McKinnon's Position

I want to pick apart McKinnon's arguments for inclusion.

My own position is that even if transwomen are women in some way, and even if they are all sincere, allowing them to participate in women's sports undermines the whole point of the category.

I summarise McKinnon's argument for transwomen's participation in women's sport. She studiously avoids clarity.

Super short form:
Her end goal: the only eligibilty for participating in women's sports should be an answer "Yes" to the question, "are you a woman"?

Short form.
Transwomen are women, therefore they should be able to compete in women's sports.
There is no evidence that transwomen are better than other women at sports.
Even if there were, transwomen should be able to compete because human rights.

Long form:

1. Women's sports exists. She won't address why, in part because I think it would undermine her entire argument.
2. Transwomen are women, so they should be able to compete in women's sports.
3. The IOC sets the rules, transwomen are obeying the rules, so trans women are not cheating.
4. Individual jurisdictions determine who is a woman, and the IOC accepts that. So if a country has self-id, then a person who ids as a women should be able to compete.
5. Although the averages for men in strength, height, etc are higher, there are bell curves which cross over. (I don't get this one).
6. There appears to be no correlation between natural testosterone levels and peformance. However, she avoids the question of the influence testosterone has on the male body during puberty. She digs into testerone levels of male and female atheletes while studiously avoiding performance bell curves. Her goal here is to establish that lowering endogenous testoterone levels in transwomen by setting a limit is ineffective "no endogenous testosterone policy will be necessary or effective at promoting fairness in (women’s) sport."
7. We have no evidence at all that the average trans woman is any bigger, stronger, faster than the average cisgender woman. [This is hardly a surprise - no one has ever tested it. It's a startling claim, because if there were evdience it's not even vaguely plausible that there would be no difference.]
8. Based on their performance, their doesn't appear to be a particular advantage to being trans after many years of competing.
9. Now it gets interesting. Even if there is a competitive advantage, it's no different from other competive advantages (ie most atheletes at the top have a genetic advantage) "The question is not whether there is a competitive advantage, the question is whether there is an unfair advantage. "
10. So, even if transwomen have an advantage they should be allowed to compete.
11. Participation in sports is a human rights issue which transcends competitiveness.