Current Events > Most well reasoned take on the trans people in sport argument I've seen.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ross Tucker, Science of Sport.

https://tinyurl.com/y6z9k7w9

Some points I liked:

- There's a lack of strong evidence to support any particular argument at the moment, and the conversation to date from all sides of the debate has been largely emotionally driven. "There is concept, theory, and biological rationale, but not evidence".

- Being allowed to compete at an elite level of sport, earn money and win titles is not primarily a human rights issue, and should not be treated as such.The sporting body is allowed to defend a line being drawn. "The issue here is whether that protection is objective, non-harmful and based on accurate enough variables so as to not create a net negative outcome"

- Trans people nevertheless are having their dignity trampled by how regulation is being implemented, which is not to say the regulation itself is harmful.

- We should regulate on testosterone because we have already decided to protect the integrity of women's sport as a category. This is to say it is fundamentally different from regulating on things like height or foot size because those are categories we have not decided to protect. If we did, the conversation would be different.

- We do this because of the frankly large difference in performance. The notion being that height/foot size etc. are not such large biological advantages as being male is for competition, because without this distinction women would effectively disappear from elite sport. (Acknowledging this is the grey area of discussion, not the evidence area). All things being equal, men and women are competing at such a different level in most sport that women's top athletes do not even reach the top 4000 male ones. This is different from comparing say, men in basketball under 1.81cms versus those above.

It goes on, worth a read if you find this conversation interesting.
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