It is always hard to believe that we need to argue for biological sex categories in sports but because of all the unhinged reasons we know that we MUST.
Analogy: We also, appropriately, segregate competition on the basis of weight, age, and other factors. While not every person of optimal weight and age will beat every person of sub-optimal weight and age, for the sake of competitive fairness we don't make a 110 pound 15 year-old wrestle a 220 pound 25 year-old. That would not be sporting. It's demeaning to say, "You may not compete because we denigrate your category (women, small people, children). But in serious competition, it's fair and inclusive to ALLOW people to compete by grouping them according to relevant categorical advantages/disadvantages.
Thank you for this essay and the selection of the female XX athlete to demonstrate the biological difference between XX and XY humanbeings.
The problem arises with gender issues because gender activists are forcing Critical appraisal in schools of a students’ gender which is difficult to do well. Teachers can only “teach” and if that teaching is about woke views on gender, if indoctrinated, teachers will teach this dogma to their students.
Teachers and principals are not psychiatrists, psychologists or trained mental health professionals who see no reason to isolate children from their parents influence to enforce these gender identities. This is pernicious activist dogma.
Teachers and schools should not be acting as such, and making decisions about students “genders” without informing parents, puts schools in precarious moral and legal grounds. It causes a split between parents and their children, undermining the family construct. This has to stop. This article scratches the surface of this challenge in modern day society;
These many “genders” named and encouraged by the woke, are an example of woke inspired need for western societies to be divided into “identities” that are infinitesimal in number of people, but fit the definition.
Add in intersectionality of oppressors and victimhood of the oppressed wich in woke dogma must be considered because these people are more worthy than XX females and XY men to be recognised as being selected for higher education, better job opportunities and social progression.
This thinking we all know is wrong, and absolutely ludicrous. Articles such as these confirm this.
Good essay, and important reminder of a reality that was common sense and not even up for discussion until about 5 years ago.
As they say "Trust the Science." Did science ever say that there were not two biological sexes male and female ? With a small category of people who are intersex which is rare. I am not an evolutionary biologist but I know that the two biological sexes have significant differences including that females bear children. In older times females could expect to have many pregnancies, 10 or more if they lived to reach menopause. Women could also expect to breast feed the resulting children for at least 1 year and to carry that child around. Men evolved to do the hunting, and the war. They are stronger and faster.
An excellent article overall, but I do wish you hadn't used the word cis to describe all non-trans women. It’s most commonly used to describe women whose gender identity matches their sex. It therefore excludes women who don't have a gender identity. It's closely related to mind-body dualism; if you're with the (global) majority who think that mind and body are distinct and separable, the idea that you have a gender identity that's separable from your body makes sense. If not, it makes more sense not to pick a gender identity.
I have no problem with people identifying as cis, but it's wrong to say that there's only cis or trans. Take molecules as an analogy, some are cis or trans ( alkenes), some are neither (linear alkanes)
> But aside from the fact that Hubbard was much older than her competitors
Why confuse the issue by referring to the gentleman as 'her'? Hubbard is a biological male thus 'he' would be accurate. I appreciate that we all want to be nice to the trannies but giving in to the corruption of language isn't the way.
This is a naive suggestion, but if transgendered women want to compete in competitive sports with females from birth, couldn't something like handicaps be used to level the field?
Thanks, Leigh. My personal thought, as sports scientist and a fan of Olympic sports is this...
Part of what made Kipyegon’s official world record in 2023 so powerful was that she ran it alone, charging down the homestretch without distraction. Her dominance over the world's best women was apparent. The moment belonged entirely to her, and she earned it. In contrast, the Sub4 event — even with supportive male pacers — shifted the focus. Even unintentionally, it invites comparison and subtly reminds us of female performance ceilings relative to that of males. That can take something away from the moment, both symbolically and emotionally.
We don’t expect male champions like Jakob Ingebrigtsen to share the stage with others, their huge leads in the home stretch speak for themselves. So, I feel it would be unfair for the best women to have to share the stages with biological men.
And while male athletes enjoy, on average, a ~10% performance advantage at the elite level, handicapping isn’t as simple as adjusting for that figure. There’s considerable individual variability, and males at similar performance levels often have more room for improvement. Creating a fair and meaningful handicap system would be extremely difficult — and risks overshadowing the very athletes it’s meant to support. It seems unfair to expect the elite women to have to account for handicapping in the race, while we don't expect men to have to deal with this. It can definitely change the normal racing dynamics, such as pacing strategy.
So my though is this - let’s celebrate female excellence on its own terms. These athletes have earned that spotlight.
Because people want to watch and perform in races where we see who is actually fastest. If we start handicapping then where does it stop? Races where each competitor starts at a different position along the track? Or where the guy who crosses the tape first doesn't get the prize because the 3d place finisher is computed to have 'won'? It's almost comical. It would be rather easier if folks with XY chromosomes raced separately from folks with XX chromosomes.
Why does admitting the plain fact that women are on the average disadvantaged relative to men create worries about sex based inequality when no one apparently worries about ongoing discrimination in employment and occupational sex segregation? Though women with college degrees now compete in a unisex job market, the 2/3 of women on the other side of the diploma divide are de facto largely restricted to pink-collar drudge work. Occupational sex segregation hasn't significantly shifted since the last century and the percentage of women in most blue-collar jobs is in single digits. Why a niche issue concerning relative few trans women but not an issue that concerns the bulk of the female population?
Indeed. I wanted to be sure to acknowledge that in the article in terms of the sports world, but it extends well beyond that at well.
The recent position statement from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM, linked in the article) also states that biological women are also underrepresented from a research perspective. This is true in the sports medicine and sports performance world (albeit with a few exceptions, like ACL injuries) and is evident in other areas of medical research. Simply put, the menstrual cycle introduces meaningful variation, which influenced injury risk, recovery, performance, etc. So it is often "easiest" to exclude females from studies rather than deal with the physiologic consequences of the menstrual cycle.
The ACSM statement makes a clear stance; before focusing efforts on understanding the effects of testosterone suppression in biological men, there needs to be more research on biological women.
> Occupational sex segregation hasn't significantly shifted since the last century and the percentage of women in most blue-collar jobs is in single digits.
If the job is dirty, dangerous, demanding and debilitating even the most fanatical radfem has no problem with the fact that these jobs are overwhelmingly performed by men. Clerical and administrative jobs are dominated by females because simple math makes it impossible for them to dominate all fields unless we want men to stop working entirely. If you want more women loggers then what you are saying is that a male logger and a female DEI bureaucrat should change places. Why would you want that when neither the logger nor the bureaucrat want to change places?
It is always hard to believe that we need to argue for biological sex categories in sports but because of all the unhinged reasons we know that we MUST.
Thank you for your work.
Do some people actually find this essay controversial?
Analogy: We also, appropriately, segregate competition on the basis of weight, age, and other factors. While not every person of optimal weight and age will beat every person of sub-optimal weight and age, for the sake of competitive fairness we don't make a 110 pound 15 year-old wrestle a 220 pound 25 year-old. That would not be sporting. It's demeaning to say, "You may not compete because we denigrate your category (women, small people, children). But in serious competition, it's fair and inclusive to ALLOW people to compete by grouping them according to relevant categorical advantages/disadvantages.
Thank you for this essay and the selection of the female XX athlete to demonstrate the biological difference between XX and XY humanbeings.
The problem arises with gender issues because gender activists are forcing Critical appraisal in schools of a students’ gender which is difficult to do well. Teachers can only “teach” and if that teaching is about woke views on gender, if indoctrinated, teachers will teach this dogma to their students.
Teachers and principals are not psychiatrists, psychologists or trained mental health professionals who see no reason to isolate children from their parents influence to enforce these gender identities. This is pernicious activist dogma.
Teachers and schools should not be acting as such, and making decisions about students “genders” without informing parents, puts schools in precarious moral and legal grounds. It causes a split between parents and their children, undermining the family construct. This has to stop. This article scratches the surface of this challenge in modern day society;
https://nationalpost.com/news/schools-consent-transgender-gender-transition
These many “genders” named and encouraged by the woke, are an example of woke inspired need for western societies to be divided into “identities” that are infinitesimal in number of people, but fit the definition.
Add in intersectionality of oppressors and victimhood of the oppressed wich in woke dogma must be considered because these people are more worthy than XX females and XY men to be recognised as being selected for higher education, better job opportunities and social progression.
This thinking we all know is wrong, and absolutely ludicrous. Articles such as these confirm this.
Good essay, and important reminder of a reality that was common sense and not even up for discussion until about 5 years ago.
As they say "Trust the Science." Did science ever say that there were not two biological sexes male and female ? With a small category of people who are intersex which is rare. I am not an evolutionary biologist but I know that the two biological sexes have significant differences including that females bear children. In older times females could expect to have many pregnancies, 10 or more if they lived to reach menopause. Women could also expect to breast feed the resulting children for at least 1 year and to carry that child around. Men evolved to do the hunting, and the war. They are stronger and faster.
An excellent article overall, but I do wish you hadn't used the word cis to describe all non-trans women. It’s most commonly used to describe women whose gender identity matches their sex. It therefore excludes women who don't have a gender identity. It's closely related to mind-body dualism; if you're with the (global) majority who think that mind and body are distinct and separable, the idea that you have a gender identity that's separable from your body makes sense. If not, it makes more sense not to pick a gender identity.
I have no problem with people identifying as cis, but it's wrong to say that there's only cis or trans. Take molecules as an analogy, some are cis or trans ( alkenes), some are neither (linear alkanes)
> But aside from the fact that Hubbard was much older than her competitors
Why confuse the issue by referring to the gentleman as 'her'? Hubbard is a biological male thus 'he' would be accurate. I appreciate that we all want to be nice to the trannies but giving in to the corruption of language isn't the way.
This is a naive suggestion, but if transgendered women want to compete in competitive sports with females from birth, couldn't something like handicaps be used to level the field?
Thanks, Leigh. My personal thought, as sports scientist and a fan of Olympic sports is this...
Part of what made Kipyegon’s official world record in 2023 so powerful was that she ran it alone, charging down the homestretch without distraction. Her dominance over the world's best women was apparent. The moment belonged entirely to her, and she earned it. In contrast, the Sub4 event — even with supportive male pacers — shifted the focus. Even unintentionally, it invites comparison and subtly reminds us of female performance ceilings relative to that of males. That can take something away from the moment, both symbolically and emotionally.
We don’t expect male champions like Jakob Ingebrigtsen to share the stage with others, their huge leads in the home stretch speak for themselves. So, I feel it would be unfair for the best women to have to share the stages with biological men.
And while male athletes enjoy, on average, a ~10% performance advantage at the elite level, handicapping isn’t as simple as adjusting for that figure. There’s considerable individual variability, and males at similar performance levels often have more room for improvement. Creating a fair and meaningful handicap system would be extremely difficult — and risks overshadowing the very athletes it’s meant to support. It seems unfair to expect the elite women to have to account for handicapping in the race, while we don't expect men to have to deal with this. It can definitely change the normal racing dynamics, such as pacing strategy.
So my though is this - let’s celebrate female excellence on its own terms. These athletes have earned that spotlight.
Because people want to watch and perform in races where we see who is actually fastest. If we start handicapping then where does it stop? Races where each competitor starts at a different position along the track? Or where the guy who crosses the tape first doesn't get the prize because the 3d place finisher is computed to have 'won'? It's almost comical. It would be rather easier if folks with XY chromosomes raced separately from folks with XX chromosomes.
Why does admitting the plain fact that women are on the average disadvantaged relative to men create worries about sex based inequality when no one apparently worries about ongoing discrimination in employment and occupational sex segregation? Though women with college degrees now compete in a unisex job market, the 2/3 of women on the other side of the diploma divide are de facto largely restricted to pink-collar drudge work. Occupational sex segregation hasn't significantly shifted since the last century and the percentage of women in most blue-collar jobs is in single digits. Why a niche issue concerning relative few trans women but not an issue that concerns the bulk of the female population?
Indeed. I wanted to be sure to acknowledge that in the article in terms of the sports world, but it extends well beyond that at well.
The recent position statement from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM, linked in the article) also states that biological women are also underrepresented from a research perspective. This is true in the sports medicine and sports performance world (albeit with a few exceptions, like ACL injuries) and is evident in other areas of medical research. Simply put, the menstrual cycle introduces meaningful variation, which influenced injury risk, recovery, performance, etc. So it is often "easiest" to exclude females from studies rather than deal with the physiologic consequences of the menstrual cycle.
The ACSM statement makes a clear stance; before focusing efforts on understanding the effects of testosterone suppression in biological men, there needs to be more research on biological women.
> Occupational sex segregation hasn't significantly shifted since the last century and the percentage of women in most blue-collar jobs is in single digits.
If the job is dirty, dangerous, demanding and debilitating even the most fanatical radfem has no problem with the fact that these jobs are overwhelmingly performed by men. Clerical and administrative jobs are dominated by females because simple math makes it impossible for them to dominate all fields unless we want men to stop working entirely. If you want more women loggers then what you are saying is that a male logger and a female DEI bureaucrat should change places. Why would you want that when neither the logger nor the bureaucrat want to change places?