Linguistic gymnastics underway at Summer Olympic Games

If the IOC's Portrayal Guidelines can't go a few paragraphs without contradicting itself, how can the media go a few sentences without misleading readers?

The United States has more Olympic medals of any metal in athletics (344 gold, 270 silver, 214 bronze) than any other nation has all athletics medals combined (Great Britain, 211); and only thrice since 1896 has the US not led the medal table in athletics (and one of those we weren't even there for). Those records make the USA Track & Field Olympic Trials a reliable preview of the Summer Olympic Games themselves. This year, that's as true for the media as it is for the athletes.

The first seven of the 10 paragraphs in The Athletic's article on the women's 1500m race at the USA Track & Field Olympic Trials contained either a reference to the winner's gender identity or used gender obscurantist terminology like "assigned female at birth."

Interestingly, the original version of the article waited until the second paragraph to mention the athlete's self identification as "transgender and non-binary," and until the fourth paragraph to say that the winner of the woman's race was "assigned female at birth." Two hours and perhaps a quantum of pressure later, the current version went up with gender identity and a reference to Pride Month promoted to the first paragraph (complementing the headline), and "assigned female at birth" up to the second paragraph, before such trifles as the winning time, the fact that the winning time was an Olympic Trials record, and the names (but neither the gender identities nor birth assignments nor sex) of the second and third place finishers.

"Hiding the sex of an athlete is a lie that undermines the value of both the competition and storytellers. It robs the competitors and the viewers alike," said Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women's Sports. "Audiences would rightly be incensed to learn they were being intentionally deceived."

Last month, the International Olympic Committee published their Portrayal Guidelines "in line with the IOC Gender Equality and Inclusion Objectives," updated for the Paris Games.

In a guide for media professionals - ostensible word workers - the IOC found it necessary to define the term "pronouns." Unhelpfully, they did not define any other part of speech: how are we supposed to know what adverbs and prepositions are if the IOC does not define them?

Pronouns are "[w]ords used to refer to individuals in terms of their gender when not using their name e.g. she/her or he/him." Much as I recall. But there's more: "Non-binary people may use gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘they’ and ‘them’." Optimizing for pedantry, this is acceptable to me: "individuals" get a she/her he/him, and "people" are they/them.

But being neither a specialist nor adviser in some combination of gender, equality and inclusion, like the three named contributors, my baseline level of consistency and accuracy falls afoul of the "problematic language" of "harmful language practices to avoid" on the next page.

Phrases like “born male / female” or “biologically male / female" can be "dehumanizing and inaccurate when used to describe transgender sportspeople and athletes with sex variations... If there is a clear reason to refer to the [sex] category a person was assigned at birth, the terms to use are: 'assigned female at birth', 'assigned male at birth', or 'designated female at birth', 'designated male at birth.'"

Assigned. Designated. Registered, which is part of the definition of "transgender: [a]n umbrella term that refers to a person who knows their gender identity to be different from the one that was registered for them at birth." As opposed to "cisgender: [s]omeone whose gender identity aligns with the sex that was registered for them at birth."

<Record scratch>

Transgender and cisgender are supposed to be complementary, mutually exclusive. Yet the IOC bases them on different qualities: transgender on the gender identity registered at birth, and cisgender on the sex registered at birth. Is that the difference between transgender and cisgender people? Does the nurse, midwife, or government clerk who fills out the post-natal paperwork set the conditions for someone to be transgender or cisgender by whether they record a gender identity or a sex? Or are "gender identity" and "sex" equivalent concepts - maybe even synonymous - if the terms can be used interchangeably in categorical definitions?

The IOC says gender "[r]efers to both one’s sense of self and to the system of socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for people of different genders."

Let's set aside the fact that they use "gender" in their definition of "gender."

The first part of the definition is where we get the "identity" element - "one's sense of self." Even the most precocious newborn lacks a sense of self, let alone knowledge of those latter factors, not to mention the ability to communicate such to the record keeping nurse, midwife, or government clerk. Gender cannot be assigned (because it's self determined), designated (same), nor registered (because it can't be communicated by the individual) at birth.

The IOC's own definition of gender nullifies their definition of "transgender."

Turning to sex, the IOC builds their definition of sex atop the World Health Organization's. The WHO's "working definition" of sex is that it "refers to the biological characteristics that define humans as female or male." Which biological characteristics? The WHO doesn't say, but they do not require human action to assign or designate sex. The IOC adds a bureaucratic function to sex: "a category assigned at birth and refers to the biological characteristics that define a person as female, male or intersex."

Note how the IOC also one-upped the WHO by putting "intersex" on par with male and female.

But even this is not clear cut, as the Portrayal Guidelines later define intersex as "An identity term used by many people with natural variations in their sex-linked characteristics." If these natural variations are sex-linked, then they are downstream of sex. Intersex cannot be both a sex, and a classification for some variations in some dimensions secondary to sex. Not even Schroedinger's cat could be intersex by these definitions.

Maybe that is why the guidelines then discourage use of "intersex." "[T]he IOC Framework refers to athletes with sex variations, or women with sex variations, as opposed to intersex athletes or intersex women." But there we are again. "Women with sex variations" admits the premise of the sex binary, then attempts to carve a third category out of the natural range of variations. And do men not have sex variations?

This annex of the Portrayal Guidelines has four separate citations for GLAAD, alongside Athlete Ally, Human Rights Campaign, interACT, Organisation Intersex International Europe, Out & Equal, Sports Media LGBT+, Stonewall, The Trevor Project, and Trans Journalists Association. GLAAD is the most cited organization in the document overall, with 12 cites, which is 12 more than the Independent Council on Women's Sports, Fair Play for Women, and Sex Matters combined

Futilely optimistic that there might have been some shadow advising that didn't rise to the level of attribution, or that was summarily dismissed (better to be asked and ignored than not be asked at all, right?), I double checked with Jones, who confirmed: "the IOC did not reach out to ICONS or ICFS (International Consortium on Female Sport). No sports federations have reached out to ICONS or any of the women's organizations representing the vast majority of female athletes in sport."

Because she's been doing this so much longer than I have, Jones cut to the why of the whole thing as soon as the Portrayal Guidelines hit the street, whereas I needed to see it action before understanding where this is going by design.

"Its goal is confusion and silence where women are concerned... [it is] trying to exert control over language that erases women and our ability to point out where women are facing sex-based discrimination and harm."

The Athletic's article sets up a perfect outcome space for the genderists. Sex realists who don't understand the game that's being played here say, "Oh, much wow. A female won the women's race." To which the genderists point, saying "See, you can have a trans athlete in the female category, and it's still fair competition. Even *they* agree!"

NPR champions a nonbinary marathoner's fight to make it easier to dope

Meanwhile, common responses among normies innocently unfamiliar with all this buncombe are "Oh great, another man winning women's races" or "Wait, so this woman is on testosterone to become a man?" which are quickly, easily, and acidly mobbed with "No shut up you ignorant misogynist transphobe."

The fewer details between "trans" and "athlete," the more confusion, apprehension, and "shut up, they / them said" whenever someone points out some obvious details in a competition or some missing details in an article. Maybe it was just a bit too aggressive to try to normalize males in the female category by having trans-identifying males in the female category. Too many people notice, too many people speak out. A desexed usage of "trans" led by female athletes and a proscription against the words "identifies as," on the other hand, make a useful Trojan mare.

"Language, like the biology of sex, is not hateful or hurtful. It is a necessary acknowledgment of reality. The fact that the media is being told it is right to hide sex is outrageous and dangerous," Jones said.

Projecting forward from the Trials to the Games, we can expect more paragraphs like this one from The Athletic:

"Runners like [Nikki] Hiltz who were assigned female at birth do not face the same restrictions for women’s divisions as transgender athletes who were assigned male at birth."

If they're getting tuned up, so should we. The preceding paragraph, translated for reality-based clarity:

"Female runners do not face the same restrictions for women's divisions as males."

Whether your priority is accuracy, parsimony, or sex (or if you, like me, are equally motivated by all three), best to find a non-compliant media outlet before the opening ceremonies.

Cover Photo: Rick Obst / Flickr, under CC BY 2.0.