Three top female athletes who identify as male (and two, nonbinary, for which the default is also male—cut off breasts, hope to one day take testosterone) chose to continue to compete in the female category.
Thank you for a very thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. As a biological psychologist, however, I don't think that data will ever change the ideology or have a transformative effect on policy... and we all know that sports is about biology <full stop>. People who are not comfortable with the latter will never change their mind because of the former. However, I fully support and encourage those people who wish to bring reason to the table. I appreciate their intellectual integrity and hard work. I do find it interesting that the controversy over who should compete against whom has gone on so long and has become so convoluted. There are, of course, simple solutions (like different competitive categories) as you and others have pointed out. Https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/steroids-gender-and-fair-play
I guess I should not be surprised that this commonsense solution has not ended or at least ameliorated the controversy. Thank you again for a very interesting essay. Sincerely, Frederick
The CEO of the Australian Sports Commission in Australia, Kieren Perkins, warned of “human carnage” if athletes weren’t allowed to compete in the gender category of their choice. That’s where we are over here. But that’s kind of blown out of the water by these trans-identified females. Maybe Kieren had a particular sort of athlete in mind when he said this and (I’m going to take a wild guess) it wasn’t female athletes wanting to identify onto men’s teams. So the logic goes: not being able to compete on the team that shares your ‘gender identity’ will make you commit suicide, unless you’re a female athlete in which case you’ll probably just deal. Male athletes must compete with the opposite sex because ‘gender identity’ while female athletes must compete with their natal sex because ‘female’. Weird how sex becomes relevant every once in a while huh. And that Sports Illustrated piece on Lia Thomas was just jaw-dropping. It’s pretty clear Sports Illustrated isn’t a magazine for women, but the comments on the corresponding Instagram post were unbelievable: no-one was buying it, but they just kept serving it up.
But the other huge difference over and above these men's desire for validation that they are women, (as opposed to the women 'presenting' as transmen, continuing in the women's categoriy) is that both of these groups of so-called 'transitioners', with few exceptions, are wishing to compete in the category where they will remain, or become, the most competitive. ie the women's events
That is why both women transitioning to call themselves transmen and men transitioning to call themselves transwomen, ALL want to compete in the women's events
That's true, but women are more willing to give and take. Hiltz and Quinn are willing to compete in sex classes that do not match their identities. Henig gave up competitiveness to compete in alignment with her identity. Men could do that too. They wouldn't have to do HRT; they could continue to compete in the male category and just say they're a woman. Or they could do HRT to change their appearance, but that's their choice. Point is, men are using their female identity as a reason they HAVE to compete in the female category. They don't have to.
I agree completely about the men competing 'as' women, but I don't think the women who 'identify as' men but still compete in women's events are doing it because they are more willing to give and take and compete in an event which is not in alignment with their identities. They are doing it in order to remain competitive.
So the temporary 'sacrifice' they are making to compete as the women they actually are and not as the men they say they are, is outweighed by what they can achieve in the sporting arena competing against women, which we all know they would be far less likely to achieve if competing against men.
My understanding is that in many sports, the so-called men's category is actually an open category (according to the written rules of eligibility) and that over the decades in some sports there have occasionally been women (females!) who have competed in the men's/open competitions.
You are right! In the same way that the NFL has no rule that it's men only, the few women who try out are eliminated in the first day. I believe theNFL has had a couple female kickers over the years. And there are probably women who identify as men who decide to play rec sports on a mixed gender or men's team, or enter races in the male category, but they are not particularly competitive even if taking testosterone. Sports organizations and frankly male athletes don't care of trans-identified women play men's sports because they are actually at a huge physical disadvantage, thus the woman herself is taking on the unfairness and she's not taking opportunities or prizes away from men. My point in this post is that trans-identified women do not have to have their cake and eat it too. Trans-identified men like Lia Thomas and EmilyBridges say I'm a woman, I HAVE to compete in the women's category (because it would just be too soul crushing or identity erasing to continueto compete in the men's category). But women have shown that is not true. You don't shrivel up and die when competing with a team that doesn't align with your identity. I'm saying trans-identified men should give that a try
It's implicit, not spelled out. Some states don't have laws against bestiality, because everyone knows it's something you don't do.
When I read the discourse on this topic I can tell who knows something about the sports business and who doesn't (I am not pointing to you here, Holly). Coaches, managers, team owners & sponsors want to win. No one excludes women on the basis of brotherhood. If there was a woman who was competitive, she'd be on the team.
The swim coach at Penn who forced his athletes to put up with Thomas in their locker room, knew that he was robbing a woman of a place on the team. He knew that Thomas would beat women in competition. He wanted the trophy, wanted the win. He knew it wasn't fair, but it wasn't against the rules at that time, so it would work.
When people (mostly men, it seems) say that the way to end this would be for all the female competitors to drop out of their event, they are saying they don't understand how sports work. It's a very hierarchical world. Coaches, owners, sponsors, & governing bodies make the rules. The players, even the pros who have unions, don't have the power. We see players with multi-million dollar contracts, but the owners are billionaires. There's a big difference between a billionaire and a millionaire, which is easy to forget for the rest of us.
The women running in a 10K, or in high school volleyball, or playing in a disc golf tournament with a $100 purse are somehow expected to join up with the women they are competing against, and walk away from an event they have spent years in training for. Sure, that'll happen.
It's clearly not intended to be a PERMANENT solution- just as anyone going on strike, withdrawing their labour etc etc isn't leaving their job or vocation permanently, it's intended as a temporary withdrawal of co-operation in order to come out of the situation, having flexed their muscles, to negotiate terms with which they are happier. If the female athletes did this they could probably end this nonsense in a week. Even the threat of so doing could probably achieve this. No event organiser wants to run a women's event in whicn ONLY men are running, the nakedness of the emperor would be apparent to everyone. But the presence of women ijn these events implies acceptance, falsely validates the men as women and allows the situation to worsen every year.
You don't have to be a power player in athletics to see that.
This has been going on for years. Women have objected privately and publicly, refused to share podiums with men, etc. In return many have lost their place on a team or the sponsorship that supports them to play. When you say women should do this, you are saying that someone else, not you, should stand up and fight. I say it's on all of us.
Encouraging all readers to join the ICONS network https://www.iconswomen.com. There are sports specific petitions you can sign ---any rowers reading this please sign our rowing petition! You will find on the ICONS website numerous amazing videos of speakers at the International Women's Sports Summit this past July. At the elite level, females who identify as men cannot compete if they take testosterone (banned)---that is why they continue to compete as women. BUT males who identify as women can dope on their natural testosterone and male physiologic advantage which begins IN UTERO. This is society telling women that we have no value, women are not deserving of fairness in sports as men are. THANK YOU Sarah for this wonderful post.
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognizes infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it."--Oscar Wilde
Thank you for a very thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. As a biological psychologist, however, I don't think that data will ever change the ideology or have a transformative effect on policy... and we all know that sports is about biology <full stop>. People who are not comfortable with the latter will never change their mind because of the former. However, I fully support and encourage those people who wish to bring reason to the table. I appreciate their intellectual integrity and hard work. I do find it interesting that the controversy over who should compete against whom has gone on so long and has become so convoluted. There are, of course, simple solutions (like different competitive categories) as you and others have pointed out. Https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/steroids-gender-and-fair-play
I guess I should not be surprised that this commonsense solution has not ended or at least ameliorated the controversy. Thank you again for a very interesting essay. Sincerely, Frederick
The CEO of the Australian Sports Commission in Australia, Kieren Perkins, warned of “human carnage” if athletes weren’t allowed to compete in the gender category of their choice. That’s where we are over here. But that’s kind of blown out of the water by these trans-identified females. Maybe Kieren had a particular sort of athlete in mind when he said this and (I’m going to take a wild guess) it wasn’t female athletes wanting to identify onto men’s teams. So the logic goes: not being able to compete on the team that shares your ‘gender identity’ will make you commit suicide, unless you’re a female athlete in which case you’ll probably just deal. Male athletes must compete with the opposite sex because ‘gender identity’ while female athletes must compete with their natal sex because ‘female’. Weird how sex becomes relevant every once in a while huh. And that Sports Illustrated piece on Lia Thomas was just jaw-dropping. It’s pretty clear Sports Illustrated isn’t a magazine for women, but the comments on the corresponding Instagram post were unbelievable: no-one was buying it, but they just kept serving it up.
But the other huge difference over and above these men's desire for validation that they are women, (as opposed to the women 'presenting' as transmen, continuing in the women's categoriy) is that both of these groups of so-called 'transitioners', with few exceptions, are wishing to compete in the category where they will remain, or become, the most competitive. ie the women's events
That is why both women transitioning to call themselves transmen and men transitioning to call themselves transwomen, ALL want to compete in the women's events
That's true, but women are more willing to give and take. Hiltz and Quinn are willing to compete in sex classes that do not match their identities. Henig gave up competitiveness to compete in alignment with her identity. Men could do that too. They wouldn't have to do HRT; they could continue to compete in the male category and just say they're a woman. Or they could do HRT to change their appearance, but that's their choice. Point is, men are using their female identity as a reason they HAVE to compete in the female category. They don't have to.
I agree completely about the men competing 'as' women, but I don't think the women who 'identify as' men but still compete in women's events are doing it because they are more willing to give and take and compete in an event which is not in alignment with their identities. They are doing it in order to remain competitive.
So the temporary 'sacrifice' they are making to compete as the women they actually are and not as the men they say they are, is outweighed by what they can achieve in the sporting arena competing against women, which we all know they would be far less likely to achieve if competing against men.
My understanding is that in many sports, the so-called men's category is actually an open category (according to the written rules of eligibility) and that over the decades in some sports there have occasionally been women (females!) who have competed in the men's/open competitions.
You are right! In the same way that the NFL has no rule that it's men only, the few women who try out are eliminated in the first day. I believe theNFL has had a couple female kickers over the years. And there are probably women who identify as men who decide to play rec sports on a mixed gender or men's team, or enter races in the male category, but they are not particularly competitive even if taking testosterone. Sports organizations and frankly male athletes don't care of trans-identified women play men's sports because they are actually at a huge physical disadvantage, thus the woman herself is taking on the unfairness and she's not taking opportunities or prizes away from men. My point in this post is that trans-identified women do not have to have their cake and eat it too. Trans-identified men like Lia Thomas and EmilyBridges say I'm a woman, I HAVE to compete in the women's category (because it would just be too soul crushing or identity erasing to continueto compete in the men's category). But women have shown that is not true. You don't shrivel up and die when competing with a team that doesn't align with your identity. I'm saying trans-identified men should give that a try
NFL is now promoting and sponsoring a "tag" league for women. Let's see how this fares, and what kind of male bullies might jump into the fray.
It's implicit, not spelled out. Some states don't have laws against bestiality, because everyone knows it's something you don't do.
When I read the discourse on this topic I can tell who knows something about the sports business and who doesn't (I am not pointing to you here, Holly). Coaches, managers, team owners & sponsors want to win. No one excludes women on the basis of brotherhood. If there was a woman who was competitive, she'd be on the team.
The swim coach at Penn who forced his athletes to put up with Thomas in their locker room, knew that he was robbing a woman of a place on the team. He knew that Thomas would beat women in competition. He wanted the trophy, wanted the win. He knew it wasn't fair, but it wasn't against the rules at that time, so it would work.
When people (mostly men, it seems) say that the way to end this would be for all the female competitors to drop out of their event, they are saying they don't understand how sports work. It's a very hierarchical world. Coaches, owners, sponsors, & governing bodies make the rules. The players, even the pros who have unions, don't have the power. We see players with multi-million dollar contracts, but the owners are billionaires. There's a big difference between a billionaire and a millionaire, which is easy to forget for the rest of us.
The women running in a 10K, or in high school volleyball, or playing in a disc golf tournament with a $100 purse are somehow expected to join up with the women they are competing against, and walk away from an event they have spent years in training for. Sure, that'll happen.
It's clearly not intended to be a PERMANENT solution- just as anyone going on strike, withdrawing their labour etc etc isn't leaving their job or vocation permanently, it's intended as a temporary withdrawal of co-operation in order to come out of the situation, having flexed their muscles, to negotiate terms with which they are happier. If the female athletes did this they could probably end this nonsense in a week. Even the threat of so doing could probably achieve this. No event organiser wants to run a women's event in whicn ONLY men are running, the nakedness of the emperor would be apparent to everyone. But the presence of women ijn these events implies acceptance, falsely validates the men as women and allows the situation to worsen every year.
You don't have to be a power player in athletics to see that.
This has been going on for years. Women have objected privately and publicly, refused to share podiums with men, etc. In return many have lost their place on a team or the sponsorship that supports them to play. When you say women should do this, you are saying that someone else, not you, should stand up and fight. I say it's on all of us.
Maybe they should identify as children and compete against kids.
Encouraging all readers to join the ICONS network https://www.iconswomen.com. There are sports specific petitions you can sign ---any rowers reading this please sign our rowing petition! You will find on the ICONS website numerous amazing videos of speakers at the International Women's Sports Summit this past July. At the elite level, females who identify as men cannot compete if they take testosterone (banned)---that is why they continue to compete as women. BUT males who identify as women can dope on their natural testosterone and male physiologic advantage which begins IN UTERO. This is society telling women that we have no value, women are not deserving of fairness in sports as men are. THANK YOU Sarah for this wonderful post.
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognizes infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it."--Oscar Wilde