unfairness of the competition? If there was truly no advantage, wouldn’t Thomas have been expected to rank among women approximately where they ranked among men? Otherwise, the implication would be that women as a class are lacking something unrelated to physical differences between sexes – clearly Thomas came in with greater determination and a stronger work ethic, or something. How so many people can fail to see this (or see it and not care) continues to be infuriating.
“in a way, everyone is trans” has such a dorm room stoner feel to it that I can only laugh. I mean, I’m a little surprised to see the WaPo publish something like that; I can only assume that next week we’ll be treated to “have you ever looked at your hand? No, I mean REALLY looked at it….”
@5 sorry but I have to now share something your comment reminded me of.
https://www.theonion.com/stoner-architect-drafts-all-foyer-mansion-1819565679
I wish I’d thought to say the thing about stoner feel. Made me laugh.
This paragraph implies that there is some systemic defensiveness in medical science, as if doctors (and researchers by implication) will assert things just to avoid admitting they don’t know something. Yet one of the most common phrases heard from doctors goes something like “we don’t know what is causing ____”. I’ve heard it, and I’m sure the majority of people have at some point, perhaps multiple times.
Further, scientists in general are very well known for admissions of ignorance, even in their specialist topics; a commonly stated aphorism runs something like ‘the more you know about X, the more you realise how little you know about it’. In sceptical circles, it is generally understood that confident sweeping assertions generally come from the least knowledgeable on a subject.
So, this implied defensiveness is bullshit. The goal, as far as I can tell, is to inject doubt and debate where it doesn’t exist. It’s a tactic copied directly from the religious apologists, especially the young Earth creationists. The similarity in tactics makes it all the more shameful that sceptical people with experience in debunking religious shit have fallen for it. PZ Myers, David Gorski, Matt Dillahunty et al have been taken in by the reasoning that they spent much of their careers debunking.
Holms, I even teach my students that the most important words they need to learn by the time they leave college are “I don’t know”. They need to know when to use them, and be able to say them. And I tell them they will be more educated and, ultimately, more respected if they use those three most important words.
Sometimes they take the lesson too well. They answer most of their test questions with “I don’t know”, hoping I will count it right because they are being honest.