And the more fundamental question is: why? Why on earth would it be considered so important to devise tests to determine which male athletes should be permitted to compete against females?
Whatever principle is at stake here, is it that important to risk ruining female sports and the goal of fair competition?
What a well written and timely article. Brown has done the work and shows in complete clarity what everyone already knows: male/female biology is different and separate opportunities and spaces are warranted for fairness and safety. The 26 states that have not immediately adopted the executive order should immediately lose federal funding until they do so.
Again an excellent piece. I think it's an absolute nonsense that males have been facilitated to cheat against women and girls, whether that be at school, community or elite levels.
I stupidly thought that extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence but at no point has this been a requirement of sports regulators who have allowed males to cheat. In fact they have refused steadfastly to look at settled science and instead used the flim flam of inclusivity to wave away any and all objections. They have allowed them to muscle their way in and told women and girls to prove their isn't an advantage.
At the heart of this is the nonsense that a man's inner internal feelings about himself matters far more than the reality of sexed bodies.
In my 56 years I have been constantly reminded that women and girls are second class humans compared to men and boys but nothing has demonstrated this so blatantly as the nonsense of gender ideology.
There is no such thing as "trans" women because there no such thing as "trans."
They're just men.
Men play sports against other men. There is no special pass for men into the women's category for men who are delusional and don't accept the reality of their sexed body.
There is no need for studies. Even pretending like this is real cedes ground to them.
It's dead simple: trans females cannot be allowed to play with and against real females in women's-only sports because trans females are male. Trans girls are boys. Trans women are men. Female-only sports will not be female-only if males participate.
That should suffice. Is it discriminatory? Damn straight it is. Males have always been blocked from competing against females in female-only athletic events. That is true today. No matter how adamantly I profess to identify as a race horse, no track in the US will allow a jockey to ride me out of the gate and around the track. Why is this so difficult?
Thanks Sarah and Greg. The reality is that anyone with a modicum of knowledge about sport knows this to be the case. It's a pity that all the administrators who know more than most have spent ten years not standing up for this simple fact.
Emma Hilton wrote that males are “incentivised to underperform” in order to gain access, it’s nicely put. Also, do you know anything about Madeleine Pope? She was one of the authors of that diabolical IOC document and a former 800m runner who ran against Semenya.
Flawless writing but based on a simple faulty premise.
If someone who declared they were the best in the world at track and field irrespective of actual performance, which can happen with delusions of grandeur, they would not be allowed to compete without the usual progression through sports systems and qualifying trials. The person effectively has a delusion that they are not subject to IOC rules. Trans is a similar delusion.
Trans is a profound prima facie delusion; no testing is required to confirm the delusion, it is self-declared. Irrespective of how a person feels about themselves, they must still abide by rules which disqualifies men from competing in women’s categories, people with delusions of grandeur from competing in that which they don’t qualify, people who believe they are of one weight class competing in a self-declared delusional weight-class, people who claim blood taken which confirms disqualifying PED is not their blood and so on.
You either accommodate all delusions, or none, in the spirit of “fairness”.
Normally, we refer delusional people to psychiatric care so they don’t harm themselves or others. When delusional people insist on being a nuisance, we legally constrain access to spaces where they are a nuisance.
You describe an orderly world ruled by certain fundamental truths that we all agree on. Gender ideology has up-ended that world. Instead of holding trans-identified men to their previous science-based rules, the IOC changed their rules to accommodate men's impossible beliefs about themselves. The IOC affirmed that their belief that they are the opposite sex is real. I agree, the fact that trans-identified men are male should be a nonstarter for eligibility for the female category, but that is not the world we're living in. It's frustrating and a waste of time and resources but putting legitimate science, like Dr. Brown's analysis here, out in the world, sports organizations like World Athletics and international cycling are able to protect the female category based on science
And the more fundamental question is: why? Why on earth would it be considered so important to devise tests to determine which male athletes should be permitted to compete against females?
Whatever principle is at stake here, is it that important to risk ruining female sports and the goal of fair competition?
What a well written and timely article. Brown has done the work and shows in complete clarity what everyone already knows: male/female biology is different and separate opportunities and spaces are warranted for fairness and safety. The 26 states that have not immediately adopted the executive order should immediately lose federal funding until they do so.
Again an excellent piece. I think it's an absolute nonsense that males have been facilitated to cheat against women and girls, whether that be at school, community or elite levels.
I stupidly thought that extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence but at no point has this been a requirement of sports regulators who have allowed males to cheat. In fact they have refused steadfastly to look at settled science and instead used the flim flam of inclusivity to wave away any and all objections. They have allowed them to muscle their way in and told women and girls to prove their isn't an advantage.
At the heart of this is the nonsense that a man's inner internal feelings about himself matters far more than the reality of sexed bodies.
In my 56 years I have been constantly reminded that women and girls are second class humans compared to men and boys but nothing has demonstrated this so blatantly as the nonsense of gender ideology.
There is no such thing as "trans" women because there no such thing as "trans."
They're just men.
Men play sports against other men. There is no special pass for men into the women's category for men who are delusional and don't accept the reality of their sexed body.
There is no need for studies. Even pretending like this is real cedes ground to them.
The answer is no. End of story.
Exactly, Kat.
I refuse to the term "transwoman" or "transman". Or even the word "gender", unless I'm talking about grammar.
There are men and there are women. This is biological reality.
I refuse to bow to this insanity in any form, including linguistically.
It's dead simple: trans females cannot be allowed to play with and against real females in women's-only sports because trans females are male. Trans girls are boys. Trans women are men. Female-only sports will not be female-only if males participate.
That should suffice. Is it discriminatory? Damn straight it is. Males have always been blocked from competing against females in female-only athletic events. That is true today. No matter how adamantly I profess to identify as a race horse, no track in the US will allow a jockey to ride me out of the gate and around the track. Why is this so difficult?
Thank you Dr. Greg Brown and Sarah Barker!
Thank you to all the people focussing on this topic, devoting reserach, writing, lobbying lawmakers....
Thanks Sarah and Greg. The reality is that anyone with a modicum of knowledge about sport knows this to be the case. It's a pity that all the administrators who know more than most have spent ten years not standing up for this simple fact.
Agree completely. No trans “women” in women’s sports. I can’t understand why this is even controversial.
They're just men.
"Trans" does not exist.
It's dlk word salad. There is still a dude In the woman's spaces
Emma Hilton wrote that males are “incentivised to underperform” in order to gain access, it’s nicely put. Also, do you know anything about Madeleine Pope? She was one of the authors of that diabolical IOC document and a former 800m runner who ran against Semenya.
Flawless writing but based on a simple faulty premise.
If someone who declared they were the best in the world at track and field irrespective of actual performance, which can happen with delusions of grandeur, they would not be allowed to compete without the usual progression through sports systems and qualifying trials. The person effectively has a delusion that they are not subject to IOC rules. Trans is a similar delusion.
Trans is a profound prima facie delusion; no testing is required to confirm the delusion, it is self-declared. Irrespective of how a person feels about themselves, they must still abide by rules which disqualifies men from competing in women’s categories, people with delusions of grandeur from competing in that which they don’t qualify, people who believe they are of one weight class competing in a self-declared delusional weight-class, people who claim blood taken which confirms disqualifying PED is not their blood and so on.
You either accommodate all delusions, or none, in the spirit of “fairness”.
Normally, we refer delusional people to psychiatric care so they don’t harm themselves or others. When delusional people insist on being a nuisance, we legally constrain access to spaces where they are a nuisance.
The Olympics is one of those spaces.
You describe an orderly world ruled by certain fundamental truths that we all agree on. Gender ideology has up-ended that world. Instead of holding trans-identified men to their previous science-based rules, the IOC changed their rules to accommodate men's impossible beliefs about themselves. The IOC affirmed that their belief that they are the opposite sex is real. I agree, the fact that trans-identified men are male should be a nonstarter for eligibility for the female category, but that is not the world we're living in. It's frustrating and a waste of time and resources but putting legitimate science, like Dr. Brown's analysis here, out in the world, sports organizations like World Athletics and international cycling are able to protect the female category based on science