Sarah, that is a great analogy! As a physician and former Division 1 NCAA swimmer, I was stunned that a mediocre male swimmer at Penn could simply switch to swimming in the women’s NCAA championship, going from a non-qualifier to an NCAA champion… since that nonsensical event, I have followed this issue closely! It continues to amaze me that this lives on. Keep up the good work!
One might think Lia Thomas would have proven the end of "the trans debate." You're amazed that it didn't because you're a rational person who believes in the immutability of binary sex. But as I wrote, facts don't matter in "the trans debate." Just as you can't debate a flat earther. Gender ideology has been likened to a cult or a fundamentalist religion--facts do not matter. Science does not matter. The media has played probably the most important role in validating this ideology
"Once someone transitions, their biology changes in meaningful ways that make them no longer “male” in the physiological sense relevant to sport." A female is not a male who has made physiological changes through hormones and surgery. The unstated goal here is to get rid of sports for girls and women, and the aggressiveness with which these dudes pursue this goal by bulldozing the boundaries of formerly female sports belies the notion that the lingering testosterone effects have faded.
You make an important point—it is anti-sport to base eligibility for a category on the introduction of exogenous drugs, whether inhibiting or enhancing performance
And their argument on performance and “fairness” should hold up if you flip the script. For example, transmen who are taking testosterone to “equally” perform as males, should be seen participating and excelling in men’s sports. Yet they don’t even make the teams. I’ve yet to ever see a trans man in the NBA, Olympics, or even hear about their participation in men’s amateur leagues.
This year there was that Swedish athlete (snowboarder?), a woman who wants to be referred to with he/him pronouns, but still competed in the women’s category (which she was allowed to do because apparently she has NOT taken testosterone). So I guess she wasn’t traumatized by being forced to compete in her actual sex class (rather than based on “gender identity”). Funny how that works.
In the 2024 Olympics, a Filipino female boxer who identified as a man competed in men's boxing and was I believe knocked out in the first round. I don't follow boxing but have not heard anything from Bacyadan since
Another great article Sarah! While I had several chuckles from your article, it still boils my blood that women seem to be diminished by these snake charmers to a testosterone level. They seem to brush aside the qualities that don't change just because you suppress testosterone, take cross sex hormones, cut things off, sew things on or put on a dress and some make up. Money for scientific studies would be better spent to assess the mental health of both the participants and the scientists that buy into "flat earth."
It appears these "scientists" are panicking because most logical individuals know that sex is immutable. And most logical people want to keep the female category for females. Their support, while loud, is waning. Desperate people do desperate things. I think we can count on more snake charmers producing more nonsense hoping someone will buy their product.
Thank goodness people like you are calling them out!
"They seem to brush aside the qualities that don't change just because you suppress testosterone, take cross sex hormones, cut things off, sew things on or put on a dress and some make up."
Exactly! These drugs don't change the male physiological athletic advantages, which include larger hearts, larger lungs, 60% more upper body muscle, 50% more lower body muscle, more hemoglobin, more fast twitch muscle fiber, different skeletal structure, particularly in the hip and pelvic area, etc, etc. I have yet to see these factors addressed by the flat earthers.
Below, Sara Sharick nitpicks. I'm going to jump on her bandwagon (though perhaps my contribution is closer to pedantry than to nitpicking: you be the judge). In doing that, she discusses anisogamy, a word new to me. I suspect she knows much more about this area than I do, so I am going to take for granted that what she says is correct.
You say "sex is immutable." Not necessarily, certainly not for all vertebrates. See the wikipedia entry for Sequential Hermaphroditism
For a number of species of fish, the largest in a breeding group is of one sex, and all the others are of the other sex. When the largest individual dies, the largest remaining individual switches sexes. According to Claude, in many species of wrasses and parrotfish as well as for groupers (some species? all species? Claude is not clear), the largest individual in a breeding group is male and when he dies, the largest female becomes the male in the group. In other species (clownfish and some species of porgies and sea bass), the largest individual is female and the change when she dies is from male to female.
So it is not necessarily the case that sex is immutable; indeed, Claude says that mutability is quite common in fish. HOWEVER it appears to be almost entirely absent in terrestrial and avian vertebrates, the rare exceptions being a handful of amphibians (so not fully terrestrial). As far as humans go, it appears that, yes, sex is immutable. Perhaps the individuals mentioned in the post are lacking a backbone. Not sure.
Agreed on all counts. I'm disheartened by the outcome of that trial. It may or may not be relevant that Martine Rothblatt is on the Mayo Board of Directors
Gonna nitpick, sorry. The species Homo sapiens is only about 300,000 years old. The genus of homo is about 2.8 million years old though.
I usually just point out to people that anisogamy - the state of a species having reproductive gametes of differentiated size, morphology, and function - is a billion years old though. There don’t seem to be any anisogamous species with more than two; two seems to be what’s evolutionarily stable. And those two types have enough consistencies across species that it makes sense to have the small one always labeled male and the large one always labeled female.
I do it this way so that people stop thinking of sex only in terms of humans or only just mammals. It’s the vast majority of species the average person can name off the top of their head.
Thanks for this. I think I relied on Google for that 8 million years. Yes, as you point out, binary sex as a means of reproduction has been going on for a long time across a vast swath of life on this planet. All the more improbable that in the last 50-60 years, a third sex of human without a third gamete would have been identified. Or that a 6'2" 45 year old father of two would discover that he has a lady brain in his male body
Thank you. The almost routine overlooking of motivated underperformance in these alleged studies infuriates me. Their used to be a good word for that in (some) sporting circles - ringer.
A sublimely beautiful garden will always succumb to weeds without the application of energy to weed it.
The nightmare of entropy is that over time any coherent meaning in something like science will gradually be pushed aside by competing false explanations.
The cost of good science is eternal vigilance, which is true for any system of information, weeding out information which is false or meaningless.
There are three options. Penalize degradation of science by forcing people injecting noise to exit a field. Declaring a field “finished” and admitting nothing more. Or keep spending time and energy weeding.
The first two are dangerous because at the edge of discovery, you may reject information which is true upon context change; contingency is a powerful force. The third always works, without damaging the structure of discovery.
The question is communication. I’ve given up on science “reporting”, which has become farcical almost everywhere you look, as has much of reporting, sadly. It seems to exist only to cause outrage engagement in the US, not to weed out bad information, or communicate factual information. I don’t know what it’s for.
When the truth of sex mimicry comes into a better name, and revision begins, entire careers will be destroyed and mountains of papers will be thrown out. You can’t compare men imitating women to women, yet that has permeated efforts in some sciences for decades. All papers who attempt to do so are immediately illegitimate and will systematically be removed from “the literature”.
I know this is true, which is bittern solace for wasting time, particularly of women.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
----
If we stop the language corruption (concrete sex to asserted identity) the game ends.
I tried in 2024 DFL precinct caucus and I was voted down 10-1:
----
RESOLUTION TITLE (limited to 5 words): Protect Sex-based Language and Law
BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
Be it resolved that the DFL party affirms biological sex (male and female) as an essential and immutable characteristic of individuals in society. Objective language must be preserved to protect sex-based rights. By age and sex, a man is defined as an adult human male, and a woman is an adult human female. Birth certificates must not be altered, except for limited medical exceptions. State identification must accurately reflect biological sex, not self-designation. We acknowledge that individual gender diversity exists and gender nonconformity should not compromise their rights, regardless of physical alterations. While individuals may have the right to not disclose their age or sex, explicit misrepresentation should be considered fraudulent.
----
In 2026 I passed this one in the GOP precinct 4-0, and SD39 yesterday.
----
We resolve that biological sex (male and female) is an essential and immutable characteristic of individuals in society. Objective language must be protected to preserve sex-based rights. State ID must reflect biological sex, not self-designation. Liberation exists by variations within each sex not pretending to be the opposite sex.
----
Asking "what is a woman?" Is now a political litmus test for reality. The answer "human female" is the only valid answer among reality interested people. Female is a developmental path in the womb after 6-8 weeks, irreversible.
That Republicans know this doesn't make them reality based in all things, only one thing that the Democrats have rejected.
Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World is here for the political left.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Empathy is a failed standard for politics, unless it also includes facts. When it doesn't you get captured by nonsense. Sadly yes, scientists and teachers and very smart people can fall for nonsense. Modern specialization and credentialism means nonsense can run a decade on no evidence.
I wish this nightmare nonreality on the left would lift. Sports corruption is the tip of the iceberg.
I was very surprised he answered my email, my first email. Pitsiladis is accustomed to "journalists" who, like Jere Longman, avidly write down whatever bullshit exits his mouth and never ever question it
Athletes should not be allowed to change the category in which they compete, whether that’s by taking performance inhibiting drugs or performance enhancing drugs.
Additionally, I can’t believe Pitsiladis replied to you at all!
Nope. A fully transitioned transsexual woman is just a sterile female whose female specific socialized and physical sports differences are rooted in the same core biological realities as other females.
Sarah, that is a great analogy! As a physician and former Division 1 NCAA swimmer, I was stunned that a mediocre male swimmer at Penn could simply switch to swimming in the women’s NCAA championship, going from a non-qualifier to an NCAA champion… since that nonsensical event, I have followed this issue closely! It continues to amaze me that this lives on. Keep up the good work!
One might think Lia Thomas would have proven the end of "the trans debate." You're amazed that it didn't because you're a rational person who believes in the immutability of binary sex. But as I wrote, facts don't matter in "the trans debate." Just as you can't debate a flat earther. Gender ideology has been likened to a cult or a fundamentalist religion--facts do not matter. Science does not matter. The media has played probably the most important role in validating this ideology
"Once someone transitions, their biology changes in meaningful ways that make them no longer “male” in the physiological sense relevant to sport." A female is not a male who has made physiological changes through hormones and surgery. The unstated goal here is to get rid of sports for girls and women, and the aggressiveness with which these dudes pursue this goal by bulldozing the boundaries of formerly female sports belies the notion that the lingering testosterone effects have faded.
“Transgender women exhibit strength and fitness similar to cisgender women months after hormone therapy”
You mean, months after taking performance inhibiting drugs? Taking ANY drugs to gain access to specific performance categories should be banned.
Take away the drugs and the whole house of cards fall.
You make an important point—it is anti-sport to base eligibility for a category on the introduction of exogenous drugs, whether inhibiting or enhancing performance
And their argument on performance and “fairness” should hold up if you flip the script. For example, transmen who are taking testosterone to “equally” perform as males, should be seen participating and excelling in men’s sports. Yet they don’t even make the teams. I’ve yet to ever see a trans man in the NBA, Olympics, or even hear about their participation in men’s amateur leagues.
This year there was that Swedish athlete (snowboarder?), a woman who wants to be referred to with he/him pronouns, but still competed in the women’s category (which she was allowed to do because apparently she has NOT taken testosterone). So I guess she wasn’t traumatized by being forced to compete in her actual sex class (rather than based on “gender identity”). Funny how that works.
Yes, that was my previous post
In the 2024 Olympics, a Filipino female boxer who identified as a man competed in men's boxing and was I believe knocked out in the first round. I don't follow boxing but have not heard anything from Bacyadan since
I was wrong. Bacyadan competed in the Olympics in women's boxing.
She's trans identifying, but has not taken testosterone, so is eligible to compete in female category.
Another great article Sarah! While I had several chuckles from your article, it still boils my blood that women seem to be diminished by these snake charmers to a testosterone level. They seem to brush aside the qualities that don't change just because you suppress testosterone, take cross sex hormones, cut things off, sew things on or put on a dress and some make up. Money for scientific studies would be better spent to assess the mental health of both the participants and the scientists that buy into "flat earth."
It appears these "scientists" are panicking because most logical individuals know that sex is immutable. And most logical people want to keep the female category for females. Their support, while loud, is waning. Desperate people do desperate things. I think we can count on more snake charmers producing more nonsense hoping someone will buy their product.
Thank goodness people like you are calling them out!
"They seem to brush aside the qualities that don't change just because you suppress testosterone, take cross sex hormones, cut things off, sew things on or put on a dress and some make up."
Exactly! These drugs don't change the male physiological athletic advantages, which include larger hearts, larger lungs, 60% more upper body muscle, 50% more lower body muscle, more hemoglobin, more fast twitch muscle fiber, different skeletal structure, particularly in the hip and pelvic area, etc, etc. I have yet to see these factors addressed by the flat earthers.
Below, Sara Sharick nitpicks. I'm going to jump on her bandwagon (though perhaps my contribution is closer to pedantry than to nitpicking: you be the judge). In doing that, she discusses anisogamy, a word new to me. I suspect she knows much more about this area than I do, so I am going to take for granted that what she says is correct.
You say "sex is immutable." Not necessarily, certainly not for all vertebrates. See the wikipedia entry for Sequential Hermaphroditism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_hermaphroditism#Genetic_consequences
For a number of species of fish, the largest in a breeding group is of one sex, and all the others are of the other sex. When the largest individual dies, the largest remaining individual switches sexes. According to Claude, in many species of wrasses and parrotfish as well as for groupers (some species? all species? Claude is not clear), the largest individual in a breeding group is male and when he dies, the largest female becomes the male in the group. In other species (clownfish and some species of porgies and sea bass), the largest individual is female and the change when she dies is from male to female.
So it is not necessarily the case that sex is immutable; indeed, Claude says that mutability is quite common in fish. HOWEVER it appears to be almost entirely absent in terrestrial and avian vertebrates, the rare exceptions being a handful of amphibians (so not fully terrestrial). As far as humans go, it appears that, yes, sex is immutable. Perhaps the individuals mentioned in the post are lacking a backbone. Not sure.
Dr. Mike Joyner is a truth-teller. Always has been, and always will be. Thank you for highlighting him, Sarah. Unfortunately, Mike just lost his lawsuit against Mayo Clinic for retaliation against him for truth-speaking. https://www.foxnews.com/media/jury-sides-mayo-clinic-silencing-lawsuit-from-prominent-doctor-over-covid-era-speech. I hope he and his legal team file an appeal.
Agreed on all counts. I'm disheartened by the outcome of that trial. It may or may not be relevant that Martine Rothblatt is on the Mayo Board of Directors
"It identifies as science, but it is not science." Sums it up quite well.
Thank you for providing updates Sarah, much appreciated.
Gonna nitpick, sorry. The species Homo sapiens is only about 300,000 years old. The genus of homo is about 2.8 million years old though.
I usually just point out to people that anisogamy - the state of a species having reproductive gametes of differentiated size, morphology, and function - is a billion years old though. There don’t seem to be any anisogamous species with more than two; two seems to be what’s evolutionarily stable. And those two types have enough consistencies across species that it makes sense to have the small one always labeled male and the large one always labeled female.
I do it this way so that people stop thinking of sex only in terms of humans or only just mammals. It’s the vast majority of species the average person can name off the top of their head.
Thanks for this. I think I relied on Google for that 8 million years. Yes, as you point out, binary sex as a means of reproduction has been going on for a long time across a vast swath of life on this planet. All the more improbable that in the last 50-60 years, a third sex of human without a third gamete would have been identified. Or that a 6'2" 45 year old father of two would discover that he has a lady brain in his male body
Trans activists pushing for male inclusion in the female category probably think anisogamy is a transphobic dog whistle. 🙄
Thank you. The almost routine overlooking of motivated underperformance in these alleged studies infuriates me. Their used to be a good word for that in (some) sporting circles - ringer.
A sublimely beautiful garden will always succumb to weeds without the application of energy to weed it.
The nightmare of entropy is that over time any coherent meaning in something like science will gradually be pushed aside by competing false explanations.
The cost of good science is eternal vigilance, which is true for any system of information, weeding out information which is false or meaningless.
There are three options. Penalize degradation of science by forcing people injecting noise to exit a field. Declaring a field “finished” and admitting nothing more. Or keep spending time and energy weeding.
The first two are dangerous because at the edge of discovery, you may reject information which is true upon context change; contingency is a powerful force. The third always works, without damaging the structure of discovery.
The question is communication. I’ve given up on science “reporting”, which has become farcical almost everywhere you look, as has much of reporting, sadly. It seems to exist only to cause outrage engagement in the US, not to weed out bad information, or communicate factual information. I don’t know what it’s for.
When the truth of sex mimicry comes into a better name, and revision begins, entire careers will be destroyed and mountains of papers will be thrown out. You can’t compare men imitating women to women, yet that has permeated efforts in some sciences for decades. All papers who attempt to do so are immediately illegitimate and will systematically be removed from “the literature”.
I know this is true, which is bittern solace for wasting time, particularly of women.
Believing six impossible things before breakfast can feel liberating. Lewis Carroll's wonderland also has Alice meet Humpty Dumpty...
https://sabian.org/looking_glass6.php
----
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
----
If we stop the language corruption (concrete sex to asserted identity) the game ends.
I tried in 2024 DFL precinct caucus and I was voted down 10-1:
----
RESOLUTION TITLE (limited to 5 words): Protect Sex-based Language and Law
BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
Be it resolved that the DFL party affirms biological sex (male and female) as an essential and immutable characteristic of individuals in society. Objective language must be preserved to protect sex-based rights. By age and sex, a man is defined as an adult human male, and a woman is an adult human female. Birth certificates must not be altered, except for limited medical exceptions. State identification must accurately reflect biological sex, not self-designation. We acknowledge that individual gender diversity exists and gender nonconformity should not compromise their rights, regardless of physical alterations. While individuals may have the right to not disclose their age or sex, explicit misrepresentation should be considered fraudulent.
----
In 2026 I passed this one in the GOP precinct 4-0, and SD39 yesterday.
----
We resolve that biological sex (male and female) is an essential and immutable characteristic of individuals in society. Objective language must be protected to preserve sex-based rights. State ID must reflect biological sex, not self-designation. Liberation exists by variations within each sex not pretending to be the opposite sex.
----
Asking "what is a woman?" Is now a political litmus test for reality. The answer "human female" is the only valid answer among reality interested people. Female is a developmental path in the womb after 6-8 weeks, irreversible.
That Republicans know this doesn't make them reality based in all things, only one thing that the Democrats have rejected.
Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World is here for the political left.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Empathy is a failed standard for politics, unless it also includes facts. When it doesn't you get captured by nonsense. Sadly yes, scientists and teachers and very smart people can fall for nonsense. Modern specialization and credentialism means nonsense can run a decade on no evidence.
I wish this nightmare nonreality on the left would lift. Sports corruption is the tip of the iceberg.
Kudos on contacting Pitsiladis and getting an actual answer - two, apparently. Always useful to have something to refer people back to.
I was very surprised he answered my email, my first email. Pitsiladis is accustomed to "journalists" who, like Jere Longman, avidly write down whatever bullshit exits his mouth and never ever question it
Athletes should not be allowed to change the category in which they compete, whether that’s by taking performance inhibiting drugs or performance enhancing drugs.
Additionally, I can’t believe Pitsiladis replied to you at all!
Nope. A fully transitioned transsexual woman is just a sterile female whose female specific socialized and physical sports differences are rooted in the same core biological realities as other females.
“Meaningful competition” = getting a meaningful erection in the women’s locker room, just ask Lia Thomas.
This is the plot of "The End of the World is Flat" by Simon Edge. I recommend it, it's funny.
Read it. Is it satire or is it a documentary? Hard to tell in our world