"It’s deception by omission, by allowing people to believe something that Fleming knows is false, and not giving the information people are owed by virtue of the sporting contract.”
Requires institutions to provide equivalent resources, facilities, and support to programs for men and women.
Prohibits discrimination based on sex, including practices that would limit participation or access to opportunities.
Mandates institutions to prevent and respond to sexual harassment, violence, and other forms of misconduct.
—-
Denying a woman a place on the women’s team by giving the opportunity to a man seems to be in plain English a violation of title IX
Granting a scholarship to a man over a women for a women’s athletic scholarship program seems in plain English a violation of title IX
A male indicating he is female for the purpose of scholarship or participation is simple fraud, no different than reporting false educational or financial records for gain.
Placing a male in a women’s locker who exposes his genitals to women, or may observe theirs is unwanted sexual conduct. It creates a sexually hostile atmosphere and is one of the simplest versions of sexual harassment under title IX in civil rights, and constitutes a violation of many EEOC relevant employment statues for the staff.
I’m surprised harassment lawyers and others haven’t crawled all over these. Either my sexual harassment training is false (doubtful) or there is also a conspiracy to coerce these women with punitive threats to not pursue self-protective civil rights actions, which itself is illegal, and has severe consequences because it can escalate into whistleblower type federal suit, as well as collusion or conspiracy to commit a crime, or conspiracy to deny civil rights.
I go back to DSM-5 and other psychiatric medical reference literature that a delusion disorder is a mental state consisting of a persistent denial of reality, or holding false beliefs which are resistant to reason or evidence. Daily functioning may not be impaired, and behavior may appear normal aside from the delusion.
Treatment recommendation is clear: don’t affirm the delusion is real, affirm that the feelings consequent to the delusion are real and help the person manage their life with those feelings.
One you affirm the delusion, you risk leading the patient and those around them to harm, sometimes of a violent nature.
The “Father of Modern Gynecology” experimented on uncounted un-anesthetized black female slaves.
The results reverberated to this day with black people distrustful of medical institutions in the US to their detriment.
We’re speaking of perhaps 1200-1500 people over a period of 100-150 years.
What do “the few” girls do who have been denied their right to fair play. For one thing they quit sports, and it leaves a bitter taste of resentment of the system for quite some time, which spreads like a malignancy.
I know you’re not supporting the position, but this is my answer to “it affects so few”.
It’s not the quantity, it’s the belief that laws exist, have meaning, are worth following, and are fair and impartial. It affects all of us.
I have sympathy for people who have mental illness, the profoundly deluded among them; their lives are hard. Sympathy and ignoring reality are two very different things. Delusions have no end and no beginning, because they by definition cannot be satisfied - reality can never be changed, so there can never be serenity and peace.
Apart from the fact that there are far more than a few males in female sports, it has been documented that 235 girls missed out on opportunities and awards when 2 (particular) males entered the competitions.
Right. That's info we've got posted in pink-box infographics form at https://womenssportspolicy.org/253-male-victories-in-female-sports/ It pertains to the two males who competed in a Connecticut girls' track league over the course of 3 years, affecting hundreds of girls.
Thanks Mariah, have just replied again to Frau (above) with a link to your comment as she was the one who says there's not many males in womens sports. Not me. I'm bloody all over it woman! 😁
This is an interesting and thought-provoking essay. Thank you. From my perspective as a bio-psychologist, I think you've brought up the key issue: the relationship between pretending and fairness. All of us pretend we are something that we are not at times. We may claim we are younger than we are, that we weigh less than we do, or that our golf game was a little better than it actually was. The problem is, of course, that when pretending becomes harmful to oneself or to other people, it also becomes ethically problematic, pathological, and profoundly damaging. So it is with the examples that you've cited. Fundamentally, as I've written a number of times before (e.g., in my Substack), there is no inherent conflict between inclusion and fairness, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to solve the problem. It just takes honesty, as you've said. The problem is solved in, for instance, mixed doubles tennis or co-ed sports. There, everyone knows who's on the team and is playing consensually. A team with a biological male player (irrespective of their current gender identification) is not a woman's team. It's a co-ed team, and the distinction should be enforced. Likewise, if biological males and biological females are competing in an individual sport like swimming, there's no reason that a first place cannot be awarded both to an athlete who competes in an 'open' category (no sex determination requirement), and one who chooses to compete in the women's category. No comments need be made about any individual's identity; this is simply a physiological distinction like weight or age classes in weightlifting. Obviously, women should have the freedom -- and be afforded the respect and autonomy necessary -- to chose against whom they want to compete. At no time should anyone be forced (or tricked) into competing under unfair conditions, again, as you've pointed out. However, I've also come to the conclusion that this is not about inclusion in any meaningful way. As a former competitive athlete and psychologist, I am convinced this controversy is rooted in a separate set of fundamental and somewhat troubling psychological issues. Thank you again for this interesting read. Sincerely, Frederick
"Now, with the help of parents, gender clinics, school administrators, sports officials, puberty blockers by age 12, cross-sex hormones by 14, vaginoplasty by 18, and a raft of cowardly facilitators along the way, trans-identified males 2.0 appear quite polished. "
There's a catch or two here.
It is my understanding that several studies have shown that most gender nonconforming children and children with gender dysphoria desist during adolescence providing they don't succumb to gender ideology.
In a perfect world, the affirmative care model would be abandoned in favor of the former watchful waiting approach so that boys who would likely grow up to be gay aren't turned into artificial females instead. That's unlikely to happen any time soon. Consequently, any adults involved in this accelerated timeline are acting unethically at best with their reckless disregard for the child's probable trajectory. As a gay man who was a sissy in my late 50s and early 60s childhood, I am especially outraged over this malfeasance.
Also, trans activists and their allies may deny it, but it is clear that neither a child nor a young adult is capable of giving informed consent to the course of therapy described above.
First, there's the matter of deprogramming the child if he was exposed to gender identity ideology at school or elsewhere and educating him to fill the gaps in his knowledge about human biology and sexuality. He cannot be said to be thinking straight about transitioning until that has taken place.
Next, a 12-year-old lacks the knowledge and life experience to grasp the implications of forfeiting his fertility and perhaps his ability to experience sexual pleasure, much less what it will mean to be a biological male living a lie others are very likely to detect unaided.
Finally, the fact that not enough is known about the long-term effects of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and the surgical removal and mutilation of healthy body parts means neither minors nor adults are capable of giving informed consent to such medical interventions. The sooner WPATH is knocked off its illegitimate "gold standard of care" pedestal, the better.
When assigning blame for the scenario that prompted the comment, it's the adults who are by far the more culpable.
The U.S. badly needs favorable case law or legislation to put an end to this untenable deception and child abuse.
I so appreciate the breakdown of the issue, however it begs the question…why must we articulate a breakdown of the issue? If the color green is green, then why must we avail ourselves of the reasons of the color being green? To be certain, this is the world we live in, but good god and all that is holy….
Exactly! People can't change sex, they never could, there's not one example in the entire history of the human race.... try if you want, but unfortunately you still won't be able to play women's hockey.
All of this talk about arresting male puberty to provide some sense of fairness is completely missing the data on male castrati, boys emasculated prior to puberty to keep their voices from dropping in register.
They were frequently described on average as taller and with more lung capacity, a desired characteristic in opera, than men who did go through puberty.
Testosterone at puberty slows down the growth in length of bones and puts resources into increasing muscle mass and bone density.
This means that simply preventing male puberty doesn’t prevent the conference of physical advantages. It only changes them, while leading to osteoporosis and a host of other disorders later in life.
If all of this isn’t communicated, how can they truly be giving informed consent?
But more importantly, why are governments so invested in putting men who look like women into women’s sports and other spaces? Why are they spending so much money on pushing this?
Is it all just a wider experiment for some nefarious ends, like the mind control experiments performed on unsuspecting people by the CIA?
The issue isn't complicated, really. Just as it isn't necessary to raise the specter of male sexual predators to justify keeping males out of female-only spaces like domestic violence shelters or women's spas, there is no need to plead physiological advantage to bar males from female-only sports. All that's required is stating and acknowledging the obvious truth that trans females are males.
I have no difficulty understanding why faking femaleness is grossly unfair in a sporting competition but cannot understand the resistance to this . Do sportspeople no longer believe in fairness ? Is that a silly outdated concept ? Iam reminded of the famous quote about winning and losing - that it was not a matter of life and death but much more important !
I, too, am dumbfounded that we are in a place where there is any argument whatsoever that males do not belong in women's sports. Every day I wake up and think, the heck?!
World Athletics and FINA will have to close that loophole - the hasn’t gone through male puberty one. Because if stealth is the future, it’s going to be a problem. Do you know if it’s a concession to athletes who have no or nominal advantage due to androgen insensitivity syndrome as was cited in the case of hurdler Maria Martinez Patino? Also, governments allowing people to change the sex on their birth certificates is concerning, it devalues the document and it’s going to necessitate sex testing early in an athlete’s career.
Why should high school students be exempt from the cheek swab? Waiting until they get to the Olympics or college to make testing mandatory isn’t fair to the high school girls competing. It also would contribute to confusion for those trans identifying students being able to play competitive women’s sports in higher school. Better to just restrict them to boys sports or coed intramurals?
As to whether it's unethical to misrepresent oneself as female when one is actually male in a sporting context, yes - and also against the rules. Often there's an official Code of Conduct athletes sign. It includes language about not misrepresenting oneself. To do so would be a form of cheating. For instance, if it's a league or competition for people over 50, and you sign up to play at age 48, that would violate the Code of Conduct, which becomes a contract when signed. A trans identity is, by definition, a misrepresentation of the truth and therefore a violation of such codes.
Comprehensive, and a good read.
Title IX requires:
Requires institutions to provide equivalent resources, facilities, and support to programs for men and women.
Prohibits discrimination based on sex, including practices that would limit participation or access to opportunities.
Mandates institutions to prevent and respond to sexual harassment, violence, and other forms of misconduct.
—-
Denying a woman a place on the women’s team by giving the opportunity to a man seems to be in plain English a violation of title IX
Granting a scholarship to a man over a women for a women’s athletic scholarship program seems in plain English a violation of title IX
A male indicating he is female for the purpose of scholarship or participation is simple fraud, no different than reporting false educational or financial records for gain.
Placing a male in a women’s locker who exposes his genitals to women, or may observe theirs is unwanted sexual conduct. It creates a sexually hostile atmosphere and is one of the simplest versions of sexual harassment under title IX in civil rights, and constitutes a violation of many EEOC relevant employment statues for the staff.
I’m surprised harassment lawyers and others haven’t crawled all over these. Either my sexual harassment training is false (doubtful) or there is also a conspiracy to coerce these women with punitive threats to not pursue self-protective civil rights actions, which itself is illegal, and has severe consequences because it can escalate into whistleblower type federal suit, as well as collusion or conspiracy to commit a crime, or conspiracy to deny civil rights.
I go back to DSM-5 and other psychiatric medical reference literature that a delusion disorder is a mental state consisting of a persistent denial of reality, or holding false beliefs which are resistant to reason or evidence. Daily functioning may not be impaired, and behavior may appear normal aside from the delusion.
Treatment recommendation is clear: don’t affirm the delusion is real, affirm that the feelings consequent to the delusion are real and help the person manage their life with those feelings.
One you affirm the delusion, you risk leading the patient and those around them to harm, sometimes of a violent nature.
There’s sympathy in places for these guys. I also see the “there’s hardly any of them, not a big deal” argument.
There were 600 men in the Tuskegee Syphilis atrocity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
The “Father of Modern Gynecology” experimented on uncounted un-anesthetized black female slaves.
The results reverberated to this day with black people distrustful of medical institutions in the US to their detriment.
We’re speaking of perhaps 1200-1500 people over a period of 100-150 years.
What do “the few” girls do who have been denied their right to fair play. For one thing they quit sports, and it leaves a bitter taste of resentment of the system for quite some time, which spreads like a malignancy.
I know you’re not supporting the position, but this is my answer to “it affects so few”.
It’s not the quantity, it’s the belief that laws exist, have meaning, are worth following, and are fair and impartial. It affects all of us.
I have sympathy for people who have mental illness, the profoundly deluded among them; their lives are hard. Sympathy and ignoring reality are two very different things. Delusions have no end and no beginning, because they by definition cannot be satisfied - reality can never be changed, so there can never be serenity and peace.
Apart from the fact that there are far more than a few males in female sports, it has been documented that 235 girls missed out on opportunities and awards when 2 (particular) males entered the competitions.
Right. That's info we've got posted in pink-box infographics form at https://womenssportspolicy.org/253-male-victories-in-female-sports/ It pertains to the two males who competed in a Connecticut girls' track league over the course of 3 years, affecting hundreds of girls.
Thanks Mariah, have just replied again to Frau (above) with a link to your comment as she was the one who says there's not many males in womens sports. Not me. I'm bloody all over it woman! 😁
https://www.thefemalecategory.com/p/the-evolution-of-male-inclusion-in/comment/79329762?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2i75mu
Thank you Sarah for another great column. So well written. Happy Thanksgiving!
This is an interesting and thought-provoking essay. Thank you. From my perspective as a bio-psychologist, I think you've brought up the key issue: the relationship between pretending and fairness. All of us pretend we are something that we are not at times. We may claim we are younger than we are, that we weigh less than we do, or that our golf game was a little better than it actually was. The problem is, of course, that when pretending becomes harmful to oneself or to other people, it also becomes ethically problematic, pathological, and profoundly damaging. So it is with the examples that you've cited. Fundamentally, as I've written a number of times before (e.g., in my Substack), there is no inherent conflict between inclusion and fairness, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to solve the problem. It just takes honesty, as you've said. The problem is solved in, for instance, mixed doubles tennis or co-ed sports. There, everyone knows who's on the team and is playing consensually. A team with a biological male player (irrespective of their current gender identification) is not a woman's team. It's a co-ed team, and the distinction should be enforced. Likewise, if biological males and biological females are competing in an individual sport like swimming, there's no reason that a first place cannot be awarded both to an athlete who competes in an 'open' category (no sex determination requirement), and one who chooses to compete in the women's category. No comments need be made about any individual's identity; this is simply a physiological distinction like weight or age classes in weightlifting. Obviously, women should have the freedom -- and be afforded the respect and autonomy necessary -- to chose against whom they want to compete. At no time should anyone be forced (or tricked) into competing under unfair conditions, again, as you've pointed out. However, I've also come to the conclusion that this is not about inclusion in any meaningful way. As a former competitive athlete and psychologist, I am convinced this controversy is rooted in a separate set of fundamental and somewhat troubling psychological issues. Thank you again for this interesting read. Sincerely, Frederick
"Now, with the help of parents, gender clinics, school administrators, sports officials, puberty blockers by age 12, cross-sex hormones by 14, vaginoplasty by 18, and a raft of cowardly facilitators along the way, trans-identified males 2.0 appear quite polished. "
There's a catch or two here.
It is my understanding that several studies have shown that most gender nonconforming children and children with gender dysphoria desist during adolescence providing they don't succumb to gender ideology.
In a perfect world, the affirmative care model would be abandoned in favor of the former watchful waiting approach so that boys who would likely grow up to be gay aren't turned into artificial females instead. That's unlikely to happen any time soon. Consequently, any adults involved in this accelerated timeline are acting unethically at best with their reckless disregard for the child's probable trajectory. As a gay man who was a sissy in my late 50s and early 60s childhood, I am especially outraged over this malfeasance.
Also, trans activists and their allies may deny it, but it is clear that neither a child nor a young adult is capable of giving informed consent to the course of therapy described above.
First, there's the matter of deprogramming the child if he was exposed to gender identity ideology at school or elsewhere and educating him to fill the gaps in his knowledge about human biology and sexuality. He cannot be said to be thinking straight about transitioning until that has taken place.
Next, a 12-year-old lacks the knowledge and life experience to grasp the implications of forfeiting his fertility and perhaps his ability to experience sexual pleasure, much less what it will mean to be a biological male living a lie others are very likely to detect unaided.
Finally, the fact that not enough is known about the long-term effects of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and the surgical removal and mutilation of healthy body parts means neither minors nor adults are capable of giving informed consent to such medical interventions. The sooner WPATH is knocked off its illegitimate "gold standard of care" pedestal, the better.
When assigning blame for the scenario that prompted the comment, it's the adults who are by far the more culpable.
The U.S. badly needs favorable case law or legislation to put an end to this untenable deception and child abuse.
I so appreciate the breakdown of the issue, however it begs the question…why must we articulate a breakdown of the issue? If the color green is green, then why must we avail ourselves of the reasons of the color being green? To be certain, this is the world we live in, but good god and all that is holy….
Exactly! People can't change sex, they never could, there's not one example in the entire history of the human race.... try if you want, but unfortunately you still won't be able to play women's hockey.
All of this talk about arresting male puberty to provide some sense of fairness is completely missing the data on male castrati, boys emasculated prior to puberty to keep their voices from dropping in register.
They were frequently described on average as taller and with more lung capacity, a desired characteristic in opera, than men who did go through puberty.
Testosterone at puberty slows down the growth in length of bones and puts resources into increasing muscle mass and bone density.
This means that simply preventing male puberty doesn’t prevent the conference of physical advantages. It only changes them, while leading to osteoporosis and a host of other disorders later in life.
If all of this isn’t communicated, how can they truly be giving informed consent?
But more importantly, why are governments so invested in putting men who look like women into women’s sports and other spaces? Why are they spending so much money on pushing this?
Is it all just a wider experiment for some nefarious ends, like the mind control experiments performed on unsuspecting people by the CIA?
The issue isn't complicated, really. Just as it isn't necessary to raise the specter of male sexual predators to justify keeping males out of female-only spaces like domestic violence shelters or women's spas, there is no need to plead physiological advantage to bar males from female-only sports. All that's required is stating and acknowledging the obvious truth that trans females are males.
I have no difficulty understanding why faking femaleness is grossly unfair in a sporting competition but cannot understand the resistance to this . Do sportspeople no longer believe in fairness ? Is that a silly outdated concept ? Iam reminded of the famous quote about winning and losing - that it was not a matter of life and death but much more important !
I, too, am dumbfounded that we are in a place where there is any argument whatsoever that males do not belong in women's sports. Every day I wake up and think, the heck?!
World Athletics and FINA will have to close that loophole - the hasn’t gone through male puberty one. Because if stealth is the future, it’s going to be a problem. Do you know if it’s a concession to athletes who have no or nominal advantage due to androgen insensitivity syndrome as was cited in the case of hurdler Maria Martinez Patino? Also, governments allowing people to change the sex on their birth certificates is concerning, it devalues the document and it’s going to necessitate sex testing early in an athlete’s career.
Why should high school students be exempt from the cheek swab? Waiting until they get to the Olympics or college to make testing mandatory isn’t fair to the high school girls competing. It also would contribute to confusion for those trans identifying students being able to play competitive women’s sports in higher school. Better to just restrict them to boys sports or coed intramurals?
As to whether it's unethical to misrepresent oneself as female when one is actually male in a sporting context, yes - and also against the rules. Often there's an official Code of Conduct athletes sign. It includes language about not misrepresenting oneself. To do so would be a form of cheating. For instance, if it's a league or competition for people over 50, and you sign up to play at age 48, that would violate the Code of Conduct, which becomes a contract when signed. A trans identity is, by definition, a misrepresentation of the truth and therefore a violation of such codes.
Thank you Sarah, another brilliant piece.
The deception, the fraud, is one of the overarching issues for me
Thanks Sarah, a good analysis of the quiet path taken.