Content note for talking about trans and intersex people as if they were specimens and curiosities; probably some transphobia too.
By now you've probably read about Martina Navratilova's ill-advised plunge into discussing the exclusion of trans athletes from women's sports. Personally i haven't seen her article in the Sunday Times because it's behind a paywall, but from summaries in other publications i gather she described trans athletes' participation as a form of 'cheating' and invoked the tired old trope of a cis man cynically transitioning in order to compete against the lesser breed of human that is women. Subsequently Martina issued a non-apology on her blog, in which she brandished her undeniable credentials as an activist for an entirely different cause and claimed that she merely wanted “"a debate, a conversation that includes everyone” based on “science, objectivity and the best interests of women's sport as a whole”." This reminds me of the “debate” about immigration which is yearned for by racists so long as it takes place on the terms of and centres the interests of white non-migrants such as themselves.
In the meantime lawyers for the IAAF have decreed that Caster Semenya is a “"biological male"” based on their own interpretation of science and objectivity. Semenya is appealing against a recently approved rule that lowers the acceptable threshold of testosterone in a woman athlete's body – a rule that was almost certainly designed to prevent Semenya from competing without taking a suppressant. The IAAF's lawyer, like Navratilova, and like a bizarre thinkpiece on the subject in today's Guardian from dubiously qualified fashion hack Hadley Freeman, invoked the spectre of women's sport being overrun by trans and/or intersex competitors, with the result that “"women with normal female testosterone levels will not have any chance to win.”"
Perhaps Freeman's deadline fell before the news that a women's cycle race in Belgium had to be delayed when the leader, Nicole Henselmann, caught up with the men's peloton which had started out ten minutes earlier. Henselmann peaked a bit early, finishing 74thin the women's race, but her feat made the world headlines because there's an insatiable appetite for stories about the gender binary and how it plays out in sports.
Will women with DSDs end up dominatingthe podiums and prize money in athletics, as the IAAF's lawyer suggests? Will trans participants wipe out cis women on the tennis court, as Navratilova fears? Is it possible for a woman to pedal faster than a man? Of course, there's only one objective way to find out, but some people have already decided they know what the results will be before the competition has taken place.
Navratilova's blogpost briefly emerged from its terribleness to arguethat there's probably no single solution to "“the transgender problem (if I may call it that).”" (i think it's probably better that you don't, Martina.) She noted that in many sports competitors are segregated according to categories other than gender, and gave a nod to disabled sports, which accommodate “"different degrees and types of physical impairment”". (She isn't the greatest at choosing her words.) Nevertheless, she concluded that in the all-important able-bodied arena, to introduce categories other than the existing ones would only “"cause confusion”", and for women's tennis it would be "“a bad mistake"”. Long live gender, age and dis/ability as the markers of 'biological difference'.
tl;dr: Sport is bullshit. Gender is bullshit. Big money makes both insufferable.
By now you've probably read about Martina Navratilova's ill-advised plunge into discussing the exclusion of trans athletes from women's sports. Personally i haven't seen her article in the Sunday Times because it's behind a paywall, but from summaries in other publications i gather she described trans athletes' participation as a form of 'cheating' and invoked the tired old trope of a cis man cynically transitioning in order to compete against the lesser breed of human that is women. Subsequently Martina issued a non-apology on her blog, in which she brandished her undeniable credentials as an activist for an entirely different cause and claimed that she merely wanted “"a debate, a conversation that includes everyone” based on “science, objectivity and the best interests of women's sport as a whole”." This reminds me of the “debate” about immigration which is yearned for by racists so long as it takes place on the terms of and centres the interests of white non-migrants such as themselves.
In the meantime lawyers for the IAAF have decreed that Caster Semenya is a “"biological male"” based on their own interpretation of science and objectivity. Semenya is appealing against a recently approved rule that lowers the acceptable threshold of testosterone in a woman athlete's body – a rule that was almost certainly designed to prevent Semenya from competing without taking a suppressant. The IAAF's lawyer, like Navratilova, and like a bizarre thinkpiece on the subject in today's Guardian from dubiously qualified fashion hack Hadley Freeman, invoked the spectre of women's sport being overrun by trans and/or intersex competitors, with the result that “"women with normal female testosterone levels will not have any chance to win.”"
Perhaps Freeman's deadline fell before the news that a women's cycle race in Belgium had to be delayed when the leader, Nicole Henselmann, caught up with the men's peloton which had started out ten minutes earlier. Henselmann peaked a bit early, finishing 74thin the women's race, but her feat made the world headlines because there's an insatiable appetite for stories about the gender binary and how it plays out in sports.
Will women with DSDs end up dominatingthe podiums and prize money in athletics, as the IAAF's lawyer suggests? Will trans participants wipe out cis women on the tennis court, as Navratilova fears? Is it possible for a woman to pedal faster than a man? Of course, there's only one objective way to find out, but some people have already decided they know what the results will be before the competition has taken place.
Navratilova's blogpost briefly emerged from its terribleness to arguethat there's probably no single solution to "“the transgender problem (if I may call it that).”" (i think it's probably better that you don't, Martina.) She noted that in many sports competitors are segregated according to categories other than gender, and gave a nod to disabled sports, which accommodate “"different degrees and types of physical impairment”". (She isn't the greatest at choosing her words.) Nevertheless, she concluded that in the all-important able-bodied arena, to introduce categories other than the existing ones would only “"cause confusion”", and for women's tennis it would be "“a bad mistake"”. Long live gender, age and dis/ability as the markers of 'biological difference'.
tl;dr: Sport is bullshit. Gender is bullshit. Big money makes both insufferable.
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