So what are we to do?
A graduate student in philosophy has solved the problem of unfairness to women in sport:
The desire for a protected female sports category is a reasonable one. How could it not be? Males have an unfair physical advantage over females in sports, and we should want everyone – not just men and boys – to have inspiring athletes they can look up to and emulate.
But what follows from here? Should all trans women athletes be banned from female sports because of what their birth certificates say, as Florida’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act entails? I don’t think so.
Why not? He doesn’t say. Trans women are men, so why shouldn’t they be “banned from” (that is, simply by definition not included in) female sports? Why doesn’t he think so? He doesn’t say. Much philosophy.
He claims that hormones are the “most relevant” sexual attribute in sports, which is fatuous. How about the larger frame, the narrower straighter hips, the broader chests, and all the rest of the permanent differences? He doesn’t say – too busy getting to the core of his “argument.”
But there is one hiccup. Preliminary research suggests that some sex-based advantages may remain for trans women athletes who went through a male puberty, even after several years of hormone therapy. As a result, while many trans women athletes best fit into the female sex category, they may still enjoy a small unfair advantage. So what are we to do?
We shrug it off, that’s what! Why did no one think of this before?
You might think that the fairest solution would be to create a new protected sports category for trans athletes to compete in. But there are probably not enough people to create such a category, and the whole idea smacks of being distastefully ostracizing anyway.
The fact that letting men intrude on women’s sports smacks of being distastefully indifferent to women is neither here nor there.
Another option, the one that I embrace, is to let trans women athletes compete in women’s sports – and to just accept the “unfairness” of doing so. Life is not fair, as the old adage goes, and sports are no exception.
There it is! That’s his solution to this difficult problem, his slicing through the Gordian knot – just don’t give a shit! So simple, so easy, so quick! Just accept the unfairness to women because hey who cares anyway, amirite?
Shorter: just suck it up, bitch.
I think Putin is proposing the same solution for Ukraine. “Just stop fighting if you want peace.”
Zactly. “I’ve thought of a solution: it’s for you to shut up and submit.”
One marvels at how he decides that a separate category of competition isn’t a reasonable solution because “there probably aren’t enough people to create such a category”, so the obvious solution to him is to infringe the rights and opportunities of millions of women. So on the one hand, there are too few to make hurting their feelings worth it, but on the other, there’s no problem with offending and abusing multitudes. Cognitive dissonance much, little man? Not really, of course, because it’s not the numbers that are at issue. The real issue for this smug twerp is that when it comes to men’s rights vs. women’s rights, there is only one acceptable solution, in his opinion, and that’s to kick the women to the curb. For a “doctoral candidate in philosophy” (hahaha), he sure isn’t able to hide his prejudice very well.
Right?
And I swear there used to be a time, not even all that long ago, when thoughtful people understood that breezily giving away other people’s rights isn’t really acceptable. What happened to that whole thing?
He makes the mistake, yet again, of assuming this is only about physical advantage in competition. If we were talking about, say, large women, there might be a point, but we’re talking about men, and the physical advantages are only a part of the picture. These men already have a competition they can join: compete with the rest of the men.
If there is some reason to dispense with sex categories in some sports, or to change it to be based on testosterone levels, then he should make that case. Pretending that these men are women and should therefore be uniquely eligible to compete against women makes no sense.
Fairness is the ONLY reason women’s sports categories exist in the first place. So his argument is that life isn’t fair, so let’s guarantee that women’s sports is unfair by including men? Now there’s some shitty reasoning for ya.
Because life should only be fair for trans people, of course, not anyone else.
How does that garbage even get published…
And in fact it isn’t “fair” for trans people – it’s a special dispensation that’s unfair to other people on behalf of trans people. It’s entirely fair for men who are trans to continue playing on men’s teams, because they’re men.
How exactly do they do that? By dint of their wardrobe and make-up? Did I miss a step in his argumen,t or did he?
It’s unfortunate that the whole “trans woman” or “transwoman” terminology was not shot down immediately, as it leads to shit like this, which of course, was the entire point. THEY ARE NOT WOMEN AT ALL so there is no way in hell that trans identified males ever “fit”, bestly or otherwise, into the female anything category.
If that guy was in my philosophy class, he’d fail. Parroting the phrase ‘life isn’t fair’ to argue for the fairness of something is a dismissive antiphilosophy. Not even an E for effort.
@7 Right also. It’s only the illusion of fairness.
A small physical advantage? Perhaps. But when you look at Lia Thomas or Veronica Rachel McKinnon Ivy or Laurel Hubbard, the advantage is large enough to be obvious. Put a four year old in the room with them, and odds are the four year old master grokker could tell the difference.
But of course, in that instance, we don’t listen to four year olds.
But Mr. Philosophy assured us that this was “one hiccup,” though I count four of them in this one sentence alone. To be fair (HA!) he might consider it four instances of the same type of hiccup. Repeated, certainly, but still the same class of hiccup, so really still just the one of them. (Not four).
Perhaps it depends on whether it’s an Imperial hiccup or a metric one? Metric ones might seem bigger because of the bigger number bit, just like centimeters vs. inches in a given length.
He also likely believes that whatever the size of the hiccup, it’s quite unfair (not to mention unpardonably rude) to notice, point out, or dwell upon any hiccups at all. One hiccup! that’s all. Who would make such a big deal over one little hiccup? “One” is right next door to “none”. Just a letter off! In the interests of being kind, we’re to let all the hiccups pass uncommented upon, though they stand there grinning and rubbing our noses in it with their medals and trophies. It’s only women being
cheatedtreated unfairly, and as they count for so little anyway, it’s like there’s practically nocheatingunfairness at all. Almost zerocheatingunfairness! One hiccup! I’d say that’s pretty darn good in anyone’s books. Almost no turds in the punch bowl!! Everybody drink up! Ladies first!That we do insist on noticing them, pointing them out, and discussing them simply indicates that there has been insufficient beating of brows and lighting of gases. Expect more of the same, to the continued gasting of our flabbers.
YNnB @ 8 – I didn’t quote that bit of his argument, or “argument” – it’s that hormones blah blah the differences are reduced so trans women become enough like women that it’s fair to pretend they really are. It’s a crap argument because the premise is complete bullshit.
I don’t claim to be a philosopher, it’s been a part of my education that is sadly lacking. However, that reasoning appears to be sub-sophomoric at best to me. I hope their supervisor peers meaningfully at them over lowered glasses.
To see ‘just pretend there is no problem’ proposed by someone philosophy doctoral candidate bodes poorly for the quality of his academic output. Woe betide the philosophy department that gives this guy a teaching position!
The comment section at least is much more reasonable than this nitwit, being unanimous in disagreeing with the author.
Objection: assumes facts not in evidence.
Why does PhiloGuy never consider the blinking-red-light obvious male sex category? Especially since that is the actual sex category to which the athlete belongs? What about “men fit” (not “best fit” but ONLY fit) into the male sex category? On what actual facts does PhiloGuy base the assertion that men can EVER “fit into” the female sex category? On account of not being females at all.
How can anyone say that with a straight face?
The comments are BLISTERING.
It’s like a blast of fresh air.
Isn’t this just a version of the tired “Famous Basketball Player A is unusually tall and FBP B has unusually long arms, and we don’t bar them from playing; being a trans woman is no different” argument?
As I am hardly the first to notice, individual advantages are individual. The advantages males have over females are generic. And of the genus that is precisely the one used to distinguish the sports categories under discussion.
Of course it is. What else are they going to do? It’s the elephant in the road, so they have to pretend it’s not there somehow.
Even if there were no physical advantage in some sport (chess, for example), there is no reason to allow men to compete in the women’s division, and there is no reason that this particular group of men should be privileged over any other group of men regarding joining the women’s division. So either he is talking about merging the men’s and women’s divisions or he’s talking nonsense (my money’s on the latter). Identity is irrelevant. The physical advantages are some but not all of the reasons separate women’s sports exist. He refuses even to consider the simple point that men-who-claim-to-be-women are not eligible for women’s competitions because they are not women; I don’t know how much plainer it could be.
I’m amused whenever a wokie (not to be confused with a wookie) rolls out the argument that a group is small and can therefore be ignored, whether that be detransitioners or whathaveyou. The braindead obvious response is okay, then since “trans people” are a tiny minority, we can ignore their histrionics. It’s plain hilarious when they do the work for me with this kind of own-goal. A separate category is off the table because there aren’t enough trans athletes?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
It’s been noted that mediocre male athletes become ‘elite’ when competing as women. Thomas goes from #462 in the nation to #1, Hubbard goes from non-competitive ‘senior’ to Olympic woman etc. etc. The counter argument that hormone changes magically erase male advantage is intuitively bogus. But I wonder if anyone has tracked the actual changes in performance that follow transition?