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Home » Trans athletes, and the documentary “What Is a Woman?”

Trans athletes, and the documentary “What Is a Woman?”

The New Neo Posted on by

This got some coverage yesterday:

In an attempt to devise an ‘inclusive’ event, the ThunderCrit organisers created two new non-binary [cycling] races called ‘thunder’ and ‘lightning’.

Its website said: ‘Thunder category is for cis men, non-binary people whose physical performance aligns most with cis-men, trans men and women whose physical performance aligns most closely with cis-men.

‘Lightning category is for cis-women, non-binary people whose physical performance aligns with cis-women and trans men and women whose physical performance aligns most closely with cis-women.’

Nice try – let’s not call them men and women, let’s call them thunder and lightening.

More:

The event on Friday finished with two transgender women in first and second places, with a young mother in third.

Gold in the ThunderCrit race at Herne Hill velodrome in South-East London went to Emily Bridges, a trans cyclist who was barred from a woman’s race in March and who had competed in men’s events only the month before.

There’s a photo at the link of the winners. If you didn’t know what it was about, you might call it “Two men, a woman, and a baby” (the baby was held by the third place winner, a woman, and it was her baby).

More:

Bridges and Chant competed in the lightning race, despite Bridges being barred by British Cycling from racing against five-times Olympic gold medallist Dame Laura Kenny in March after international sporting bodies claimed she was ineligible.

British Cycling is now reviewing its transgender policy.

Question: If a heavyweight boxer decides he identifies as a featherweight, can he compete in that category?

Which brings us to the movie “What Is a Woman?”, by Matt Walsh (not to be confused with Michael Walsh). It looks good. Walsh interviewed proponents of the idea that a transgender woman is a woman, period, and thinking makes it so. In talking to these advocates – some of them MDs, many of whom are fully behind treating children with drugs like puberty blockers – all Walsh really has to do is ask them simple questions and they show the impoverishment of their arguments and reasoning.

Here’s Walsh talking about the film, as well as a portion of one of the interviews:

Commenter “Cornflour” links to this essay by evolutionary biologist Heather Heying. Here’s an excerpt:

Women are adult human females.

Adults are individuals who have attained the average age of first reproduction for their species. They have reached the age of maturity. The term adult applies across many species, and is used to distinguish them from juveniles, who are not yet capable of reproduction.

Humans are members of the genus Homo. Our relatives in the genus Australopithecus, now extinct, are sometimes categorized as human as well. Every individual Homo sapiens is a human.

Females are individuals who do or did or will or would, but for developmental or genetic anomalies, produce eggs. Eggs are large, sessile gametes. Gametes are sex cells. In plants and animals, and most other sexually reproducing organisms, there are two sexes: female and male. Like “adult,” the term female applies across many species. Female is used to distinguish such people from males, who produce small, mobile gametes (e.g. sperm, pollen).

I would add that these things are obvious, and “man” and “woman” are categories that are easily defined biologically. However, there are two main reasons that the left can make what seems to the rest of us to be a preposterous claim that being a woman is whatever the person thinks it is. The first reason is that although these categories are clearly defined, there is a tiny number of people who are biologically intersex and/or hermaphroditic (the latter being only one of the conditions that can cause sexual ambiguity in the biological sense). I had to study that in graduate school, and it’s way too complex to go into here, but suffice to say that there is a very very small percentage of people who really are “assigned” sex at birth and in some instances it must be changed later on, and this is based on biological markers that are ambiguous and/or mixed.

But this has nothing to do with the categories man and woman themselves, which definitely exist and are far from arbitrary. However, I’ve heard the phenomenon of intersex people cited again and again by trans activists (don’t know if Walsh’s film interviewees get into it, however) to justify the fluid and completely subjective nature of the categories. There’s no logic to it, but some people find it persuasive or at least use it to try to persuade.

The second reason people are able to argue that being a woman is an entirely subjective thing is post-modernism. If all truth is relative and there is no objective truth, then perception is everything and anyone can claim to be anything on the basis of self-definition. There would be no need to answer the question “what is a woman?” in any way but the subjective one that Walsh keeps hearing: a woman is what the person believes it to be.

This answer seems absurd and circular to those who believe that there is objective truth, particularly in science. But it seems perfectly reasonable to those who don’t believe in such things.

[NOTE: It’s my recollection that it used to be that trans activists were quite content with the phrase “trans woman” or “trans man,” phrases which distinguished trans people from those biologically defined as being members of those sexes. It was enough to be called a man or woman even if “trans,” and I don’t recall that there was an insistence that trans people were men and women exactly and precisely as the others were, and that what’s more trans people always had been the sex they decided they were and never had been the sex they’d been “assigned” at birth.

It’s this later development, this insistence on “realness” and equivalence, that leads activists into the knotted and bizarre arguments and positions that Walsh documents in his film. Another flashpoint is that now children are treated medically for this, whereas in previous times (such as, for example, back when I went to graduate school in the 1990s) that was virtually unheard of and the very idea was frowned on in the therapy profession. There’s been an official 180 on that, although there are still holdouts in the profession adhering to the older position.]

Comments

Trans athletes, and the documentary “What Is a Woman?” — 33 Comments

  1. Heather Heying and her husband Bret Weinstein are very good on this issue.

    The loose coalition of people from all across the political spectrum finding agreement on many of the most important issues is really interesting and something that should be embraced by people on the right.

  3. “But this has nothing to do with the categories man and woman themselves, which definitely exist and are far from arbitrary.”

    This facet of the “debate” doesn’t get nearly enough attention. Too often, the Gender Is Binary side gets bogged down in arguing over genetic anomalies, to the benefit of the postmodern Left. “Are you saying that someone with Klinefelter’s isn’t human?” or “Trans people exist” or some other such passive-aggressive emotional blackmail…and we’re off to the races, overlooking the fact that we don’t reclassify a species based on rare genetic anomalies. A person born without a leg doesn’t mean that the humans aren’t still considered a bipedal species.

    I’d also add that there isn’t an inherent male or female “feeling”. There might be an incongruity with self-perception, or dysphoria, but that doesn’t change the underlying biological reality and phenotypes.

  5. Apropos of transgender sex workers, one would think the Etute case (which Neo posted about last week) would put paid to the postmodern notion that anyone who says they are a woman is a woman. There was an obvious fatal collision between the sex worker’s catfishing (in this case, presenting himself online as female) and the client’s discovery of his actual sex.

  6. What is a woman?
    Whatever happens, don’t bother asking the latest member of SCOTUS for a professional opinion….

  7. Barry Meislin:

    Well, at least she thought someone – biologists – could answer the question in some sort of objective manner.

  8. This has nothing to do with the topic, but Neo’s mention of hermaphroditism brought to mind “Middlesex”, a wonderful novel by Jeffrey Eugenides in which the main character was intersex. It provides an interesting description of the disorder.

  9. Treating people with genetic disorders kindly is entirely different from redefining humanity in its entirety. Walsh’s video deals with a lot of “experts” who are evidently insane.

    I’ve been humming, in my mind, the song, “How To Handle a Woman” from the musical Camelot. Couldn’t be performed today, I suppose. Silly Arthur, thinking male and female are real categories.

  10. I cannot understand the ‘truth is subjective’ crowd. It’s clearly false that reality is subjective. Of course, the argument can be made that someone’s viewpoint can be different from someone else’s. But if you step off my 3rd floor balcony you’ll be grievously injured gives lie to the idea that reality is in anyway subjective. I think the left sometimes confuses the two–that is, things that you feel vs things that just are–which makes the left look ridiculous to most of humanity. And confusing the tiny percentage of people born as hermaphrodites with the transitional way people grow and learn and become adults is verging on criminal.

    I’m with Prager: the left is evil and those that vote for the left are complicit.

  11. On post modernism and “truth “: I was in faculty meeting where the usual suspects were going on about subjective truth. So I got up and said , “So your truth is that there is no truth, so that means your truth is false. ” Dead silence, then laughter and some red faces. One of my happier memories from the past 10 years.

  12. Kate:

    I’ve had a different song in my head:

    What is a youth, impetuous fire,
    What is a maid, ice and desire,
    The world wags on.
    A rose will bloom, it then shall fade,
    So does a youth,
    So does the fairest maid.

  13. physicsguy,

    Good thing you didn’t work at the Washington Post.

    That joke was not funny!

  14. when did everyone go stark raving mad,* there are men and women, it’s a biological fact, there are psychological behaviors that may lead one to one or another polarity , but those used to be called disorders, people who mutilate themselves physically or chemically, is a whole other category of crazy.
    *those in authority,

  15. @yawrate: that expressed idea of truth is the identifier for me. Anyone that says, “What is your truth?” to me has self-identified as a cotton headed thinking, unserious person. There is no such thing as personal truth, in the way they mean it. To accept such a notion, that of individual truth, is to destroy the notion of truth altogether.

  16. “Adults are individuals who have attained the average age of first reproduction for their species.” evolutionary biologist Heather Heying

    All(?) Human beings can reproduce at 16. By no means are they adults.

    neo observes, “The second reason people are able to argue that being a woman is an entirely subjective thing is post-modernism. If all truth is relative and there is no objective truth”

    [It] “seems absurd and circular to those who believe that there is objective truth, particularly in science. But it seems perfectly reasonable to those who don’t believe in such things.”

    Post Modernism’s foundational postulate that there is no objective truth is held by three types; those who know it to be untrue, those who go along to get along and those who Orwell spoke of, “There are some ideas so absurd, that only an intellectual could believe them”.

    “Those who know it to be untrue” see it as a useful fulcrum to leverage the acquisition and sustainment of power. “Those who go along to get along” are the sheep that are always with us. Those who actually believe there to be no objective truth should be invited to prove it by jumping off a ten story building.

  17. “To accept such a notion, that of individual truth, is to destroy the notion of truth altogether.” Steve Walsh

    Isn’t that the specific goal of “thought crime”?

  18. Geoffrey Britain:

    In human beings, the average age of first reproduction differs from the average age at which first reproduction could occur. In other species, the two ages are about the same, but not in humans.

  19. Geoffrey Britain; Yawrate:

    Allan Bloom, writing in 1987 about the belief that truth is relative:

    There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students’ reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4. Those are things you don’t think about. The students’ backgrounds are as various as America can provide. Some are religious, some atheists; some are to the Left, some to the Right; some intend to be scientists, some humanists or professionals or businessmen; some are poor, some rich. They are unified only in their relativism and in their allegiance to equality. And the two are related in a moral intention. The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it. They have all been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable natural rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society. That it is a moral issue for students is revealed by the character of their response when challenged—-a combination of disbelief and indignation: “Are you an absolutist?,” the only alternative they know, uttered in the same tone as “Are you a monarchist?” or “Do you really believe in witches?” This latter leads into the indignation, for someone who believes in witches might well be a witch-hunter or a Salem judge. The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness, and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating.

    Again, that’s what Bloom had already observed by 1987.

  20. IMO, this is all a part of the 1984 syndrome. Reality is redefined. War is peace. Balck is white. Up is down. It’s all designed to mess with people’s minds so that we will obey Big Brother. The people in the LGBTQ community are just pawns in the game. As are the doctors and therapists who are accepting that they must get on board or be ostracized.

    Similar denials of truth are involved in CAGW, taxing our way out of inflation, and that Covid vaccines will get rid of the virus. It’s all in service of a “transition” to an authoritarian government where we will all be equally miserable…….. and accept it.

  21. Those interested in watching Matt Walsh’s “What Is a Woman?” may also want to take a look at “What Is a Man?” (https://tinyurl.com/2xwthc73).

    Sometimes, after an especially emotional film experience, I need to gather myself as the credits roll at the end of the movie. The makers of this documentary have kindly anticipated my feelings by providing a lengthy list of credits. Their sensitivity is much appreciated.

  22. We now have trans cheerleaders to go along with trans athletes: “Carolina Panthers Hire NFL’s First Openly Trans Cheerleader, Justine Lindsay.”

    You might not want to scroll down to see what s/he looks like. “Lindsay, who sports a shaved head, said she was relieved when her coach told her she could keep it that way. Other Black cheerleaders have spoken in the past of their difficulties managing their hair to fit whitewashed beauty standards in professional cheerleading. Lindsay said she’s proud to break down barriers for future athletes as a Black trans woman, and acknowledged the significance of being hired in a field where Black women are underrepresented.”

    https://news.yahoo.com/carolina-panthers-hire-nfls-first-014137014.html

    I’m glad that MLB sticks to mascots of various species rather than cheerleaders.

  23. Of all the insanity of the past few years, nothing is as upsetting to me as the doctors who provide “gender affirming care” to confused children. We have no idea what the consequences will be of all the drugs and hormones on physically immature bodies, to say nothing of the permanent disfiguring surgeries. These doctors are setting off thousands of dysfunctional time bombs.

  24. I watched the video interview above and I was struck by the similarity of the woman with some of the K- 3 school teachers my sons had. They were not pernicious people at all, but they did give off the same air of unreality of this woman. I guess that it made it easier for them to enter the worlds of the children they were teaching. Did they become that way from their constant association with young ones or were they that way originally, which made them a good match for those grades?

  25. Those doctors can only hope they do not reap what they have sewn.

    Lysenko medicine and psychiatry.

  26. “But this has nothing to do with the categories man and woman themselves, which definitely exist and are far from arbitrary.”

    That “grey” exists doesn’t imply that black is no different from white. It’s called the “continuum fallacy” to say that it does.

    The Greeks were puzzled at that fact that one grain of sand is not a heap, but that you can add one grain at a time and eventually get a heap (the sorites paradox). But they never tried to say that heaps of sand and single grains are meaningless categories, because they hadn’t lost their minds.

  27. }}} Nice try – let’s not call them men and women, let’s call them thunder and lightening.

    Sounds like a ton of shit buried in a mountain of crap.

    And you know, with THAT much shit, there’s just GOT to be a pony in there, somewhere!!

  29. Looks like we may have hit peak insanity:
    “Norwegian Feminist Faces Three Years In Prison For Saying Biological Men Can’t Be Lesbians”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/norwegian-feminist-faces-three-years-prison-saying-biological-men-cant-be-lesbians

    Key graf(?):
    ‘In 2019, UK police investigated the potential “hate crime” of a transgender woman being turned down for a porn role because she still has a penis.’

    Looks like the porn industry is gonna be revolutionized.
    (I mean, TRANSFORMED….)
    On the other hand, it is, after all, Norway…
    (But can the ROW be far behind?….)

  30. “However, there are two main reasons that the left can make what seems to the rest of us to be a preposterous claim that being a woman is whatever the person thinks it is.”

    Actually one reason. And that is that in many sectors (education, entertainment, sports, news, and increasingly the military, police, finance and tech) you’ll get your ass fired if you don’t agree.

  31. Sex is genetic: male and female. Gender is sex-correlated attributes (e.g. sexual orientation). A woman is an adult human life with a normally distributed gender. The transgender spectrum is narrow and not particularly colorful (i.e. fringe). Liberals argue for conflation (e.g. “=”) and ambiguity based on capitulation and exceptions, respectively.

    The postmodern religion is Pro-Choice, an ethical (i.e. relativistic, selective) religion, with a notably wicked solution, a final solution (i.e. elective abortion/sacrifice for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes), diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), feminism/masculinism (i.e. chauvinistic ideologies), etc.

    Normalize, tolerate, or reject?

    That said, we are following a progressive path and grade that has been well trodden over the millenia, throughout the world.

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