Why must a tiny number of trans-identified males be indulged at the expense of 51% of the population?
"I think some sports organizations don't see the female category as particularly important" -- Cathy Devine
“Back in 2019, no one was talking to female athletes. They were not consulted, and worse, sports organizations literally thought it was none of the business of female athletes to have a say in who competes in the female category. Female athletes were irrelevant. In making trans inclusion policies, sports organizations like the IOC and World Athletics only talked to trans advocacy groups. There was this very sexist patriarchal notion that female athletes were almost like children—they were not able to understand the science, so organizations said, We will dictate the rules and they will have no choice but to follow them. Then it became a fight between experts. My point is, I don’t think you need a biology degree to know there are two sexes. Let’s not have experts arguing; let’s ask athletes.”
That, from Cathy Devine, an independent sport policy researcher in the UK, who is very knowledgeable and active in fairness and inclusion for women and girls. She recently had a paper on female Olympians’ thoughts about trans athletes in sport published in the International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Which is a herculean feat, given that merely saying “biological sex” is construed as transphobic in today’s research environment. That survey started our conversation off, but one thing led to another. Here, I’ll let Cathy do most of the talking.
“When I was interviewing the Canadian athletes—there were 25 of them, 8 Olympians—they were very empathic to trans people, but they didn’t equate that with competing in opposite sex categories. I wasn’t surprised they were empathic. They said, We don’t get what the fuss is about, for example, the trans footballer Quinn,
who identifies as non-binary and transgender. Quinn is female playing on the female team. This has been happening since forever. Sports is coded masculine because you get sweaty and it’s about being strong, so women’s sports have always been very welcoming of gender nonconforming women, lesbians. Female athletes support however anyone wants to identify, but not having males in female sports.”
“Of the 25 athletes, the majority thought sex and gender were two different things. But four were of the opposite opinion. They thought the survey was bigoted because after “trans woman” I put “biological male” in brackets, so it was clear who I was talking about. They thought any mention of biological sex was transphobic, and that sex testing [at elite levels] was outrageous. This minority opinion extrapolates out to the larger population. Some of the reasons for these four athletes’ opinions are that they thought sex was a spectrum, which it is not, and they conflated DSD athletes with trans women, which, again, is not true.”
“I wanted to ask them about use of the word cisgender. The majority found it dehumanizing and offensive. I also asked them how they felt about sex testing. Some had no problem with it since they are already urinating in front of a stranger [for drug testing]. The majority thought some minimally invasive sex verification, like a cheek swab, was important.”
“Another thing that came of the Canadian survey that was deeply disturbing was that the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport recommended that trans athletes don’t have to disclose their trans status. So, female athletes who clearly knew a teammate was biologically male could not say they did not want to share a room with this person because to use that language would be transphobic. That’s horrendous silencing of female athletes, they’re not allowed to withdraw their consent or talk about their safety.
Also, at least one female athlete said a coach compared her unfavorably to a trans-identified male athlete. The coach used the pretense that the difference in performance was that the trans athlete trained harder and that’s why the trans-identified male was better than the female athlete. That’s gaslighting on an industrial scale. It encourages over training, eating disorders—it’s just exceedingly poor practice.”
“I think the onus should be on male sports to accept gender nonconforming men, gay men, trans-identifying men, and not offload them on the female category. There should be strong anti-bullying rules. Male sport is about male superiority which translates to moral superiority. Sport is males’ last bastion where they can say, we’re better than women. If you have gay males, it undermines that hegemonic male category. So do trans women.”
Since Cathy’s specialty is sport policy, I asked if she was consulted by the International Olympic Committee when they made their most recent guidance on transgender inclusion, which oddly, stated that despite a century of men’s world records being 10% to 60% faster/farther than women’s, and robust science that showed testosterone reduction did not remove male advantage, there should be no presumption that a trans-identified male had a sports advantage. Huh? Cathy had insight into how this mysterious conclusion came to be.
“Absolutely not, I was not consulted. The IOC contracted out their human rights policymaking to Shift, an organization that is captured by gender ideology. Shift advised the IOC to include trans-identified males in the opposite sex category. I had submitted my paper on the thoughts of female athletes but for whatever reason, they didn’t pay attention to it. Part of it is that the IOC is still enthralled with Joanna Harper [a trans-identified male scientist] who has one anecdotal paper with a pool of eight subjects. Now I think she’s down to one subject. Harper has now co-authored a review article which concludes male advantage remains in trans women. Obviously sports is an incredibly sexist institution. Women have had to fight tooth and nail for equal prize money, equal representation, etc. The wants of a small number of males seem to override fair competition of 51% of the population. Including males in women’s categories asymmetrically benefits males at the expense of females, including trans men and female nonbinary athletes. In particular, why must trans-identified males be indulged? It’s bizarre. Sports are by and large run by males, and I think the underlying issue is they don’t see the female category as particularly important.”
“My disappointment is not with trans people, but with institutions and organizations. They can empathize with gender identity but the reality is, they are the custodians of sport, to ensure that sport is fair to males and females. Whatever the reasons or intentions for trans women to feel the way they do, that’s a matter for themselves. Our job is to ensure fair sport for everybody. The powers that be have been absent without leave properly.”
“The much bigger question is why has gender identity grabbed hold of so many institutions, not just sports organizations. I think it because it’s easy and cheap. You don’t have to do anything, really. You can fly a flag, nothing needs to change. You don’t actually have to address pay gaps or the fact that decision making at the top is heavily male dominated. You can pretend you’ve got more equality even when you’ve actually got less, because some of those “women’s” positions are filled by trans-identified males. It’s virtue signaling. You’ve equality washed your sport. I also don’t think sports organizations genuinely thought this is the backlash they would get [to allowing males in female categories]. They really didn’t believe female sport was that important. In my view, there will be payback, a very long bloody fight to claw back the female category.”