Veronica Ivy on The Daily Show on natural testosterone level having no competitive advantage

If it’s about just one example ever, she might just point to cases like this one:

Ivy’s answer to the different but related question by Noah on why transwomen shouldn’t compete with men if there isn’t a competitive advantage is “but they are women, and they are female”. 🤨

Btw, your premise in bold is not something she’s explicitly claiming. She’s claims that for trans women in particular, “if there’s an advantage, and I’m not saying there is, then it’s not an unfair advantage” over women because of the already wide diversity of physiological attributes within women inching all the way into some elite men.

The argument that most annoys me is the argument she makes that since there hasn't been a trans-woman who won a medal at the Olympics, then there is no advantage. The sample size is too small to claim this. Clearly most elite female athletes are better at their sport than average men would be in the same event. The performance distribution curves for men and women overlap, but the best men are always better than the best women. The question is what happens if an elite or sub-elite man transitions? To my knowledge this hasn't occurred and the closest we have seen Lia in swimming. The very fact that fairly average men have transitioned to women and been able to compete in the Olympics belies her point. I take no stand however on whether we has a society should accept that the human right for transwomen to compete with women trumps the potential unfair advantage.

Yes, that’s correct, the limit doesn’t apply for any woman, only those with one of a list of conditions.

Her framing of the debate is also to move away from T levels and instead frame it as: either identify the underlying performance factors or it’s your definition of “woman” against mine.

I hear you, though I wouldn’t quite equate it to a religious belief simply because I do think there’s more medical heft to their belief than to a religious one, even before but especially after transitioning. I do wish Noah had in his usual diplomatic style asked something like “but there are people who would say ‘biological’ means born with a woman’s organs at birth and that that makes a nontrivial difference. What is your response to that?”.

I believe it is her strategy to frame this debate as one where both sides can call the other’s belief faith-based. You may disagree but that framing is not an easy one to counter, and if history is any indication, the human rights argument for the historically oppressed usually wins over time.

Yes, Mack Beggs did indeed fight for the right to compete in the men's category - and whilst still in HS, Beggs competed and placed well in a couple of boys' Greco-Roman wrestling events.

But after graduating from HS in Texas, Beggs' wrestling career effectively ended. In college at Life University, Beggs was officially on the men's wrestling roster for Beggs' freshman, sophomore and junior years - but Beggs never actually took part in any competitive men's wrestling matches during those three years. I believe Beggs only participated in one exhibition match.

Beggs was not on the men's wrestling roster for senior year. Last I read, Beggs had given up wrestling to focus on activism and other interests.

A couple of other well-known transmen have competed in men's sports. Schuylar Bailar in swimming at Harvard, and Chris Mosier in various sports like endurance walking. But neither they nor any other transman has ever come anywhere close to being a threat or even a contender in men's sports. No matter how much exogenous testosterone they take or for how long, females who "identify as" men never reach a level where they become competitive with actual biological men, particularly not biological men who are competitive with other biological men.

The state-run doping program of the GDR in the 1960s, 70s and 80s shows that continually pumping girls and young women full of androgens and training them hard in their formative and young adult years will turn them into bulked-up athletes who can easily dominate in women's competition - but they still won't come close to being in the same league as men.

Most transmen seem to have realized this, and are taking it in their stride. That's why most of those who remain in sports are choosing to continue competing in the women's category - even when this means having to delay starting to take testosterone. The worry is that in some cases, transmen are or will be to be seeking - and perhaps are obtaining - TUEs that allow them to take exogenous T whilst competing in the female category.

The point remains that there is a marked asymmetry here. Most of the push for "trans inclusion" in sports is about allowing males to use gender identity claims to muscle in on females. It's male entitlement and male supremacy masquerading as "diversity and equity." It's male-dominance directed against females pretending to be progressive. Misogynistic grown men like Veronica Ivy are saying it's their "human right" to intrude upon, punch down on, physically trounce and lord it over females - and they want the world to see them as poor oppressed victims and brave civil rights pioneers as they do so. Whenever female people stand up to Ivy, Ivy usually responds in predictable fashion by shouting "transphobe!", issuing threats, saying "all cis people deserve to die in a grease fire" and telling us to suck, eat and choke to death on "a bag of girl dicks."

If we accept the dictionary's definition of 'woman' as being 'adult female human being' and we accept the scientific principle of females (of every mammal) being the group that produce large gametes, then there really is absolutely no argument about which position is faith-based. However, Ivy would not accept those well established scientific definitions, or would employ 'trivial objections' (e.g. 'what about a woman who has had a hysterectomy?') and so can claim whatever hollow victory such obvious obfuscation might achieve.

For example, if you say 'cats are mammals' and I say 'I reject that definition and I feel that cats are actually a type of fish'. It doesn't mean that both definitions are faith-based, I would just be wrong. And we can't just compromise and say cats must be amphibious.

It is not a disagreement over fact as you present. She is saying that your definition of woman *for the purposes of inclusivity in women’s sport* is faith-based, so dictionary or popular or common sense definitions are not necessarily relevant here. She has a different definition based on what people like her intrinsically, biologically, physiologically feel.

The only place where the disagreement matters is fairness in women’s sport, so her argument is that if you can’t show what all physiological traits scientifically contribute to a performance advantage and systematically exclude outliers for the sake of fairness, then we both just have our respective adopted definitions. (We already agreed that scientifically determining what all combinations of traits matter for performance is not a problem we are going to solve to everyone’s satisfaction any time soon.)

If protected categories can be made to be inclusive of those who aren't eligible based on subjective feelings then why stop at women's sport? Why not allow a middleweight who feels they are a featherweight fighting in their preferred weight class? Why not have an able-bodied athlete who feels like they are an amputee compete in the Paralympics? Why not allow a 20 year old who feels 13 compete at high school level? There is a difference between being ineligible and being excluded.

My position (and I suspect the vast majority of female athletes) is that the 'popular' definition of female is perfectly relevant for the purposes of fairness in women's sport. As Gladwell asked, if an alien came to earth and asked why there are two separate events for the 1500m gold medals, what would your answer be?

We could absolutely list the physiological differences that contribute to a performance advantage.

The answer to your question of “why not” is simply is that there are no “protected categories” claiming to feel like a different weight or like an amputee when they are not, but there is a protected class of trans people widely recognized by doctors as having been born feeling trapped in the wrong body and by the government for legal purposes as having a legitimate claim to the female status. Now it’s only a question of whether they have an unfair performance advantage over cis women or not.

You should either be able to identify performance advantageous traits for inclusion/exclusion OR accept that you also just have a definition that doesn’t necessarily confer any performance advantage or disadvantage. Do you understand this framing? What part of it do you disagree with?

That’s easy to answer: for fairness of performance within two groups. As of the 21st century however, we have been unable to agree on which of those two groups trans women belong because we don’t fully understand what all combinations of factors offer a competitive performance advantage. There is one side clamoring for a definition based on natal gamete size and another based on what they have always felt and how much they have transitioned via therapy.

This is false. We understand why men are faster. It’s not a mystery. Advocates for inclusion ignore available science.

Try to do that and you’d have fallen into the philosophical trap Ivy seemingly has set. You would need to come up not just with a list of traits known to confer a performance advantage or disadvantage but also set limits on them for who can be included in women’s sport. This would be a losing proposition for you because for any combination of trait criteria you can come up with (including but not just endogenous T) it would exclude some cis women from women’s sport and/or allow some cis men in women’s sport if they so choose.

The only trait for which that is not true is natal gamete size and natal gamete size alone, so that criteria is simply inclusion/exclusion by definition. Just like Ivy’s.

Like I said, there are already 11 studies that prove trans women retain an unfair advantage over biological females even after hormone suppression. Aerobic capacity, heart size, bone density, q-angle, lung capacity, muscle mass to name a few. As previously mentioned, no studies exist that disprove this advantage, indeed, for elite sports this advantage is hypothesised to be retained to a much *higher* degree, given all we know about elite performance. I feel we're slightly going in circles here, so I shall end my contribution to this discussion here.

If you fully understand it, I suggest reading and providing a few scientific references. Scientists don’t claim as much confidence as you are. I’m happy to provide references to support that claim. You can also get those from Ivy’s twitter feed.

Ivy would simply ask you what limits on those traits you listed above should we set for inclusion in women’s sport to maintain fairness. Your answer however would be natal gamete size alone.

*natal gonad size (not gamete), sorry.

The exact list of traits is irrelevant. Women's sports are for women, and transwomen are not women; if they were, we wouldn't need the modifier, we could just call them women.

Why do I need to set limits on them? Why can’t my conclusion be that the traits of males (before and after transition) give them an overwhelming advantage regardless and thus cannot be included?