The UK Sports Council has released new guidance on trans inclusion in sports. This piece at The Critic by sports philosophy academic Jon Pike looks at the guidance in relation to biological women.
Before looking at Pike’s view, I’ll drop the start of this thread by developmental biologist and researcher Emma Hilton, because it positions the guidance is as trans-inclusive (so maybe let’s step out of the name calling and false binary and look at the issues instead),
The International Olympic Committee came out after Japan saying their own guidelines were not fit for purpose but have failed to replace them. The UKSC guidelines seem very clear in comparison, developed by their Sports Council Equality Group. Pike,
SCEG say that it is not possible to secure safety, fairness, and the inclusion of trans women in women’s sport. They’re right. They say that their previous policy, like the IOC policy — is not fit for purpose. This is right, too. The emphasis on Testosterone levels as the appropriate marker has failed. Policy that — on the most charitable interpretation — aspired to fairness has failed to achieve it because, as Miroslav Imbrisevic puts it, Testosterone is not the only game in town.
For many people this is a relief, both for sports women, and because a kind of sanity has returned. That there’s been an argument that male bodied people don’t have an advantage over females is so counter to intuition and lived experience, it’s been mindboggling to watch the arguments up until now.
It’s also a relief because the idea that manipulating testosterone in a male body is somehow related to being female, can be more easily challenged. Women’s femaleness is a complex physiology including a range of interacting hormonal systems that are still not fully understood (thanks sex biased medical research). Reducing that down to testosterone levels is as insulting as it is daft. It also points to the fundamental, material difference between male and female bodies that is at the centre of the conflict of rights between women and trans women.
Pike also looks at the issue of sports integrity vs inclusion fairness,
There was a fundamental divide between two camps on this. On the one hand was a group of advocates and activists who wanted to make sport subservient to inclusion, as they understood it. On the other side were people concerned directly with the integrity of sport. It needs to be said that the push for trans-inclusion, in the absence of any scientific justification, was an attack on the integrity of sport.
A summary of the guidelines,
SCEG want the criterion for sex-categorised sport to be sex recorded at birth. This is straightforward, legal, and in line with the specific exemption for Sport in the EA2010 at section 195. It’s lawful to ask for, and record, sex at birth for these purposes.
They therefore set out three possibilities — on Page 9 of the Guidelines:
- Trans-Inclusive sport, in the women’s category, where trans-inclusion is prioritised over safety and fairness for women. This is the old-style IOC approach, more or less, with Testosterone reduction. Vitally, they say explicitly that this isn’t fair for women athletes (TI)
- Organising sport with two categories: Female and Open (F/O)
- Unisex – what they call “universal” sport (U)
Pike looks briefly at the small number of (U) sports (eg equestrianism) before examining (TI) vs (F/O) more closely,
But (U) is not an option for the vast majority of sports because they need sex categories to stop them being dominated by people with male advantages.
So, the option is between (TI) and (F/O). I’m absolutely delighted to see that (F/O) is on the table, and in pole position for all those cases where (U) isn’t possible.
…
But I think there’s a glitch. I don’t think that the options are “equally valid”… So, I’m only 90 per cent delighted because once (F/O) is on the table, (TI) isn’t a serious option.
SCEG say that trans inclusion is not compatible with sport that is fair for women. That’s right. That’s what the research by Hilton and Lundburg, and by Ross Tucker. This is solid scientific evidence, listed in the literature review, fully evidenced. This is now accepted by the other side (like Joanna Harper who want to drop “fair” for “meaningful”).
Emphasis added. What is meant here is that allowing trans women into women’s sports is unfair and potentially dangerous for women because of the physical advantages conferred by male puberty that aren’t offset by artificially lowering testosterone post-puberty. These advantages include the obvious ones of height and strength (skeletons don’t shrink when testosterone is lowered) but also less immediately obvious ones of hand size or oxygen capacity. Yes, it’s almost like men and women have different bodies (/sarcasm. Men and women have substantially different bodies).
Pike ends with this,
“Trans women are women” is a mantra; it’s not a basis for policy. And nowhere is that clearer than in sport. It shows that there are certain contexts in which sexed bodies matter. Not all contexts, but some. And sport is one of them. How much they matter in other contexts is a matter of public policy and empirical investigation.
The biggest take away here is to stop the No Debate positioning coming from gender identity activists, and government departments, political parties, and NGOs. Let people have the discussion, and trust that most of us will want fairness all round. It’s a conflict of rights, but it’s not unsolvable. Solutions will only come with openness and full debate.
Further reading
A thread on the methodology used for the report,
On the silencing of women athletes,
And not just women,
The systemic misogyny still to be addressed,
There’s that difference in male and female bodies again.
Sports science and research consultant Ross Tucker‘s twitter.
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