You call that ethical?
Always lead with the careful obfuscation.
Practical suggestions on how sports federations can be fair to transgender athletes
He means male “transgender” athletes of course, but he hides that in the usual way. He is one Andy Harvey, a former lecturer in sport science at Swansea University, writing for an outlet called Play the Game.
In the absence of robust scientific data, sports federations should take an ethical approach on how to include transgender athletes. Andy Harvey suggests developing benchmarks for tolerable unfairness and baselines for acceptable safety risks as a way to determine if transgender athletes should be included or not.
That’s cool because the “tolerable” unfairness will have to be tolerated by women, not men. Obviously that’s an ethical approach. You may wonder why inclusion of men in women’s sports is more important and more “ethical” than fairness in women’s sports. I wonder too.
Transgender inclusion in sport is one of the more difficult issues facing international federations and national sports governing bodies. How transgender athletes can participate and compete in sports has become a vocal feature of the ‘culture wars’ that have ignited in many Western countries and elsewhere.
Recently, I have participated in two conferences and one expert meeting on the topic and am convinced that sport’s rule makers need some assistance in working out how best to include trans athletes in their sports. This article sets out a brief guide to some of the relevant matters they should take into account when developing policy.
Again, the careful deceit of saying “trans athletes” instead of “male athletes wanting to play women’s sports.” He admits it’s a “difficult issue” but carefully doesn’t say why it is.
There are good reasons why some sports are organised along separate sex/gender lines: as a population, men enjoy a physiological advantage over women for those sports that rely on strength, speed and power that would make mixed gender competitions untenable and unfair. Enabling women to compete against each other, rather than against men, leads to contests of greater fairness where participants have a chance of winning if they are good enough.
Sex segregation has proven to be a powerful tool to expand participation in sports to include girls and women. However, the problem is that the world is not neatly divided up into binary categories of sex.
And there it is. He gives one whole paragraph to the admission that women need their own sports, and then moves on to the more interesting and gratifying business of explaining why it’s necessary to let men invade women’s sports anyway.
There’s a whole lot more, but nothing we don’t already know. It’s smug, insulting, manipulative; a cold, calculated “women don’t matter.”
I see many people who comment on this talk about “tolerable unfairness”, which is spectacularly Orwellian. But how about “acceptable safety risks”!! I realize they’re par for the course in most sports even without men competing against women in women’s sports, but holy hell! We know women are considered collateral damage by TRAs, but he’s being more than usually open about it here.
He is indeed.
And as you say, just like with restrooms and prisons and hospital wards, the asymmetry in assumed unfairness and risk is always against women. Even when the risk is acknowledged, this asymmetry is always ignored. One man is a risk to multiple women.
But all that matters is the Rainbow, so …
Or, and this is just a suggestion based on what used to be called ‘common sense’, don’t mess around with ‘ethical’ approaches and wait until there is enough robust scientific evidence on which to base a decision.
Of course they won’t want to do that because they know full well what the evidence will show. It’s why they dismiss the evidence that does exist as ‘transphobic’.
“Why?” is the question we’re never supposed to ask, the question we’re not allowed to ask, the question they mustn’t let us ask. They try to make us feel like terrible people for asking “Why?” Why? Because they can’t answer it. Not honestly. Not in a way that doesn’t make their demands look as ludicrous and selfish as they actually are. This simple word undoes the very basis of what they’re insisting they must have. Their “truths” are not self-rvident. They’re not even true..
Why? Sports are segregated by sex. It’s not a “gender identity” that flies from the starting blocks, dives into the water, or cycles around the velodrome; it’s a sexed body. “Gender identity” should make no difference to sex because it doesn’t and it can’t. Even the use of the locution “sex at birth” is dishonest; it suggests a possibility of change that will never happen. it’s as meaningful as talking about somebody’s “species at birth.” Nobody can change sex. This is the only science you need, and it doesn’t get any more robust than that. You’re stuck with the sex you have, however you dress, behave, or modify yourself through hormones, drugs, or surgery. A male remains male, and should thus be ineligible to compete in (or even try out for) any women’s sports. At all. Ever.
This is not in any way difficult or complicated. Anyone who thinks it is wants to break the rules (or change them to such a degree that they will effectively be broken.) Without those changes, men would be cheating. Even with the rule changes, they’re still cheating, but with the blessings of the sporting bodies so eager to “accommodate” their
participationdishonesty. No “benchmarks” required, wanted, or needed. Sports federations, and female athletes have no obligation to “include” or accommodate trans identified males. They are owed nothing. They can try out for men’s sports. If they don’t make the cut because they aren’t good enough, that’s too bad, but then again most men don’t. There’s nothing “unfair” about that. It’s funny how TiMs will tell women to suck it up and try harder when they cheat their way into women’s teams, but they can’t accept the same logic when it’s used against them when they fail to get a place on a men’s team. In a sane world, this would not be an issue. That it has become one is remarkable, and not in a good way.Why? Trans athletes can try out for the sports based on their sex (with the ironic limitation being testosterone levels for trans identified females). No further accommodation should be given. If what they’ve done to themselves results in their ineligibility (in the case of TiFs) or competitive disadvantage (in the case of TiMs) that’s not anybody else’s problem. It comes with the territory, it’s part of the package of “transness.” Own it. No woman owes you their spot on their team. No sport “needs” to “assist” anyone in getting around the cold, unfeeling reality of the consequences of their own decisions. If you bought the ticket and got on board, you can’t demand an alternate destination that wasn’t offered in the first place. If the travel agent promised you the impossible, then they were lying. If they promised you the unethical, then you become complicit by insisting that others pay for your actions.
I wouldn’t accept anything you consider “relevant” relevant. Your “suggestions” are not needed or wanted (see above). Fuck Off (see the rest of this blog).
SEX, not “sex/gender.” They’re not the same thing (see above). And that should be the case with any sports or activities with an exclusively female division. Men must be kept out. Period. No exceptions.
You’re preaching to the choir, buddy; tell this to the TiMs you want to put onto women’s teams.
Yes it is. If you’re talking about humans rather than clown fish, there are only two boxes from which to choose.
It’s odd that there’s no equivalent, wailing over the “injustice” that prevents adult participation in children’s sports, or that keeps heavyweight boxers out of the featherweight class. Nobody would take any such arguments seriously. Everyone would see the unfairness and potential for harm immediately. Putting men into women’s sports is equally ludicrous, unfair, and harmful, yet it is taken seriously by too many people who should know better (like Andy Harvey), and by far too many people with the power to make it happen. My question to them: Why? My messages to them? See above. And, FUCK OFF.
No, it’s not. There’s no difficulty at all. It’s as easy as pie.
Is the person male? Yes? Then they don’t get to be in women’s sports.
See? That’s how easy it is.
The evidence they seek will address the question of whether there should be sex segregation in various sports, not whether men who declare themselves women are somehow more appropriate for participating in women’s divisions than other men are.