Denying him competition
McKinnon again, shouting about his human right to compete against women.
“Rachel” McKinnon says he has “human right” to race women because, well, he can’t win against men:
He’s quoting himself, probably because no one else would say something so stupid.
“Who the fuck am I going to race? There’s no other trans woman on my level. By creating a trans only category you’re denying me competition. If sport is a human right then you’re actively excluding me from that right.”
I don’t know why he keeps recycling that claim when it’s so OBVIOUSLY shifty. A right to sport is not a right to formal competition with prizes. The whole point of competitions is that they filter out most aspirants. There’s no “right” to play with Manchester United or the Yankees and there’s no “right” to compete in the Olympics. MacKinnon has the right to cycle his ass off, and to compete with people who want to compete with him, but he has no right to compete against women in official women’s races that are supposed to be for women. If he can’t find anyone else to compete with that’s just too bad – he can still train and cycle and get better and better: that’s his “right to sport.” Nobody is excluding him from that right but he wants to exclude women from competing in women’s races by displacing them.
Of course, a trans category is a non-starter. It wouldn’t make all the TRAs feel “special”, “validated”, “respected”. It would just make them Trans.
Yeah, just like I have a “right” to race in the Indy 500. It’s terribly, terribly exclusionary of them to prevent me from doing so. It’s completely beside the point that I can’t drive.
Glad to hear he’s making it clear. It was never about “fairness” or “inclusion” or “justice” or “human rights.” It’s only ever been about him winning. He demands, as a human right, opponents whom he can beat, not opponents who will beat him. He demands guaranteed victory. Kind of a weird, twisted, reverse “Harrison Bergeron” thing he’s got going in his head.
So… if there’s only a kids’ race going on, McKinnon gets to race with the kids?
What’s the difference between an Incel insisting attractive women are denying him his rights by refusing him “access” to them for the purpose of fulfilling his sexual desire, and Rachel MacKinnon insisting athletic women are denying him his rights by refusing him “access” to them for the purpose of fulfilling his competitive desire?
Does this mean that I have the right to join the Mormon Tabernacle choir, even though I can’t sing? Or maybe there is no human right to sing. So, sport. I get to play the special Olympics, then? Call myself trans-disabled? Because I don’t think I have a chance of beating much of anyone else (and probably most of them can beat me, too, to be honest. I’m not very sporting)
I have the impression that transwomen are not clamoring to compete against women in events where there is no male advantage. I also am aware of very few examples of transmen competing against men.
Let’s say we grant McKinnon’s argument that transgender people have a right to join competitive sports for the gender they identify with. There are many “rights” which sensitive, mature individuals choose not to exercise out of respect for others, and in consideration of circumstances. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Given that many transgender females have male bodies which developed under testosterone, the honorable thing to do would be to renounce sports competitions. Not all athletics, but those in which you might have — or be perceived to have — an unfair advantage. In the larger picture, it’s a small price to pay for whatever benefits you’ve gained. It would also help foster good will with others and a generous, gracious attitude in oneself.
Oh, wait. This is McKinnon. Okay, everyone — you can pick yourselves off the floor now.
McKinnon doesn’t want competition, he wants wins without having to compete for them.
Woman’s soccer, women’s rugby, women’s cricket, women’s tennis,women’s high-jumping and long-jumping, women’s running, women’s skiing, women’s swimming, etc – follow Mckinnon’s logic, and any number of sports that women have been enjoying will be taken over by the shameless Rachel McKinnon types with the connivance of a lot of very foolish and dogmatic people. If McKinnon wants so badly to race and there are not enough other trans-women whom he considers sufficiently good for him to race against, then he should compete with men.
But sport isn’t a human right anyway, is it? Freedom of action is a human right and if a government bans people from playing sport, that’s the right it would interfere with, not some ill-defined “right” to “sport”.
Freedom from discrimination is also a human right and McKinnon might be better off barking up that tree. But both the right to freedom of action and the right to freedom from discrimination are necessarily limited. These limitations mean that you don’t get to burst into other people’s houses, spaces, clubs or sports just because you really really want to. You do get to protest and campaign – there are excellent reasons why certain men-only clubs should be forced to accept women members, for example – but you don’t get to insist that everyone agree with you.
McKinnon’s argument doesn’t hold up from any angle. But that’s not his real argument anyway. His real argument is “ME ME ME. Also, fuck you”.
The initial categories of any sport could be quite small, without much competition. Mckinnon’s thesis depends on there never being any other trans women wanting to enter cycling competitions. How does he know he’s the only one, and there won’t soon be serious competition in the trans women’s division? Short answer: he doesnt. Especially since he is such a trailblazer and role model.
And the “no one competes at my level” is pretty telling in itself. He easily stands at the top of the women’s division (because he’s a man; you’d think he wouldn’t want to be a cheese champion in a division where even the top athletes can’t compete with him), but he’s middle of the road — i.e., he has TONS of competition — in the men’s division, which is where he belongs. He can have all the competition he can handle over there. It’s not competition that he seeks. It’s winning, and he doesn’t mind cheating to achieve it.
Exactly so. Otherwise you’d think he’d be encouraging other transwomen at the grassroots of his sport, to compete in a new trans category. Hey, someone has to be first in any category, why not carve out that new category yourself and be remembered as someone who actually created and fought for something, rather than as a coward and a bully? If there’s nobody to compete with, do something to change that. Perhaps he’d use some of the time he obviously has too much of to set up his own local trans or trans-inclusive competition and then help it grow, the same way dedicated people do with new sports. You’d think he’d want to demonstrate that trans women don’t have an advantage over women (or men, for that matter), what better way to do that than by organising a cis-friendly trans competition?
You might think all of these things but you’d be wrong because that isn’t his interest at all. It’s all about him winning and particularly about him winning at the expense of women.
latsot @ 10 – I kind of get why people frame it as a “right” to sport, even though as you say it isn’t really a basic human right. It’s about resources and money and class…and sex and race. Sport shouldn’t be reserved for rich people, or men, or white people, etc.
Yeah, it’s shorthand, sure, nothing wrong with that. Until someone uses it in a weird question-begging argument like this one. The conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise even if one accepts the premise. Which I don’t in the form Mckinnon uses it here.
I think he needs to be more precise in describing his bogus arguments. It wouldn’t make them any less stupid, but at least he might not be able to fit them in a tweet and that might spare us some strain from eye-rolling.
I’ve decided I am really 12 years old inside. I want to register for a wrestling tournament now.
Papito, I’m afraid that wouldn’t help me. I probably couldn’t beat a 12 year old these days. I might still be able to win in a geriatrics division, so I am identifying as 80. (And the way I felt when I got up this morning, I think I could honestly say I feel like an 80-year-old).
It’s unfair and discriminatory to point out that I am 6’3 and 230 pounds because of my past as an adult. What I am now is a child. Calling me anything else is hate speech.
But I’m sticking to wrestling, because I couldn’t beat a 12 year old in swimming. Kids are dropping 28.7 second 50 meter breast strokes? Fuhgeddaboutit.
I wonder if Stefoknee Wolscht has tried joining any girls’ sports teams yet….
(The “6 year old girl” who was, untill a few years ago, a 50+ Canadian man.)
I give up. I am unable to come up with anything sufficiently ridiculous to top Stefoknee Wolscht. Satire is dead.
Also, worst brolita ever.
I think I should be allowed to be part of the show at Sea World. It is simply unfair not to allow me to show off for the crowds. Just because I do not have webbed feet and I cannot swim, that does not mean I am not a genuine, truly real, otter.
Depends on whether there is fame and/or a cash prize up for grabs…