Trick question
Alistair Magowan at the BBC asks
Transgender women in sport: Are they really a ‘threat’ to female sport?
Helpful of them to put the scare-quotes right in the headline, so that we’ll be primed to answer the question correctly.
The unburied lede:
Rachel McKinnon estimates she has received more than 100,000 hate messages on Twitter since she won her UCI Masters Track World Championship title in October.
Bolding theirs; they always bold the lede. We’re being carefully guided what to think. Wow, more than a hundred thousand hate messages; she she her. It’s all priming.
Magowan says the victory “was controversial in some quarters,” which primes us to think of a minority of angry wackos.
Others have said further examples may “threaten” the participation of women in sport – a view described as “sensationalist” by transgender racing driver Charlie Martin, and as “transphobic” by McKinnon.
More scare quotes. Mind you they may also, or instead, be accurate attribution quotes…but they come across as scare quotes either way, don’t they.
It is a sensitive topic, which poses some difficult questions about how gender is seen in sport, and some “dangerous” ones – according to transgender handball player Hannah Mouncey – about the fundamental right of athletes to participate in sport.
A scare quote for “Hannah” Mouncey…but after a stream of them for the people who think huge men shouldn’t steal prizes from women.
Critics say it is unfair to have a trans woman competing in female sport with a biologically male body, though McKinnon says that view goes against point four of the International Olympic Committee charter, which says: “The practice of sport is a human right.”
And yet that doesn’t say “the practice of sport as a male-bodied woman is a human right.” Lots of charters and constitutions say free speech is a human right; that doesn’t mean we all have a human right to interrupt speeches or shout into people’s windows or threaten people etc etc. Nobody is saying McKinnon must not practice a sport; many people are saying McKinnon should not compete with women in that sport because of the unfair advantage a male body bestows.
Then we get to Hannah Mouncey, who is given many paragraphs to explain how it’s actually women who have the advantage. Then McKinnon and trans racing driver Charlie Martin get many many many paragraphs to explain why they are right. Critics get a name check and that’s about it.
I guess we can tell what we are expected to conclude.
Since when is the practice of sport a human right? That means I have the right to practice sport? Even though I am no good at it? I guess the answer would be, I have the right to practice, but no particular right to be on any particular team. Ah hah! Perhaps that is the part that is forgotten. The right to speech does not include forcing people to listen to you. The ‘right to sport’ (see, I can do scare quotes, too!) does not mean you have an automatic right to practice sport against people you can hurt, and who might have their ‘right to practice sport’ taken from them because they cannot compete with biologically advantaged persons.
Even if there is a right to practice sport, that just means you can play sport. Not that you get to play where and with whom you think you should be allowed to play sport. I can wander down the road and join a local rugby club and play in my age and capability group. I can’t insist that I play with the All Blacks.
Sophistry like this is ubiquitous in trans activism and trans/queer theory. Nobody–NOBODY–is saying that trans people shouldn’t be allowed to practice sport. Jesus. I, too, have a right to “practice sport.” I don’t have a right to belong to any team I might wish to belong to. I don’t have that right because nobody does.
My home country, New Zealand, was represented at the Commonwealth Games (don’t worry if you don’t know what these are) by Laurel nee Gavin Hubbard
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/commonwealth-games/102966270/kiwi-transgender-weightlifter-laurel-hubbard-a-legal-and-ethical-mess-for-ioc
The reason she could compete, as I understand it, is that her testosterone levels are now in the range typical of women (by which I mean non-transgender women–is there a politically acceptable word for that?). But the extent to which she derives current benefit from her previous male body (by which I mean non-transgender male) is open to question.
As the article says, a mess.
As the news article
Mark Hadfield, #4; by which I mean non-transgender women–is there a politically acceptable word for that?
Yes. Women.
Not only does no such right exist in any legal framework, at least not in the phrasing presented there, but I find the phrasing bizarre to begin with. I would say people have the right to pursue happiness, which can and frequently does include playing sport, but what if we uncover a source of unfairness in this sport? Sport without a level playing field strikes me as as… unsporting.
And so we split the sporting population into two leagues, determined by this major source of unfairness in physical pursuits. It is known as biological sex, and the impact it has on competitiveness in sport is quite straightforward. The average size of the male population is larger than that of the female ==> musculature scales with size ==> sporting success is heavily influenced by musculature.
By way of illustrating the impact sex has on athleticism, let’s have a look at the 100m sprint times. First, notice that the entirety of the all-time top 25 male sprinters broke the ten second barrier. Granted, the top 25 are the best of the best, but notice that not a single member of the women’s all-time top 25 broke that barrier. Looking closer at the fastest female sprint time ever, we see that she even had an illegal tail wind. To make the point even clearer, every single male finalist in the 2016 Olympics beat her time, and six of the eight broke the barrier. The best women’s time ever would still be a clear last in a non-record-breaking men’s event.
And now Mckinnon and Mouncey want to switch teams, despite being in the advantaged category. Worse, both – but Mouncey in particular – are large even for males and have competed professionally with men. This actually reminds me of myself when I was about eight: I was heavily into BMX events back then, and after competing with kids at my age level, I then entered an event with the younger age bracket purely to get an advantage. I was a contemptible sneak back then, but then again, we expect childishness from children. What the fuck are their excuses?
Oh and look at this epic example of missing the point:
Yeah no shit Sherlock, because you stipulated that the comparison only works between adult men and women of the same size. And what has been shown to have a large impact on size? Developing as a male. Once adulthood is reached, there is no further growth to be gained or lost by hormone therapies, because the skeleton is no longer growing. The advantage that was accrued during growth is locked in.
And notice the sneaky line in the second of those paragraphs – that natural testosterone has less impact than artificially inflated levels. This prompted a bout of googling, where I found that testosterone doping will roughly quadruple a person’s testosterone levels. Why the fuck would anyone be surprised at such drastic change having an outsize influence on a body??
The dishonest, deliberate missing of the point continues:
Yeah, there is wide variability across many metrics within humanity. There is also a substantial advantage granted by just one of those traits: sex. And we control for that by having two leagues.
Fuck, I can’t take any more of this shit.
^ Oh yeah, too many links.
As an adult man, do I have a ‘right’ to play on a Little League team? Even if I really feel ‘youthful’ in my heart of hearts?
Think of all the records I might set! (Of course, at 62, and almost legally blind, I’m not the best example here)
Yeah, those Little Leaguers might actually have an advantage over you.
Those little leaguers are abusive and hateful unless they agree to your inner identity.