AIBU to think it was never that complicated to define a woman.

[Abisequer]

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has ruled that eligibility for the women’s category of Olympic events will now be limited to biological females, starting from the LA 2028 Games.

AIBU to think the category ‘women’ was never complicated and the obfuscation by certain governing bodies has compromised fairness in sport for women.

Examples of obfuscation include claims that genital checking would be needed or that biological men with lowered testosterone would be on an even playing field with biological women.

AIBU to think it was never complicated to define a woman and a cheek swab is all it takes.

Article

Michael phelps has a biological advantage that makes him a better swimmer and thats allowed? Im just wondering how we draw the line on that

If they don't know what a woman is, why do they want women's spaces to remain labelled for women? Why don't they want everything made openly and honestly unisex and labelled as such?

You can argue that it is socially complicated.

However, every person can be categorised as either being male or female with modern techniques and equipment. That is what is not complicated.

And when it comes to sports advantage, either a person has a sensitivity to the androgenising hormones their own body produces to create physical advantage or it doesn’t.

Perhaps you should understand competition categories better.

It is all about men. It always has been. If we did not live in a violent, patriarchal society then single sex spaces would never have needed to exist in the first place. Women would not have spent millennia being the unpaid carers of the planet. Our society would not have been designed on such binary sex-based lines for the benefit of men. That’s the problem - this has never been about sex but about power.

No, Phelps having a good swimmer's body doesn't negate the need for female sport. This is the Phelps Fallacy and it's been debunked for years. Do keep up. If Phelps were a woman he wouldn't have that physique; no woman, however well built for swimming, can have that physique. The male advantage runs as deep as hamoglobin levels, bone density, fast twitch muscle and more. Without a protected female category there will be no female champions.

This "Phelps has feet like flippers so men should compete with women" is embarrassing by this stage, we thrashed all this out years ago even if you weren't listening. You never "wondered how to draw the line" until men started claiming to be women and taking women's medals and opportunities and smashing them in boxing rings. Stop it.

Here you go, the Phelps Fallacy/Gambit:

https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1374331296143581186?s=20

His biggest advantage is being male. The exact same person as Phelps with all the same genes and upbringing etc, but female, would not be Phelps.

How about you just RTFT where you will find all your spurious, ill-informed arguments and opinions have been debunked many times over.

There are two sexes, they are immutable, categories in sport provide fairness, safety, and allow women and girls to excel. Get over it FFS.

Perhaps this is a great place to start in developing your understanding about competition.

PAPER ON MEANINGFUL COMPETITION BY JON PIKE

This paper goes through what competitive advantage means. Jon Pike is a Philosophy lecturer for the Open University and so this is a counter to the philosophical discussion around 'inclusion'. An argument successfully used by Harper (2015?) and McKinnon (2019) in discussions with the IOC, or so I believe.

The PHELPS argument for competitive advantage is referred to in this tweet which refers to the page numbers in the paper:

”The argument that Khelif's advantage does not matter because it is 'small' and 'like Michael Phelps's advantages' is false.”

“I mean, 'false' as in 'refuted', 'demonstrated to be wrong’.”
”Here you go - see particularly pp. 8-15:”

https://x.com/runthinkwrite/status/1819323178973331569

Why ‘Meaningful Competition’ is not fair competition
6th Feb 2023

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00948705.2023.2167720

ABSTRACT

In this paper I discuss a new conception that has arrived relatively recently on the scene, in the context of the debate over the inclusion of transwomen (hereafter TW) in female sport. That conception is ‘Meaningful Competition’ (hereafter MC) – a term used by some of those who advocate for the inclusion of TW in female sport if and only if they reduce their testosterone levels. I will argue that MC is not fair. I understand MC as a substitute concept, as an attempt to substitute for the perfectly serviceable concept of fair competition. It is an attempt at conceptual engineering that should be resisted. This is important because some International Federations have accepted MC as good coin, and the underlying theory of MC, which I explicate for the first time, underpins the stance taken by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in its Framework Document.

To establish that the inclusion of TW in female sport meets the criteria of MC in the sense I explicate here, does not show that the inclusion of TW in female sport is fair. Such inclusion is not fair, and the proper currency of sport is fair competition. ‘Meaningful Competition’, on the other hand, is a snare and a delusion.

(note: my paragraph breaks to make it easier to read quickly, sorry Jon)

Whenever people bring up Phelps it proves they know nothing about swimming and male advantage.

Phelps was a legend, yet his margins over other men were within usual swimming margins. In the 10 butterfly at the 2008 Olympics he beat the 2nd placed athlete by 0.01sec, the winning time was 50.58. Second place was 50.59sec. All of his records have subsequently been beaten.

The fastest women in that event? Australian legend Libby Trickett with a time of 56.73. She wouldn’t have even qualified for the male final.

Elite sport celebrates the best of the best within their own sex categories.

Here is another explanation from Dr Emma Hilton. She has taken the time to explain this several different ways. Each is informative.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE / PHELPS GAMBIT / PHELPS ARGUMENT

https://x.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1374331296143581186

But here is some of it:

Phelps' wingspan:height ratio is 1.04. It's straightforward to find other males with the same ratio who are slower than Phelps in some strokes, but who are faster in others. e.g. Matt Grevers. Ratio 1.04, slower freestyle than Phelps, faster backstroker than Phelps. Interestingly, despite the same wingspan:height ratio, he's, in absolute numbers, generally bigger than Phelps.

What you never find is a female with the same wingspan:height ratio who is there or thereabouts compared with Phelps. Missy Franklin has a ratio of 1.03, yet is over 10% slower than Phelps.

It's almost like wingspan:height ratio isn't discriminatory in the pool. Even absolute wingspan or absolute height isn't discriminatory.

And there's a very simple reason. When you select, on national or international levels, for athletes that are good in a particular discipline, you will tend to pull through an entire group who all share the general advantage (in this case, swimmers are tall with long arms). Phelps, with height (not the tallest) and wingspan (not the widest, nor the biggest ratio) is, for sure, built to be a better swimmer than almost every other person in the world. But his body shape is not particularly extraordinary within that group of competitive swimmers.

To argue that his advantage is extraordinary within the entire male population, sure. Well, I wouldn't go with unfair, but's a real advantage. But he doesn't race against the male population. He races against other males who are likely to share the same advantage.

This is why The Phelps Gambit (trademark pending) is nonsense, and immediately flags that the person asserting it has read numerous MSM stories about the glorious physique of Phelps (and he was glorious, absolutely), without applying any deeper analysis.

Men can have long arms. Women can have long arms. Men with long arms are better swimmers than women with long arms.

Got to thank this morning's TRSOHer for resurrecting the Phelps Fallacy and giving us the opportunity to educate lurkers on why it's a load of (literal) bollocks

Absolutely this.

Surely a great many Olympic champions have natural biological advantages over other people in their own class? In Phelps' case, that class is able-bodied adult males. MP is 100% an adult male human, albeit one who happens to be superior in swimming ability to (probably) all other adult male humans (at his peak).

Female competitions are for an entirely different class, which male humans are not a part of. Just like my car (with me in it) could easily beat Usain Bolt in a race - but as my car is not an adult human male, it does not qualify for that class; simple as that... and if I angrily stamped my feet and blustered and gaslighted that my car IS an adult male human, and (unsurprisingly) won the race, my car/I would have entered fraudulently and stolen Bolt's rightful medal from him.

People who bring up Phelps keep forgetting that Phelps was beaten.

It blows their arguments to bits but they have seen it repeated as Whataboutery and thought that it was convincing themselves, so believe that it is some kind of wise discussion device.

No it isn't. You said yourself, he found out he was actually male. That's hard for him but not a reason to ruin the sporting fairness and opportunities of actual girls just so he doesn't have to deal with it. The only reason you think women's sport should be sacrificed to his preference is because you know he's male and they're female. Women's sports is not an emotional security blanket for men having to face a hard reality.

You know who else doesn't struggle with "how to draw the line"? Sponsors and funders of sporting events. That's one reason why there's so much more money in men's sports overall than women's, because everyone knows the highest records will be scored by men.

In so many of these cases, it's like actual women don't even register to them as having any kind of importance, value or right to fairness as people themselves.

Women's literal only purpose is to validate them in what they want and in what makes them feel important.

One of the reasons I've been so critical of this from the start is because I can see how easy it would have been for my teenage self to get caught up in it.

I wasn't even particularly gender non conforming. But I had a hard time with puberty, particularly breast growth (I had very big breasts from a young age). If someone had told me this discomfort was because I was 'really a boy' I might well have believed them. A mastectomy might well have felt like the answer to my problems.

Puberty is such a confusing time. The idea that teenagers 'know' what is right for them on these complex issues is extraordinarily wrong headed. I cannot grasp how health professionals let this take hold. Where was the basic common sense? Basic understanding of child psychology?

Yes, Michael Phelps has a biological advantage that is allowed IN HIS SPORTS CATEGORY.

How the fuck do you think we should 'draw the line' for the following sports categories? Would you be happy for:

A 25 year old competing against a 10 year old in a 10 year old and under category?

A 25 year old competing against a 85 year old in a masters category in the 85 year and over category?

A person who had 90% vision competing with someone with 5% vision in an event specifically for someone with that % of vision impairment?

A person who was a professional standard athlete competing in a novice only event?

A bicycle with an electric engine competing against a 100% human powered bicycle in the Tour de France?

if you have said no, then why would you find it hard to accept that Michael Phelps had a biological advantage that was allowed and not even controversially so for his sports category? Every sports category has definitions and requirements for entry. Even the male Olympic swimming events. Those definitions and requirements are where the 'line is drawn'.

It absolutely is that simple.

What do you think the other gamete in the mix is? There are only two.

As for Semenya, he's known he is a man for a very long time. I'm sure that was hard for him to come to terms with, but it's no excuse to keep taking medals from women. He can compete in men's competition.

I find positions like yours, where you are so sad for the man, but don't even mention the women who have been displaced, extraordinary.

Do you think only men have value/deserve pity?

I seem to remember that British Rowing did actually target women with a particular body type suited to rowing in order to develop a world class squad.
So they didn’t just rely on elite rowers coming up through the ranks, they actually went looking for women with the right kind of bodies and then trained them to row. It turned out to be quite successful.

It’s obvious that some bodies are better suited to some sports and not others. What is also obvious is that men are not women 😁

Ugh. Ok, all you people crying and rending your garments about men not being able to compete with women...perhaps you even agree they shouldn't compete with women but you're still so upset for them and want it ruined somehow for that reason (even though you never mention the women who competed but didn't reach whatever level they wanted and were probably disappointed too)...

How about if we start every women's competition with a mournful rendition of I Dreamed a Dream and a huge sign reading, "In Honour Of All The Men Who Really Want To Be Eligible For This Category For Whatever Reason", and all the winners wear hair shirts and self flagellate as they receive their medals? Will that pay enough dues to the men who have to compete in their category like everyone else and then we can just get on with the women's game?

I've got Jeremy Vine's programme on and they're asking "Is it right to ban transgender women from the Olympics?". That's the strapline that they have on screen.

I don't know why they've decided to discuss this as absolutely nobody has ever sought to ban transwomen from the Olympics.

I presume that they will be discussing next whether it's fair to ban Jude Bellingham from playing professional football - on the grounds that there are also children's categories in official football competitions for which he no longer qualifies?!

Of course natural biological advantages exist in sport. Everyone knows that.

The idea what we should use that as a justification to let men compete in the women's category, potentially ultimately making that category redundant is an extraordinary take.

And just apply to women? If biologically advantaged 20 year old males can compete in the women's category, why not in the Paralympic's? Why not in the seniors?

Why have any categories at all?

Yep. I posted a comment in response to a FB post on this and every response back at me was from a man, all in an aggressive manner (one even in capitals) basically saying ‘STFU woman you’re wrong’ . Very much the vibe was ‘man here to put you in your place’