In November 2015 the International Olympics Committee (IOC), released a report IOC consensus meeting on sex reassignment and hyperandrogenism. It's only 3 pages long and quite readable, despite the title, I recommend reading it.
The report treads a fine line between trying to be inclusive and trying to maintain standards. That all people should be able to participate in sport and that "The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair
competition.". The three most interesting parts are here:
E. To require surgical anatomical changes as a pre-condition to participation
is not necessary to preserve fair competition and may be inconsistent with
developing legislation and notions of human rights.
F. Nothing in these guidelines is intended to undermine in any way the
requirement to comply with the World Anti-Doping Code and the WADA
International Standards.
G. These guidelines are a living document and will be subject to review in light
of any scientific or medical developments.
E means that if you say your a particular Gender, then you are and G uses the dreaded words "These guidelines are a living document". So that means you can expect each and every Olympics to become a fight over whether a particular Transgender person is really what they say they are. It also means that this document is not the final word, it is simply a staging post. So while this document is probably as sensible as it can be, it will be used to push for further change in the future.
Further down it says this:
1. Those who transition from female to male are eligible to compete in the
male category without restriction.
2. Those who transition from male to female are eligible to compete in the
female category under the following conditions:
It's probably not that big an issue for women who say they are now men to compete against men. However it is interesting that there are 4 criteria for men who say they are women. It is here that the real (by real I mean practical) problem arises. Men are much stronger and faster than women so when a man says he is now a women he has an enormous advantage. If a country or a person is so consumed with the desire to win at all costs then this leaves the way open for legal cheating.
Soon you will start to see female records being broken left right and centre. We will all be told it's because female athletes aren't holding back now, their training is that good, they are that dedicated and motivated. We will be told that we must spend more on female sports because they are doing so well That women should get the same prize money as men as their just as good. And rarely if at all will we be told that Erica used to be Eric.
If these records are broken too quickly there will be a backlash, if however they occur in 15 years time then people most likely have been seduced by gradualism, the idea that over time people just get used to things, even crazy things. Then most people will simply go along with it.
But over time this will start to break the idea of the Olympics, Faster - Higher - Stronger. Because as people lose confidence that the Olympics are the best they will turn off, they will not want to compete, watch or finance the games. For Liberalism this a good thing. Competitors compete for their country at the Olympics and they win prices. Modern Liberalism isn't too keen on either idea, people should compete for their personal glory and ambition, not for their country. Furthermore graded prizes are not the idea of Equality, it would be better if each person was rewarded for attending not for proving that they were better then others.
Real athleticism is not what Liberalism wants because it shows the idea that all people are equal to be a lie. Maybe Liberalism will be able to make the Olympics an unprincipled exception, but Transgenderism doesn't point that way at all, it points to more Liberalism ideology. Put simply the Olympics cannot survive too much of that.
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Lawrence Auster January 26 1949 March 29 2013
I'm glad you brought up gradualism. It occurs because people measure life by the world around them. That's why the media has such an impact, even fiction. With the media treating deviancy as normal, people end up thinking it is normal because the world around them is what they measure life with. There can't be real change, good change, until good intellectual leaders start changing the landscape around people to something good.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is that gradualism has been such a spectacularly successful strategy and yet social conservatives, on the whole, still haven't figured out that this is why they have lost every single battle.
DeleteI think the Social Justice Warriors have have made an error in pushing the trans thing in sport.
ReplyDeleteFirst, because it's so obviously ridiculous that even in 2016 people might well notice how ridiculous it is to have men competing in women's sports.
Secondly, there's big money in sport and if sporting events become laughing stocks that big money will be threatened.
Thirdly, female athletes will go ballistic when they realise they will never ever win another women's sporting event.
Fourthly, it could trigger a major flare-up in the simmering war between the old school feminists and the transgender crowd (who already hate each other's guts). It could become an out-and-out shooting war!
So far most of the mistakes in the Culture Wars have been made by our side. In this case the enemy may have committed a major blunder, brought about by over-confidence and a failure to spot the potential for huge divisions in their own ranks.
The Press sisters of the old Soviet Union. Thought to be hermaphrodites. YES, humans can be hermaphrodites.
ReplyDeleteYes they can but I fail to understand your point.
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