As the debate around transgender biological males in women’s sports comes to a head, you’d imagine that a group like Labour Women would be on the side of – well, biological women.
But alas, that would make too much sense.
Tweeting from their official account last night, the group reposted a Journal.ie article advocating for transgender athletes to be allowed to compete in women’s sports.
“Great article,” they said.
“Not mentioned in it but also relevant is that most elite athletes have some sort of genetic advantage over the rest of us and nobody seems the slightest bit worried by that. It just shouldn’t be an issue.”
Now this argument is just preposterous on its face.
Of course, elite athletes are, by definition, elite. They have an unfair advantage over the vast majority of ordinary people in their chosen sport. Which is why they only compete with other people on their level.
A world-class 6’9 heavyweight boxer like Tyson Fury would destroy an average person in a boxing match. He’d even destroy many amateurs and less experienced professional boxers. It would be totally unfair.
So he doesn’t fight randomers and beginners – he fights other elite boxers who are of closer to his size and level.
The same goes for any other sport you could name. Lionel Messi is a better footballer than me (understatement of the century), but he would never compete against someone like me. He competes against other elite footballers. Serena Williams competes against elite tennis players. Etcetera.
Nobody would watch a sport where one side or player had an overwhelming, unfair advantage. Which is obviously the case when a transgender sportsperson competes against women. They’re basically using natural steroids in the form of male hormones, bone density and so on – the comparison is absurd.
When people pointed this out, however, Labour Women doubled down, saying: “Should we ban East Africans from marathons while we’re at it? And Jamaicans from sprinting?”
They added:
“Would it be reasonable to have different events for people with different lung capacities from growing up at high altitudes? Or people with genes related to fast twitch muscles? Or maybe let the tiny percentage of trans athletes at the elite level tiny percent of humanity live in peace?”
While this argument is slightly less mental and does have a kernel of sense to it, the logic begins to fall apart rapidly under even mild scrutiny.
This point would only make sense if, for example, virtually every top sprinter was Jamaican.
While Jamaicans are disproportionately represented in the sport, there are elite sprinters from America, Kenya, Italy, China, Canada, South Africa, Portugal, Nigeria and more, all of whom have run the 100 metres in under 10 seconds. We’re talking about a fraction of a second in the difference – the competition is still fierce.
Same goes for marathons – there are insanely good runners from outside of East Africa who come within a couple of minutes of the world record time, such as Sondre Nordstad Moen from Norway. Elite non-African athletes would still put pressure on east-Africans and give them a run for their money – there’s an advantage, but it’s not a ridiculous or unfair one. The contest is still worth watching.
This is the whole point of sports – nobody minds one side having an advantage. In fact, if nobody had an advantage, and everyone was evenly matched with games ending in a draw, that would be crap. We want one side or one player to be better and to win.
We just don’t want the advantage to be ludicrously unfair. Which is what transgender competitors are – the gap in strength and physical prowess between biological males and females is comical.
Take “Mary Gregory,” a biologically male transgender powerlifter, who transitioned to identfying as female and then broke four world records in women’s squat, bench press, deadlifting and total.
Gregory’s titles were ultimately stripped by the 100% Raw Weightlifting Federation when they realised how daft the whole thing was, but the fact is, even on female hormones, this biological male absolutely annihilated all female competitors.
Trans Powerlifter Disqualified After Breaking Women’s Records
“Our rules…are based on physiological classification rather than identification…the lifter’s gender…is not consistent with female, no female records will be broken by these lifts…”
https://t.co/PCjNEP0qYr— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) May 12, 2019
However, as people were making perfectly reasonable arguments along these lines, Labour Women responded in basically one way: accusing them of being bigots…
…Brits…
…and abusive.
They proceeded to go on a mass blocking spree of reasonable critics, many of whom were women.
Me too. Labour seem to have forgotten that women vote.
— Comrade Sprolliehouse : #PoliticallyHomeless (@sprolliehouse) April 1, 2022
They aren’t going to have much luck on the doorstep if this is how they handle disagreement. 🤷🏻♀️
— Mary 🧡🇬🇧🇪🇺🇧🇴😷💉x5 (@running4rights) April 1, 2022
not *that* "committed to increasing the involvement of women in politics and at all levels of the Labour Party" after all… pic.twitter.com/chtlf1CR0i
— time4change (@2gethr4change) April 1, 2022
One such woman simply posted a gif of Spongebob Squarepants thinking. This warranted being blocked apparently.
Blocked for posting a gif of Spongebob pondering your question. pic.twitter.com/rVn3X9NVA2
— Read Receipt (@ReadReceiptOnX) March 31, 2022
Another user named Iseult said: “Elite athletes definitely have a “genetic advantage over the rest of us” but that is not the point. Men have a genetic physical advantage over women. Because trans women retain those physical advantages they have a genetic advantage over women. Now do you understand?”
“This particular admin has actually read lots of books about sports and knows what she’s talking about,” replied the Labour Women account.
“Blocked.”
After being blocked, Iseult said: “I am a lifetime labour voter @ivanabacik. You are my constituency TD. @labourwomen blocked me for this tweet that simply points out absurdity?? Is this your leadership of Labour?”
I am a lifetime labour voter @ivanabacik. You are my constituency TD. @labourwomen blocked me for this tweet that simply points out absurdity?? Is this your leader ship of Labour? @LaceyDermot https://t.co/pdrzSYIRpc
— Iseult (@iseult) March 31, 2022
Ultimately the account was locked down and now only certain people can view what they’re posting.
At the end of the day, it’s worth asking how a group can cater to women’s issues, when it can’t define what a woman is, and when women criticises them they are blocked and insulted.