How human rights work

Rhys McKinnon talking to Trevor Noah part 2:

Noah asks if trans women couldn’t compete against men instead of women.

So, like I said, this boils down to, are trans women really women [pumping fists up and down], are they really female. Because if you think yes, then we belong competing with other women. So it’s an extreme indignity to say, “I believe you’re a woman, except for sport.” Right? So you can’t single out one of the most important facets of our society, we are obsessed with sport, athletes are some of the most highly praised highly paid people on the planet, so you can’t say that like I believe you and I support you but not for this one really big thing that society really cares about.

Noah asks if we don’t know yet whether trans women have an advantage [we do know, but anyway] why not wait until we do know? McKinnon answers:

Because that’s not how human rights work. So the way human rights work, is that the default is inclusion, and the burden of proof is on people seeking to exclude.

And there’s a little flutter of applause at that.

I call bullshit. “Exclude” is a morally loaded word, and in this context it’s a highly manipulative word. We don’t have cheetahs competing against humans in races either, but we don’t call that “exclusion.” Sports used to be for men only, and then women started to organize their own sports. That wasn’t “exclusion,” it was inclusion of women in the category “sport.” And McKinnon himself doesn’t want to “include” all men in women’s sport, because he wants to win, and he’s not very good.

And that’s where they end it.

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