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Here's an important development - and a thread... https://twitter.com/guardian_sport/status/1336091511579160581
1) This is an important new paper in @BJSM_BMJ (Roberts et al. 2020) for all those following the debate. Others better qualified than me can run through the science @FondOfBeetles, @Scienceofsport
2) In this thread I want to look at the upshot for the debate on trans women competing in women’s sport:
What does this new information do? What arguments does it close off? What possible moves in the debate does it open up?
What does this new information do? What arguments does it close off? What possible moves in the debate does it open up?
3) The papers’ new results (p.7) are:
•Transwomen retain an advantage in upper body strength (push-ups) over female controls for 1–2 years after starting gender affirming hormones.
•Transwomen retain an advantage in endurance (1.5 mile run) over female controls for over ..
•Transwomen retain an advantage in upper body strength (push-ups) over female controls for 1–2 years after starting gender affirming hormones.
•Transwomen retain an advantage in endurance (1.5 mile run) over female controls for over ..
4) 2 years after starting gender affirming hormones.
•Transwomen are currently mandated to have 1 year of testosterone suppression before being permitted to compete at the elite level. This may be too short if the aim is a level playing field.”
•Transwomen are currently mandated to have 1 year of testosterone suppression before being permitted to compete at the elite level. This may be too short if the aim is a level playing field.”
5) That’s to say, the current rules of World Athletics and the IOC permit transwomen to compete *when they have an unfair advantage in women’s sport*...
This is a worry.
This is a worry.
6) You might think that this means that (1) the rules should be changed, but that is only one of three possibilities (although it’s the one I favour).
7) The second is to dig around and try to find some reason to (2) reject the empirical results as methodologically flawed. We’ve seen attempts at this with the criticism of the @WorldRugby data. But at some point, such criticism will run out of steam.
8) The third is to (3) reject the empirical results as not mattering. That’s to say, the route is just to reject the science and assert – as Rachel McKinnon asserts “Transwomen are women and it is fair for them to compete in women’s sport.”
9) On this line of argument, it doesn’t matter that TW have male physiological advantages.
The key move here is to de-couple fairness from physiology and attach it to 'expressed identity'
The key move here is to de-couple fairness from physiology and attach it to 'expressed identity'
10) This is the quasi-religious line taken by McKinnon, by @EthicsInSPORT and others. Residual male advantage exists, but it is unimportant – it doesn’t matter. Notice that the ‘not mattering’ claim isn’t an empirical claim at all: it’s a normative claim about fairness.
11) that male advantage doesn’t matter for fair sport.
Since this is a non-empirical claim, it’s not going to be undermined by any empirical study. Trying to refute it empirically is like banging your head against a brick wall. But it is undermined by something else:
Since this is a non-empirical claim, it’s not going to be undermined by any empirical study. Trying to refute it empirically is like banging your head against a brick wall. But it is undermined by something else:
12) a normative commitment to women’s sport.
Why? If male physiological advantage does not matter for fairness in sport, then women’s sport should be abolished...
Why? If male physiological advantage does not matter for fairness in sport, then women’s sport should be abolished...
13) ... because it is built on something that doesn’t matter. Women’s sport is a waste of time, energy, and money. If the advantages that males have, should be ignored, then there is just no case for women’s sport.
14) If (on the other hand) you are committed to women’s sport, as (I take it) @WorldAthletics and @iocmedia are, then this commitment itself should be enough to confront the ‘not mattering’ claim.
15) So Route (3) is closed off. Route (2) will play itself out, crudely on twitter, and more professionally in the journals, eventually exhausting itself.
16) That leaves Route (1). The IOC built its regulations on a study by Joanna Harper that is comprehensively refuted by this new study. No-one should quote Harper (2015) without also quoting Roberts (2020). The science has improved. (paper here)...
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/recent
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/recent
17) Either @iocmedia and @WorldAthletics will change their rules, in response to the science, or they can embrace a quasi-religious ideology. It’s decision time in Lausanne.
