Is his latest Substack column, skeptic and science writer Michael Shermer taking up the topic of transwomen competing in athletics against biological women? Since transitioning to the female gender after puberty, Thomas has racked up victory after victory, despite turning in respectable but not outstanding performances as a biological man competing on men's teams.
The unfairness to biological women of competing against biological men who changed gender after puberty was emphasized. After several years of hormone-restriction therapy, we now know that the changes in musculature and strength of transwomen don't make them like biological women. They are superior.
Lia Thomas may be the first example, but it's hard to believe given the number of men transitioning to women. Transwomen have an athletic advantage over cis-women, and it's best to address the issue now. You can see by his title that he pulls no punches.
For many years, a competitive ultra-biker named Shermer was, and knows something about athletics and drug use. His bio reports the relevant part of it.
Shermer has written on the subject of pervasive doping in competitive cycling and a game theoretic view of the dynamics driving the problem in several sports. He covered r-EPO doping and described it as widespread and well known within the sport, which was later shown to be instrumental in the doping scandal surrounding Lance Armstrong in 2010
It is free if you read often. The title alone is enough to bring down the internet on Shermer.
A photo is captioned:
ATLANTA, GEORGIA – MARCH 17: Transgender woman Lia Thomas (L) of the University of Pennsylvania stands on the podium after winning the 500-yard freestyle as other medalists (L-R) Emma Weyant, Erica Sullivan and Brooke Forde pose for a photo at the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championship on March 17, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
A thousand words are what this picture says. I don't understand why I should write more.
What do you think the three runners-up are saying? The victory of Thomas was fundamentally unfair because all biological women are below him. They have no reason to support Thomas because he is not on the Penn team.
Some quotes from a piece.
According to Swimming World Magazine, since she transitioned from male to female, and subsequently transitioned from the men’s division to the women’s division in swim meets, Thomas has been “crushing the school records” and “is even rising in the all-time rankings: her 200 free performance makes her the 17th-fastest performer in history, and she is less than three seconds off Missy Franklin’s American record. In the 500 free, she ranks 21st all time.” She’s #1 now among current collegiate swimmers.
This isn’t fair and it has to stop. Athletes who are busted for doping are punished, banned, and in some cases disgraced for life. Trans dopers deserve the same treatment. Not because they’re trans but because they’re dopers.
This is not a trans rights issue. Trans rights are human rights and as such trans people should also be protected from discrimination, and for the most part already are. But blocking a biological male from entering a biological female division in a sports competition isn’t discrimination. It is enforcing Title IX legal protections of discrimination against women, and if not enforced it becomes an assault on the hard-won rights of women in the name of progressive woke ideology masquerading as social justice, equity, and inclusion, which in practice is actually injustice, inequity, and exclusionary. As I concluded my prior analysis of this issue:
Given the centuries-long history of women fighting to be treated equally and to enjoy the same rights and privileges as men, including and especially the hard-won Title IX laws that protect women’s sports, it seems clear to me that we should and must continue to support the rights of biological women unless and until scientific research and athletic performance evaluations make it crystal clear that the two bell curves perfectly overlap, and/or until there are enough transgender athletes to comprise their own athletic divisions.
It isn't really a trans rights issue for whence comes the right to compete against biological women. Trans women are not equivalent to biological women in this area. We don't know how to level the playing field.
One of the issues where progressives are forced to embrace a position that is nonsense is the issue of trans women. They violate the dictates of trans activism if they don't. There is no room for Heterodoxy in this kind of ideology.
How do you reconcile the fact that a person who feels they were born the wrong sex against the fact that they can perpetrate on many other people? There is only one sensible solution, which is to create a third category or a category in which all trans athletes compete against biological men.
This clash of progressive values and women's equality resembles a similar clash: respect for women. Muslims are seen as people of color, but women are considered minorities.
Trans women should not compete against biological women under any circumstances.
There is a certain game theoretic logic behind the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) in sports (for a full explanation see my Scientific American analysis on “The Doping Dilemma”). What I am arguing here is that being a post-pubescent male—even with the NCAA required one-year of hormone treatment—in a female sports division is a form of doping. Puberty is a Performance Enhancing Drug. The difference here is that when a post-pubescent MTF trans enters the women’s division in a sport, none of the other competitors has that same advantage of puberty as a PED. And short of allowing women to start doping in order to compete with biological men, the playing field is not—and never will be—level.
I understand that the costs of speaking out against this blatant unfairness are high in a culture itching to cancel anyone who isn’t properly woke, and that’s it’s easy for me—a former professional athlete who knows exactly how it must feel to confront such injustice at an un-level playing field—to propose a unified front among athletes, coaches, and especially sports’ governing body administrators to boycott any competition that allows trans doping, but this is precisely what must be done to put an end to this charade. Just refuse to compete and, if it comes to it, watch Lia Thomas swim in the pool alone and collect her unearned trophy at the end and stand alone on the podium as the only competitor in a rigged game.
The fundamental unfairness is overwhelming. We should treat trans people of any gender with respect, use the pronouns they prefer, and not discriminate against them. Sports is one of the few exceptions. It is time for us to stop being afraid of being labeled a transphobe and to stand up for the women athletes who represent us.
This kind of fairness is not transphobic. Although I will get opprobrium for this, that comes with the territory. The unfairness won't stop until people stop being hypocrites and stop praising Lia Thomas for her courage. Her victories are the sign of male puberty and she was brave in her transition.
Sherman had an earlier column on the same issue, which focused on ethical issues.
h/t: Steve
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