I went into this episode prepared to hate it, but was actually pleasantly surprised by how gender critical it ended up being. It's clear the Kings (the show runners) weren't prepared to risk the maelstrom of shit that would have come from taking an overtly gender critical stance. But they went much, much further than I was expecting.
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The structure of the case itself. A young black girl from a lower income background trained her whole life to make it to the Olympics, and then lost her spot to a privileged white male who had only transitioned in the last two years.
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As a male, the swimmer had repeatedly failed to place in the top twenty. He had made it nowhere near the Olympics. As a female, suddenly "Sadie" secured a top five spot. The show makes this clear to us. Not only that, but it's suggested the Olympic committee deliberately delayed testing "Sadie" until they could be sure of testosterone levels just low enough to meet the regulations. Basically, the committee wanted a winner so bad they were happy to manipulate events and put a biological male on the women's team. They gave Sadie an unfair advantage.
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Not only that. The show goes into explicit detail about the many unfair physical advantages "Sadie" already has. "Sadie's" testosterone levels may be lower than the average man's, but they're still stratospherically higher than that of any biological woman.
They even put a graph on the screen, with the average woman's level of testosterone as a slim bar at the bottom of the page, and the average man's level as a bar of similar size at the top of the chart - and in between the great chasm of space where transgender testing falls. The show doesn't dwell on it overmuch, but it's brightly coloured and serves as a fairly striking visual aid all the same, even if all you do is glance at it.
They also discuss the increased muscle mass and lung capacity of anyone who has gone through male puberty, and the unfair advantage this presents in women's sports.
- The judge.
The judge comes off as a reasonable everyman. He's not a bigot, and he's doing his best, but he's struggling to wrap his head around some of the arguments put in front of him. He asks what the difference between sex and gender is - and the show accepts that there is a difference, which feels like a minor victory in the current climate. At one point, when he discovers that "Sadie" still has male genitalia, he's visibly shocked. He also pushes for the truth, even when it risks making him look bad. When "Sadie" becomes emotional on the stand, he isn't perturbed. He just firmly and politely asks his questions.
Yes, his ultimate ruling keeps "Sadie" on the team at the expense of an innocent intersex girl, but you get the sense he doesn't take any pleasure in that. He's just bound to follow a stupid law that clearly isn't fit for purpose.
- Weak arguments on the transgender side.
The show was quite subtle here, and it shows in reviews of the episode - not one of which seems to have picked up on the gender critical elements. Mostly reviewers framed this episode as Adrian selling out his morals to win a case.
But I'm not sure that's what the episode itself presents. Adrian himself is firm on his decision. And he's allowed to be, because, of course, he's a man. His arguments are solid and fact based. And the client, as mentioned, is a young, inner city black girl. She's not privileged at all, so I don't see how anyone could argue Adrian is selling out his morals for wealth and power. The reviewers who attempt to argue this seem to be taking three disparate plot threads - Adrian's Presidential bid, Adrian's willingness to turn a blind eye to the potential corruption of his lover, and Adrian's "transphobic" arguments in this case - and merging them into one. But the show itself doesn't connect this thread to the other two at all.
In fact, it does a pretty good job of making Adrian look right, if you're prepared to see it that way. The girl he's defending is underprivileged and the arguments he's fighting against are frankly weak.
"Anyone who has gone through male puberty and still has such astronomically high testosterone levels compared to a woman has an unfair advantage in women's sports." That's Adrian's argument, and what is it countered with? Nonsense false equivalancies like "Simone Biles has an unfair advantage because she's short" and "I can train so much harder now that I'm happy".
These arguments are weak, and all through the episode there is this reliance on an appeal to emotion to support the transgender side. The arguments are basically: "swimming alleviates my dysphoria so I should be allowed to take this girls spot" and "going to the Olympics would make me happy" and "my happiness matters more than anyone else's (because I'm trans)" with a side of "I don't want to have to acknowledge my unfair advantages (and I shouldn't have to, because I'm trans)"
These are all piss poor legal arguments, obviously, and they don't carry the day for Sadie or the Olympic board.
Breaking here, though I have more. Sorry this is so long, but I'm a fan of the show and am fascinated by what they've done here. I really can't think of another mainstream, feminist show that has handled this issue in a similar way. I'm curious as to what that says about their perception of their audience, and how the tide might be changing