Very interesting. Relates to conversations I've had recently regarding trans people in sports. Turns out that conversation isn't simple, because gender is way more complex than the binary M/F options society has tried to act like it is.
Between reasons like in this article, or being born intersex, etc, there are definitely people with female chromosomes who have competed in men's sports, or people with female sex organs and male chromosomes that have competed in female sports. I don't know what the "fairness" answer is, but these are real people.
The important thing to recognize is that fairness is a pretty fuzzy concept and a lot of the boundary between fair and unfair is defined by particular societal norms (socially constructed, if you will).
All elite athletes have biological advantages not afforded to ordinary humans like us. People like Michael Phelps and Alex Honnold are specific examples of course, but even after years of training most people cannot perform anywhere near the level that elite athletes do.
Now, which biological advantages are fair and which are not is determined by society. We have somehow decided that chromosomal advantages are unfair, even though people have exactly as much control over them as they do over the amount of lactic acid they produce or how their amygdala behaves.
Absolutely lots of factors actually influence competitive advantage and it's arbitrary which ones we decide to use to group competitors!
I think a helpful reframing is to note that some sports do segregate by factors other than sex, generally bodyweight. If boxing, wrestling, judo, weightlifting etc all benefit from weight classes so that we can have more fair competitions among competitors in comparable weight bands, why not have height classes for various sports? Why not have cycling races with tiers of people at different points on the vO2 max scale?
I actually think it would be interesting to watch competitions for some sports that are based around who does "better than expected" by some model that predicts baselines. What if every marathoner was still trying to get the best time achievable, but we celebrated the person who most out-performed expectations? Critically, you wouldn't just stop paying attention when the first cluster of people cross the finish-line -- the winner might arrive later. I would also love to see if different styles of play would emerge in, e.g. an under-6-foot basketball height class.
But in high level competition people don't use handicaps right?
But I think handicaps are also about your individual skill level based on your past performance relative to par on different courses right? (I'm not a golfer). I'm not saying we shouldn't celebrate deep skill. I'm imagining we should have a shared model that given some basic info (e.g. your biological sex, height, maybe some ratios about your skeletal proportions, age, hormones) gives a distribution on performance (e.g. marathon time, long jump distance, weight lighting combined score), and your normalized score is based on the quantile you get relative to that baseline. I think that behaves pretty different from a handicap based on personal past performance.
I.e. a tiny old lady who throws a shotput pretty far gets a high normalized score, even if her performance is extremely consistent over time (and so on the day of competition she's not outperforming her prior record).
Michael Phelps has already had his records broken. Women will never break men's records across a wide range of sports. I keep seeing him brought up, but it's in no way comparable.
Pushing for allowing men into women's sports based on gender identity will result in the extinction of women's sports. If you want that, at least be honest about it.
You can compare the world records of female athletes and male athletes in almost every sport and see that really this is an empirical observation.
To use one of your examples: Michael Phelps has at this point had his records beaten by a number of other male swimmers. But no female swimmer has come close. Not even Katie Ledecky.
Sure, but how big is the total pool of female swimmers? If we assume that ability to swim (within a sex, for the sake of argument) follows a normal distribution, the denominator of "people that gave swimming a real try" is going to have a direct relationship with the capabilities of the best ever to try. This is completely ignoring funding, encouragement, and access, and strictly discussing the sheer number of women that have literally tried swimming at a young enough age to discover their talent and have the opportunity to become the best swimmer they possibly could if they have it.
It is easy to control for that, just look at the best man from a very small population.
For example, the fastest male swimmers in Iceland are still much faster than the fastest female swimmers in the world, and Iceland has 10 000 times less people than the world.
There aren't 10 000 times more men trying to become elite swimmers than women.
Societal gender norms have existed for probably as long as humans have, but we've only known about chromosomes for <200 years. Before the 1900 Olympics, women weren't even allowed to compete.
On the scale of human evolution, this is a very recent situation for society to figure out how to "decide".
There are plenty of cultures around the world that conceptualize gender differently than we do, as well. Including many where there are options where individuals can choose their gender, in various circumstances or for various purposes.
So actually on the scale of human evolution, humans have been making different choices about matters like these since we've been humans.
It's really not new or recent. For as long as there's been gender norms there's been groups of people outside those norms.
You can, for example, find examples of trans individuals in Utah in the 1800s. [1] Eunuchs are a pretty well-known concept since about the start of recorded history.
Here's an example of a roman cult which practiced self-castration. [2]
I didn't mean to imply that these people didn't exist, just that the scientific understanding detailing aspects of their existence (chromosomes, gonadal dysgenesis, etc) is new.
> Societal gender norms have existed for probably as long as humans have
Or gender norms have existed since gender was defined in the 70s-80s by feminist scholars. Before that was only sex, which biologists know to be not a binary but a bimodal distribution, itself.
> We have somehow decided that chromosomal advantages are unfair
That somehow was mostly because people with certain chromosomal characteristics were heavily disadvantaged in sports, but increasingly wanted participation in them. Because those people (who we called "women") would largely be unable to be competitive and/or would face considerable increased risk of physical harm if they played in/against the same teams as everyone else, people with those chromosomal characteristics splintered off to compete in/against teams of themselves.
This was extremely successful and many women have been happily participating in sports, enjoying the ability to win games by virtue of their training and the non-sex defining aspects of their genetic make up, all without having to unnecessarily accept outsized risks of bodily harm and injury.
It's also worth mentioning that there hasn't been much effort to keep women from competing outside of their own divisions if they're willing to accept the lower odds of success and higher risks of harm to themselves that'd come from that. For the most part, they have been deciding for themselves that it isn't worth it.
It's not even as if chromosomal advantages are the only place we've done this. We have weight classes in certain sports. We have teams that only accept people within certain age ranges. We have divisions based on demonstrated ability. We even have things like the special Olympics. These really aren't a problem or a bad thing to have.
People can't choose their biology, but they can choose to play sports in a way that's more fair and safe for themselves and the others they play with and that's a perfectly acceptable practice that we should encourage. This is true even when it means that some people are excluded from specific teams or events because of things they cannot change about themselves. There are still places for pretty much everyone who wants to play if they look hard enough, even if not everyone is able to be a part of any team or division that they'd like to.
> There are still places for pretty much everyone who wants to play if they look hard enough, even if not everyone is able to be a part of any team or division that they'd like to.
This reads to me as "separate but equal" which I think is exactly what's wrong with sports divisions. Sports divisions play out the "separate is inherently unequal" at so many levels.
i don't think equality was ever the goal. The goal was just to let more people play sports, have fun, and have a realistic chance of winning within their chosen division.
If a professional baseball player wanted to play in a little league tournament they'd do very very well, but it'd be unfair to a bunch of 7-12 year olds, so we don't allow that and the sport is "separate", but when a 9 year old kid wins the Little League World Series, while that's very exciting for the players, we still don't treat that win as being equal to winning the actual World Series.
Winning the actual World Series is a much bigger deal. Nobody treats them as being equal, but being inherently unequal doesn't mean that it's wrong. The Little League World Series can just be its own thing, because what actually matters is that the kids are having fun playing the sport they love and don't have to worry that some 30 year old with a batting average of .340 is going to ruin their good time.
There are times when "separate is inherently unequal" is actually the most fair.
It's kinda unusual, but only because they don't run the mile event very often. Most track events have a 1,500 meters, 109m short of a mile. But they're definitely running them at a sub-4 pace -- the high school record is something like 3:34 for the 1,500.
Most tracks aren't set up to properly measure the mile. It's easier to measure the 1,600 meters, still 9 meters short of a mile. It's not a standard track event but it does give a good estimate of the mile time.
What is kinda unusual? I don't understand your comment.
The USA high school record for the female 1500 m event 4:04.62, set on May 17, 2013, by one Mary Cain of Bronxville, NY, in an event at Eagle Rock, CA.
It would take something like another 18 seconds to get to 1609 meters at that pace.
That's just the USA. Let's look at the World Under-18 records:
>Now, which biological advantages are fair and which are not is determined by society. We have somehow decided that chromosomal advantages are unfair, even though people have exactly as much control over them as they do over the amount of lactic acid they produce or how their amygdala behaves.
What's the implication here, that because the distinction is totally arbitrary, that we should do away with it? What does that mean for women's sports?
For myself, it means that I should have some patience and humility. Of course, I don't participate in women's sports anyway, so that should be pretty easy for me.
I don't know, I'm not an athlete, coach, tournament organizer, part of a rule-making body, or one of a number of other roles that would give me insight or authority to be involved in that decision. Why does everyone feel comfortable stepping into this conversation with authority?
>I don't know, I'm not an athlete, coach, tournament organizer, part of a rule-making body, or one of a number of other roles that would give me insight or authority to be involved in that decision. Why does everyone feel comfortable stepping into this conversation with authority?
Would you be equally deferential to the organizer/rule-making body if it was some other controversial issue, like whether women could compete at all? As a sibling comment mentioned, women couldn't even compete in the olympics before 1900, so if it came up as a culture war topic would your reaction also be "I don't know, I'm not an athlete, coach, tournament organizer, part of a rule-making body, or one of a number of other roles that would give me insight or authority to be involved in that decision"?
I don't see the need to create and articulate a universalizeable moral framework to decide how I should react to a specific case in front of me.
I listed rulemakers and organizers but also athletes themselves. I don't know much about the history of the olympics but I would guess the desires and probably activism of women athletes played a role.
>I don't see the need to create and articulate a universalizeable moral framework to decide how I should react to a specific case in front of me.
You kinda do, otherwise your position just sounds like "why are you talking about trans athletes? You should just Trust the Experts, except when I disagree with them, then it's an Important Moral Issue that the public needs to weigh in on".
>I listed rulemakers and organizers but also athletes themselves. I don't know much about the history of the olympics but I would guess the desires and probably activism of women athletes played a role.
This is a very perilous position to hold, because it basically means if there's enough TERF athletes to outnumber trans women athletes (which doesn't seem too implausible, based on purely demographic factors) then it's okay to exclude them.
My point is really more along the lines of: look around man. Transphobia is the tip of the spear of fascism in the 2020s, look who your allies are, look who benefits from drawing attention to this specific question right now. Look at what you are choosing to be a part of by doing this here and now.
You're right, discussion's open to the clergy only. Any laymen who continue to discuss this infohazard will be banned.
the clergy, such at least as can be fully confided in, may admissibly and
meritoriously make themselves acquainted with the arguments of opponents, in
order to answer them, and may, therefore, read heretical books; the laity,
not unless by special permission, hard to be obtained. This discipline
recognises a knowledge of the enemy's case as beneficial to the teachers,
but finds means, consistent with this, of denying it to the rest of the
world: thus giving to the élite more mental culture, though not more mental
freedom, than it allows to the mass [0].
I deliberately did not include any normative information on my post. Also, I didn't say the distinction was totally arbitrary (because it's not — social constructs rarely are totally arbitrary). I said the boundaries are fuzzy.
I think a regime where intersex cis women, as well as trans women who have been on testosterone suppression for a long period, would probably be most fair. I don't think categorical bans are fair in any respect, not is forcing intersex cis and trans women to compete with men (because they're likely to be much worse due to not having as much testosterone), nor is creating a third category (because it would have too few people to be truly competitive). But I'm not an expert and most likely neither are you, so I try to keep my opinions here relatively loosely held.
The para-Olympics thrive with dramatically smaller numbers than trans women can manage. A 3rd category would do just fine.
The muscular changes that happen during puberty are permanent. No amount of testosterone suppression will change that. In how many sports do any trans-women end up on the podium vs their numbers in that sport?
Exactly. I also support human augmentation, body modification, blood doping, and exogenous testosterone usage at the Olympics. These are the affirmations a mere male athlete can use to transition into an alpha male elite athlete. You can maybe include minoxidil, for those who actually need it.
> The well being of our daughters should trump the entitlements of transwomen
Trans women are also "our daughters" just as much as cis women (endosex or intersex) are. Caring more about cis daughters' wellbeing than trans daughters' is pretty cissexist!
Anybody is free to agree or disagree with that as they see fit. You yourself qualify them as "trans women", after all. However, you can accept them as "real women" without that automatically entitling them to participate in women's sports. It is justified by the importance of women's sports to the well being of the vast majority. They ought to pick a different hill to die on.
At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, all three medalists in the women's 800m were male athletes with male physiological advantage. None of the three has, or had, a transgender identity.
Fundamentally, this issue isn't about trans. The problem is, competition organizers across many sports decided that including males in the female category is more important than fair competition for female athletes. That's the problem that needs to be addressed.
> Mediocre men-who-purport-to-be-women beating outstanding actual women, is analogous to a mediocre athlete juicing to beat his more talented competitors.
Does this actually happen? I remember seeing the first transgender woman competing in weightlifting, on the olympic stage. So like the most elite of the most elite competition, in a sport where you'd think muscle mass, skeletal size, and testosterone would matter the most. And she finished dead last. I'm not like a huge follower of sports or anything, I just follow the olympics sometimes. I never see transgender people dominating anything there and certainly not to the extent of Michael Phelps.
If we want to remove people due to lack of competitive fun we can remove Phelps, it was always really boring watching anything he competed in.
>I remember seeing the first transgender woman competing in weightlifting, on the olympic stage. So like the most elite of the most elite competition, in a sport where you'd think muscle mass, skeletal size, and testosterone would matter the most. And she finished dead last.
What happens when other transgender women (sincere or not) realize that they can compete in women's completions, and that their past testosterone levels gives them an advantage over the typical cis women? The first transgender women contestant might only be 90th percentile, but surely her success will attract people from the 99th percentile and beyond?
I'm not aware of anyone advocating to let Eddie Hall join a women's powerlifting meet. Generally athletic bodies have been establishing some criteria, ex being on testosterone suppression for a certain number of years.
Is it enough to remove the advantage? I can't begin to say. But acting like its as simple as "99th percentile men competing against 99th percentile women" are pretty clearly arguing in bad faith.
If you're talking about trans women competing against women, then no. That's men competing against women. I suspect you're quite aware of that and intentionally confusing the two for rhetorical effect, but that's a great example of why protecting the plain-sense definition of words matters. "Woman" means adult female human, which categorically excludes men regardless of their gender identity.
That weightlifter came last due to a disqualification for improper technique, not because of being unable to lift the weight.
If you look at previous performances by that same weightlifter in earlier competitions, although these were mediocre compared to other males, they would be outstanding if this weightlifter was actually female. Middle-aged, relatively unfit, with a chronic injury, and still able to lift significantly more than any other competitor, taking gold medals in the Pacific Games and Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships. Twice in the latter.
This is just one example amongst hundreds. There are loads of these male athletes with male physiological advantage taking medals in women's sports.
> This is just one example amongst hundreds. There are loads of these male athletes with male physiological advantage taking medals in women's sports.
Then where are they in the olympics? Why didn't trans women take over all medals in all categories? Why was there only one trans woman in fucking weightlifting and her technique apparently sucked so bad that she was disqualified? I'm not like deeply into sports, again, I just tune into the most elite international sports event and I literally do not see what you're talking about.
It's because there's not many of them eligible to compete at this level. Fortunately, there is a pipeline of restrictions in place so hardly any of these males filter through.
Firstly, there is the eligibility criteria to compete as women. Up until 2016, when the IOC relaxed the policy to only require these males to undergo testosterone suppression, the rule was that they had to have had the surgery to remove the testicles and reshape the penis into a hole. Only a minority of these males choose to go through with this surgery as it is, so to intersect with the group of males who want to seriously compete in sport was highly unlikely. Testosterone suppression, which not all of these males choose to do anyway, has strict limits of minimum duration and maximum concentration. So this in itself filters out most.
Secondly, no athlete can directly apply to compete in the Olympics, as all entrants have to go through their country's organizing committee. So this limits countries to those who recognize trans identities and who have a committee brazen enough to enter a male who wants to be female in the female category, ahead of actual female athletes.
Thirdly, even if those conditions are met, the athlete must choose to do this knowing that the eyes of the world will be watching and that such an entry into the Olympics will be highly and globally controversial. This filters out all but the most shameless. Note this contrasts with the female athletes who claim transgender identities and enter, uncontroversially, into the category of their sex, of which there have been several over the years.
All this is why almost all of the trans-identifying males who compete, and win, in the female category do so in competitions other than the Olympics. Mostly smaller, regional ones.
It's also why most of the male athletes who've competed at the Olympics in the female category are those with disorders of sex development. The rules are different for these athletes. Though not without controversy either. DSD policy has changed over time too, to be more restrictive. The most recent turning point was after male athletes took gold, silver and bronze in the women's 800m at Rio. They didn't claim trans identities, having been erroneously assigned female on their birth certificates, but competing as if they are female was, and is, similarly problematic.
Depending on the specifics regarding "intersex", "trans", and other potential overlapping categorizations, estimates range from 1 in 5,500 births (sex chromosomes inconsistent) to as common as redheads (1 in just over 50). Roughly 0.5% is a good split-the-baby estimate, meaning a substantial fraction of the population may have issues with genitalia identification at birth, with another 1% having presentation later through late‑onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia (LOCAH), Klinefelter syndrome, and other chromosomal differences.
Yep also people with differences in sexual development ("intersex", sometimes) are also overrepresented in trans people for obvious reasons. It is like extremely murky
> Very interesting. Relates to conversations I've had recently regarding trans people in sports. Turns out that conversation isn't simple, because gender is way more complex than the binary M/F options society has tried to act like it is.
Using the word “gender” to refer to the concepts of both “reproductive sex” (chromosomes, gametes, genitals) and also “gender” (socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and expectations associated with femininity and masculinity) certainly makes it very complex to reason about and discuss, particularly if it feels socially distasteful to separate the two.
Without getting the soapbox out, it seems to me that there’s an infinite number of possible “genders” as each unique individual can construct whatever permutation of supposedly feminine and masculine coded things that suits them. But broadly speaking, there are two sexes - the one that went down the developmental pathway to produce and ejaculate semen, and the one that went down the pathway to be able to ovulate, incubate fertilised eggs, give birth and nurse with milk.
So in considering sport, given the physiological consequences of reproductive role causes female performance to be on average significantly lower than for males, does it make sense for sporting categories to be gendered (how people look or act) or sexed (how people are constructed)?
There’s a inclusivity argument for “yes” from the point of view of the interests of one group (transgender people), but it seems to come at the cost of preventing female athletes from doing anything other than merely participating in many competitions, rather than being able to win them.
I think the fair approach may be to have some kind of rating system based on player performance, and then have separate competitions for players in different rating ranges.
Players should not be allowed to play in competitions below their rating. Include some measures to make it hard for people to purposefully lose in minor competitions to lower their rating so that they can then enter a major competition in a rating group well below their true strength.
Playing in competitions above their rating should generally be allowed, although this might need to vary from sport to sport. For example in a top level knock out tournament that had a few low level players enter their opponents in the first round would have a much easier chance of making it to the second round than the other high level participants.
There still might need to be some gender restricted competitions for social reasons. In a sport where there is a large gender imbalance among players, especially at the scholastic levels, people of the minority gender might be discouraged from playing because they don't want to stick out.
Competitions restricted to the minority gender give those players a chance to develop to the point that they can be comfortable playing the events that are open to all genders.
I know this is a hot button issue but this kind of thinking drives me nuts in general. The number they quote is 1 in 15000. That is an irrelevantly small number and says nothing about the conclusions for the majority of the population. if this was a different issue that wasnt politically charged you would look at the data and conclude the concersation is very simple and there are a bunch of very rare corner cases one needs to be aware of and that would be the end of it.
Coming from a place of curiosity not knowledge with this. Is it not true that strength roughly matches testosterone levels and that is bimodal in the population? Could what we call women’s sports today not be defined on that axis instead?
It's not perfectly bimodal. Some people are also more and less sensitive to testosterone. The average woman produces testosterone (I know, crazy) with some conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome causing their testosterone production to go into overdrive.
Some sports actually do test for testosterone in order to determine eligibility (I believe volleyball?)
Also, interestingly enough, people that do estrogen injections end up with lower testosterone production. Estrogen also tends to (but not always!) block the effects of testosterone.
Hormones are weird and how individuals react to them is all over the board.
And example of that craziness is what the article refers to. People with Y chromosomes and uteruses. It's caused (AFAIK) because the fetus didn't respond to the hormones which cause the gonads to turn into male reproductive organs.
That hormone is testosterone. And that means that no matter how much testosterone those people with Y chromosome(s) get, their body cannot use them. Hence, they have a disadvantage even in women sports.
In theory.
The problem is that for example in women boxing these people are overrepresented. This indicates that testosterone is possibly not the only answer, and we don’t know the full picture AFAIK. But of course it’s also possible that simply Y chromosome causes changes in behavior and not physical performance, and it’s more likely that they like boxing more. We don’t know.
The current best proven differentiator AFAIK is testosterone level and whether their body can process that.
Athletic performance is correlated with testosterone levels but also with a lot of other characteristics like height, weight, muscle mass, bone density, grip strength… you could define categories based on those too, but in practice it would be a roundabout way of defining pretty much the male/female distinction we have today.
At that point what would actually be fair is relegating high test and low test males as well. I think we all remember that one or a couple kids in school who were a full head taller than their peers and dominated every sport in gym class as a result.
This is why sports governing bodies who take a fair view on this have policies that exclude only athletes with male physiological advantage from the female category, rather than the broader group of those with male genetic markers. Which still permits inclusion of athletes with male DSDs like CAIS, who don't have such advantage.
I think what will be fairer might depend on what sports they are; I think that they will have to be considered for each kind of sports, why they have sex/gender segregation, whether or not you should have a segregation at all (and if so, if it should be by something else instead), etc.
Sports that don't need segregation and where people don't want segregation don't usually have it.
There is no rule that says women can't play in the NFL for example. A combination of biological realities, a lack of interested women, and cultural expectations have just naturally resulted in a segregated system. Any woman who is qualified for and interested in playing in the NFL can and should.
It's fine for people to decide who they want to play with/against too even if that means by definition that some people will have to play somewhere else. If someone wants to start a league of dart players all named Bill so what? May the best Bill win! The thing about sports divisions that segregate themselves (by name, region, age, gender, etc) is that they also limit their success. The best dart player named Bill can't claim to be the best dart player in the state without playing against people with other names.
If people are happy with their accomplishments within whatever division they're comfortable playing in, we can be happy for them too.
As someone that has transitioned, I went into it with this opinion but now on year 7 of hormones, It's more complicated. I honestly now align more with the Olympic rulings of time in the hormone ranges of what you're competing under. Where at 5 years I lost all my strength, my bone density has dropped to cis womans (dexa scans). For instance, now I work out 3 times a week, 50 pounds still feels like 'get my body totally involved' heavy, before transitioning not working out it was a non-issue kinda heavy. (transitioned at 23) So its more having the time and atrophy of those muscles gained during that time period, then all that is left is probably an advantage of having a higher rate of fast twitch muscle fibre which probably is with in variance ranges of normal genetic advantages. Which also isn't a nice message to deliver to collage athletes of you have to muscle detox for 3-5 years.
Testosterone is also an arbitrary criterion. The relevant criteria depend on the sport.
One person may have the same testosterone level as a person three times their height/weight, but that doesn't mean it's safe or fair to have them duke it out in a boxing match.
cool, cool, now you have to use heuristics to determine historic testosterone levels, or require invasive monitoring for all potential future athletes, no problems here
Women have a right to sex-specific sports, and anyone that doesn't qualify is free to compete in the men's leagues.
Since I'm rate limited, to respond to comment below:
That has been the definition for far longer than any current culture war. Right wingers might be latching onto it now, but broken clocks and all that.
To be slightly more specific, because you think you've found a gotcha, it's the gamete size one would or should produce. Biologists are well aware that there can be disorders of development.
Should produce... given what definition? I thought gamete size was definitive?
Look, I get what you're saying. Such cases aren't "normal". The claim that "humans have two biological sexes" is true in same way as the claim "humans have five fingers." And yet, people with six fingers exist, as do uncommon sex variations. It's fine. It happens.
The only reason to insist so stridently that there's an absolute and inevitable binary is if you're trying to enforce a social or religious norm, and are insisting that it's an immutable fact about the world instead of something culturally mediated.
"Should" meaning "would if it were mature and healthy"
> "humans have two biological sexes" is true in same way as the claim "humans have five fingers."
No. There are no intermediates. Nobody produces "spergs" or "speggs". Someone may produce no gametes because they're not yet mature or because of a developmental disorder, but that just means that they will later on in life, or won't produce the gametes their body is set up to produce.
> The only reason
Bullshit. I bring this up because it's a fundamental fact of biology and HN should know better than to push pseudoscience. Sex in humans is binary and immutable, but that doesn't mean boys can't play with dolls and girls can't like trucks or whatever dumb culture war stuff is raging.
You're just using more normative words, implying that you can tell what someone "really" is aside from literally any definition you can articulate, since we've established that gamete size does not apply in all cases.
> Sex in humans is binary and immutable, but that doesn't mean boys can't play with dolls and girls can't like trucks or whatever dumb culture war stuff is raging.
Unless you are a biologist who specializes in this, caring so much about this means you are actually very much invested in the culture war.
Nope. The goal of biology is to understand, which means understanding functions, purpose, goal directedness of organisms. These are teleological, i.e. normative concepts. Since we can understand when biology goes wrong, we can understand what it means for it to go right. Biology as a science is infused with normativity. This is why we say the human species has 10 fingers and 10 toes, not 9.99999. Classification is normative. See teleology in biology for more on this[1]
Look, you're trying to argue with the field of biology as a whole. Good luck.
> since we've established that gamete size does not apply in all cases.
We've established no such thing. Find this mystical person first and then we can talk about something specific, instead of just waving your hands about hypotheticals.
> caring so much about this means
This is the worst sort of argument. Spout pseudoscience, get called on your bullshit, and then pull out "why do you care so much??? :(". Don't spout off in the first place and you won't get called out on it.
> Organisms that produce the larger of two gamete sizes are female, and organisms that produce the smaller of two gamete sizes are male.
That's one of many ways sex is defined and it's definitely useful for some purposes, but I have no idea why some people think that is appropriate for making social distinctions.
> Women have a right to sex-specific sports
Gender (social, including legal, categories based on sex traits are gender, not sex) categories in sports were almost without exception created to prevent men from having to compete with and potentially lose to women. There is certainly an existing practice of gender segregated competition in some some sports and other competitive domains, but I’m not sure where the idea that this practice of segregation is a matter of rights comes from, no matter what basis of assigning gender is used. (Gender segregation has been frequently used as a means of preserving unequal treatment while meeting the US legal obligation for numerically equal opportunities in school sports insuring, but that’s obviously not the same thing as gender segregation being a right.)
That's the way that sex is defined. There's a few extremist academics who are trying to push their pet redefinition, but nothing serious. The UK Supreme Court ruling affirmed that recently from a legal standpoint, and that marks the high tide of those extremists' efforts. Gender ideology trying to erase sex is over.
> created to prevent men from having to compete with and potentially lose to women
You deeply misunderstand the origin of women's sports leagues. They were created by women for women as a result of patriarchal efforts to exclude women from sports. Men shoving their way into women's sports by way of gender identity is just one more example of males not accepting "no", and is exactly the reason why women have a right to their own spaces.
>Gender (social, including legal, categories based on sex traits are gender, not sex) categories in sports were almost without exception created to prevent men from having to compete with and potentially lose to women
Source? I've seen this claptrap mentioned a few times but never with a source.
It's been really funny watching this definition become the main right wing talking point, as every other definition they've attempted has been shot down conclusively.
By this logic, individuals like those mentioned in the article above don't have any sex at all because their bodies are unable to produce gametes of any kind.
> It's been really funny watching this definition become the main right wing talking point, as every other definition they've attempted has been shot down conclusively.
Sounds like a normal process of searching for a definition for a controversial subject.
It's not a dichotomy between "unfair" and "absolutely fair." Things can be more or less fair, and it makes sense to discuss making things "more fair" or "less unfair" even if in doing so, we cannot reach "perfectly fair for everyone, all the time."
Between reasons like in this article, or being born intersex, etc, there are definitely people with female chromosomes who have competed in men's sports, or people with female sex organs and male chromosomes that have competed in female sports. I don't know what the "fairness" answer is, but these are real people.