Biological males should not be allowed to compete in women's sports, argues one of the most controversial athletes in the history of women's sport, transgender swimmer Leah Thomas. Should biological males and trans women compete in the Olympics? Should they even be allowed at all? In this episode of Change My Mind, we rationalize our positions on the controversial topic.
00:00:38.000A Victoria woman who won a world championship in master cycling has been hit with a wave of backlash because she is transgender.
00:00:45.000New Zealand has chosen the first transgender athlete to compete at its Olympic Games.
00:00:50.000It's also reignited a debate with critics who say it's unfair.
00:00:53.000Transgender swimmer Leah Thomas breaking barriers and records.
00:00:57.000Sports Illustrated calls the college senior the most controversial athlete in America.
00:01:02.000The beauty of Change My Mind is that almost invariably, productive dialogue takes place and people generally leave feeling better than they came, which is exactly what happened here.
00:01:11.000But not everyone from the tolerant activists left was so happy about, you know, conversation.
00:01:20.000What's the message of radical trans liberation at work?
00:02:24.000So I don't know how familiar you are, kind of, with this, but the idea is that we, you know, sit down with people, hopefully where it's a rational discussion, on what are sort of controversial topics.
00:02:34.000And often people have rational discussions, you know, on topics that are, oh, okay.
00:02:38.000It's easy to have a rational discussion or it's easy to rationalize your position.
00:02:41.000The second it gets into something that may be emotionally charged, we throw it out the window.
00:02:45.000So that's what it is in the bottom line.
00:02:48.000Today's topic, I do not believe that biological males should be allowed to compete in women's sports.
00:02:55.000Obviously you disagree to some degree.
00:03:02.000I guess my first point of contention would be with the wording of the statement, um, biological males should not compete.
00:03:09.000I'm curious as to why it would be biological males and not trans women should not compete, because I feel like there is a distinction there, even if it is, you know, maybe an arbitrary one in your case.
00:03:38.000I feel like a lot of the times people use, like, biology as this sort of, like, constant, you know, obviously I'm sure you believe, maybe I'm wrong, that biology is a binary, and that there's male and female.
00:03:52.000And that it's just like that, is that correct?
00:03:54.000And that you can be one or the other and that there's no... As a general rule, there are obviously radical exceptions to the rule, like intersex people or people with, you know, androgen resistance or stuff.
00:04:02.000But we're talking about, you know, 0.01% of the population.
00:04:06.000So yes, obviously, and obviously even people who believe in the transgender ideology have long agreed that biology exists in a binary.
00:04:38.000So, I, okay, so, sorry, continue with your point as to why you would prefer it be worded
00:04:42.000with trans women versus biological males.
00:04:45.000Because I do believe that as far as expression goes, like obviously there is that difference that you're talking about.
00:04:52.000And even in trans women, a lot of them who do compete in sports, there is obviously the hormonal like, you know, estrogen and like all the treatment that they go through, which Actually, no.
00:05:04.000alter their physical sort of like ability to compete in these sports and
00:05:09.000so to save biological men instead of trans women sort of indicates that there
00:05:17.000is no difference when I think there probably is you know you know I would
00:05:22.000argue maybe I'm misunderstanding your point you just said that gender is
00:05:44.000That's why there are male-female divisions, and up until recently, male-female divisions, men's and women's divisions, they were always separated by biology.
00:05:51.000And you're suggesting that it would be more conducive to an accurate assessment here by using a gendered term rather than biological.
00:06:03.000So I would concede to you on that, as far as like the distinction I'm finding with the wording, if that is sort of your, you know, Well, I want to understand your position, because you just said that gender and sex are different.
00:06:43.000Obviously there's a few cases here and there, but I could easily just make the argument that Leah Thomas came in 8th in one of her races and came in 5th in another one.
00:07:17.000Well, the point is there, this is someone who was competing as a male, was a middling to low end of the pack male, and is now a champion female.
00:07:25.000My argument to that would just be that the reason why he was middle of the pack was because he was on hormones.
00:07:42.000But when you're looking at those middle-of-the-pack numbers, I believe, and obviously it's just your word against my word, so... Right, I understand.
00:07:49.000I'm not gonna, like, stay on this point.
00:08:06.000Because there are many, many examples of biological males dominating biological females.
00:08:10.000There are over 80 examples of women who either lost out on opportunities You have Mary Gregory, I believe, in powerlifting.
00:08:17.000You have women's cycling, a record that was set.
00:08:20.000You have examples across the board in weightlifting, in cycling, in swimming, in track, not to mention combat sports where women can actually be physically harmed.
00:08:32.000Now, granted, it's such a small percentage of the population.
00:08:35.000What I want to avoid is, and I mean this genuinely, I'm not just blowing smoke, you seem like a sharp guy.
00:08:41.000You know, that intellectual fallacy of appeal to novelty, right?
00:08:44.000That argumentum ad novitatum is what they call it, but appeal to novelty, which means, well, since we haven't done it yet, therefore there are no consequences.
00:08:52.000Well, it's just because we haven't done it yet.
00:09:11.000But if we implement it tomorrow, and it takes five years to see all the bankruptcies, it's not really an argument.
00:09:17.000Where we have implemented it, we have seen quite a few examples.
00:09:20.000But it is on a smaller scale, because it would have been considered absurd five years ago.
00:09:24.000And it's hard for me to contextualize that 80 number that you gave, because I do not know what the total is, so it's a hard number rather than a percentage.
00:09:32.000So it's hard for me to take that at face value.
00:09:45.000So I want to make sure that I understand this, because I think you're actually arguing what a lot of people argue, and I can understand why people would think this way, that if a biological male undergoes hormone replacement, that they no longer would have the biological advantages inferred.
00:11:04.000And then there is the other option of letting them compete with their biological sex.
00:11:08.000I believe you do run into the same problems, which is that if you are to let biological women compete with transgender men who were once women, you're essentially pitting women against, in your mind, other women who are just basically doping legally.
00:11:23.000Because they're on hormones, or they're taking some sort of testosterone, or something like that.
00:11:27.000So you run into the same problem when they're competing as, like, who they were assigned, what their gender was biologically at birth.
00:11:50.000Yeah, or testosterone, which would improve their performance.
00:11:56.000So it runs into the same problem in my sense.
00:11:58.000Which is exactly what we're allowing with the trans athletes.
00:12:00.000So the reason I bring that up is because, I don't know if you know this, but the International Olympic Committee doesn't require any hormone replacement therapy at all.
00:12:34.000So the IOC says, we'll punt it to these organizations.
00:12:37.000With the NCAA, what happened, and I'm just using this because it's the most recent example, what happened is the NCAA had rules that said, you know what, we're going to go up to the national swimming organizing body.
00:13:01.000And you just need to submit one test within four weeks of competition, and you're only allowed to have the testosterone levels twice that of a normal female.
00:13:36.000Um, but, uh, it would be like telling LeBron James, or it would be like telling I don't follow college basketball, but whoever's good in college basketball, it'd be like saying, okay, look, look, you're not allowed to do steroids, you say you're not doing them for 12 months, and then within four weeks, you just submit a blood test where you only have two times the testosterone levels of your male counterparts.
00:13:55.000You know, we always talk about steroids in sports, right, and how it's become easier to beat these sort of tests, and the tests become more elaborate.
00:14:34.000Now we're at a point where we're trying to make the argument that, well, if they undergo hormone replacement therapy for a year, they don't have the... And that's also not true.
00:14:41.000The medical literature, this isn't up to date with the data, they only lose about 5% of their strength.
00:14:45.000We're talking not just strength, we're talking about ligament strength.
00:14:57.000The most legitimate study that I've seen, the most legitimate study is five.
00:15:00.000It also depends on what you're measuring, like physical strength or endurance.
00:15:03.000Physical strength, muscle area, total muscle volume, muscle density, connective tissue strength, for example, male connective tissue strength, ligament strength, tendon strength is 80% higher, red blood cell count, VO2 max, overall lung capacity, lever arms, longer, I mean, bone density.
00:15:24.000They don't even go away with two years.
00:15:25.000Yeah, I mean, I would argue things like wingspan, bone density, all that stuff is the same.
00:15:30.000But, like, certain, you know, rather than looking at... Oh, you'd argue bone density is the same between a male and a female?
00:15:34.000Oh, no, I was saying after you are on hormones for a while, your wingspan, things like that, that sort of, like your height is not necessarily going to change, although that does happen sometimes, I think, but I don't think that's a result of being on estrogen.
00:15:45.000You're saying, yeah, your wingspan wouldn't change, exactly, you would still enjoy the...
00:16:51.000My suggestion is to let, like, trans athletes play with... So, like, I just say let trans men compete in men's sports, and let trans women compete in women's sports.
00:17:09.000Well, because you're saying let trans men compete in men's sports, let trans women... What you're really saying is biological males who identify as women compete in women's sports.
00:18:02.000Biological differences between men and women, in general, do exist, right?
00:18:07.000And so I'm definitely not going to argue with that.
00:18:09.000But when you bring trans people into the equation, I'm looking at it from the perspective of what is going to... It's like a harm reduction type of perspective that I'm coming at from.
00:18:18.000So, it goes back to my earlier point, which is, even if you wanted to say, okay, biological men and biological women compete in separate sports, and then Like, it doesn't matter if you transition over or not, you have to compete with who you were biologically assigned with at birth.
00:18:36.000It still just creates the same problem where women who want to transition to men have to compete against women and then it's not fair to the women who are getting, you know, beat up on by this transition, like this trans man who is taking hormones and is taking... Well, they shouldn't be allowed to compete.
00:18:52.000Okay, so you're saying... Is that your opinion?
00:19:31.000I would like as many people to participate in sports as possible while still keeping, because like you said, trans, like the trans community is a fairly small one.
00:19:44.000This is not a sort of an epidemic or a pandemic like some maybe make it out to be.
00:20:34.000You're taking into account a very small group of people and you've, I don't think you've mean, but you've conflated gender and sex, which is why modern gender theory is one I disagree with because it's not a tenable position.
00:20:45.000Because everything that you have discussed is basically equating gender with sex at that point.
00:20:49.000That's the only way you can argue that people who identify a certain way should be able to compete with people who are biologically female.
00:20:55.000But, let's say it's 1% of the population that's trans.
00:22:09.000Scholarships, paths to careers, coaching.
00:22:13.000So beyond the actual physical harm which can take place in certain sports, with biological men competing against women, What about all the economic harm?
00:22:24.000What about all the opportunity costs for these women who've trained their whole lives and they miss out?
00:22:29.000Because far more of them will be affected than transgender individuals who don't even compete in sport.
00:22:39.000What I mean is if we have 1% of transgender individuals, right, in the population, and not many of them are competing in sports, I'm talking about a harm reduction strategy that at the cost of all of the other women in these sports who are vying for these opportunities, we are acquiescing to biological males in the name of harm reduction.
00:22:58.000But it's actually probably the most harmful thing we can do.
00:23:03.000For women's sports, for female sports.
00:23:06.000I guess my argument for that would just be that, you know, you're talking about, you're framing it in a sense that, like, trans women are taking opportunities from biological women, I assume is the point here.
00:23:18.000I would just say that it's not sort of a, if you want to make, because I do think there is going to be harm done either way, I will agree, but I think it's sort of a, it's more of a one-to-one thing, you're making it seem like biological women are going to be hurt exponentially more.
00:23:32.000When it's like, if a trans woman takes a biological woman's place,
00:23:36.000that's a one-to-one sort of trade-off.
00:23:38.000I mean, one or the other is going to take that place of the other person.
00:23:41.000So, it's just depending on who you want to favor as.
00:23:44.000And it just comes down to, I believe, like, what you view.
00:23:47.000Like, the women's sports thing is sort of a microcosm of the bigger sort of trans...
00:23:52.000Like, you know, it pivots on what you're opinion.
00:23:56.000Well, it shows that modern gender theory can't hold water.
00:24:55.000I just think that it brings us back to the same issue.
00:24:57.000You're saying biological males who identify as trans women, a gender term, brings us right back to the same place, should be able to compete against other people who are separated by sex.
00:25:10.000There is only an exception For the modern transgender theorist, right?
00:25:15.000Everywhere else it's separated by biology.
00:25:57.000And again, just because it hasn't happened yet, that's the, you know, argumentum ad novitatum, that's the appeal to novelty, logical thought.
00:26:09.000I don't understand how your position is tenable if gender and sex are separate.
00:26:14.000So, my only point that I would like to make is, when you say men's and women's sports, I would like that to just simply mean people who identify as men, people who identify as women.
00:26:42.000Well, we went back and forth on the data of does it actually harm women in the sense of, like, because, I mean, obviously, you mentioned, like, broken orbital bones and all that stuff in combat sports, which injuries are going to happen in the realm of, obviously, an orbital bone is a pretty serious, I mean, that's a bad one, but injuries are going to happen in the realm of combat sports, citing that as being as dangerous to women.
00:27:01.000Let me ask you this, because maybe we're just, do you not believe that there would be more injuries occurring in contact sports if biological men just competed, if there were no men and
00:27:42.000Well, of course there is, you know, differences in men and women,
00:27:46.000like, you know, a big linebacker versus a small...
00:27:48.000But, I would like to point out that whenever you do talk about, sort of, biological differences between- Why do you do this?
00:27:54.000Uh, sorry, yeah, I don't know, that's a stupid- yeah, but whenever you talk about- What, do you mean to do this, or was that accidental?
00:27:58.000Let's not read too deeply into it, I don't think it's really anything that much- Well, no, hold on a second, is it- is it- cause I- I am saying, I'm being- I- I think it matters.
00:28:07.000Is that when you do talk about biological distinctions, what you're really saying are physical, chemical distinctions between people, right?
00:28:14.000Like, I could say that, oh, a 6'6", 230 pound linebacker versus a college freshman of the same
00:28:23.000age who's 5'5 and 180 pounds or whatever is not going to be a fair matchup.
00:28:30.000But they're both men, but when you say biological differences, you're talking about physical, you know, competitive advantages that people have regardless of biology.
00:28:41.000I mean, sorry, regardless of what they are assigned at birth, as far as gender goes.
00:28:45.000Regardless of what biology determines them to be at birth.
00:28:49.000Do you believe that biological male and biological female is assigned at birth?
00:28:56.000Or do you believe that the gender assigned at birth is what can be changed?
00:29:02.000The students I spoke with two years ago at this school, the professors, never in their wildest dreams would have said biological sex assigned at birth.
00:29:13.000Are you suggesting that sex is being assigned rather than being intrinsic?
00:29:46.000Well, you don't think what is the argument every single person this country thinks that it's unfair for biological
00:29:50.000males to compete against biological females Not in the realm of competition.
00:29:55.000I'm just simply saying, I don't think anybody is making the argument that you are not born with chromosomes that give you certain, you know, like, that differentiate you from biology.
00:30:33.000That's why they're separated by biology.
00:30:36.000I might agree, but if you're going off of specifically... So your definition of why they are separated is immutable physical characteristics for people's safety.
00:30:46.000I would just make the argument, in fairness, right?
00:30:47.000I would just make the argument, okay, so we should have smaller men and women compete against each other, and women who are at a better physical, because you, I mean, you would acknowledge that.
00:31:17.000I mean, you can look at the, again, when you're looking at just Leah Thomas as a recent example, talking about 503rd, I believe, in the 200 or 500-something place, if that time were posted by when he was still competing as a man, not even top 800 in the 500.
00:31:32.000Right, it's a huge, and you're talking about winning one of them, placing fifth in another, it's not even close.
00:31:39.000I mean, even just, do you think Serena Williams and Venus Williams, do you think they would do well against top guys?
00:31:44.000Oh no, I should actually clarify that.
00:31:45.000Do you think they would even do well against middling guys?
00:31:48.000Um, I'm not sure about middling guys, but I will say at a high level, there is a complete difference between men and women as far as like physical advantages.
00:31:55.000My point is the best female athletes in the world aren't even close to middling to low-end male athletes.
00:32:04.000Yeah, Venus and Serena Williams, they played tennis against a guy who was ranked 204th, I believe, and he beat both of them in one afternoon.
00:32:12.000I feel like that's an anecdotal, maybe, point to make, right?
00:32:16.000It's not an anecdotal, you just asked me, can I point to an example, and then the empirical would be, okay, so the empirical would be the times that I just gave you for Leah Thomas, right?
00:32:25.000I can give you other examples like Mary Gregory in powerlifting, the squat.
00:32:29.000World record female squat versus male squat is a 400 pound difference.
00:32:32.000When you're talking about men in the same weight class who are competing against each other, you're talking about infinitesimal amounts of weight.
00:33:32.000Well, and, you know, to be honest, I don't know if that super matters to the... The best female athletes in the world get routed by adolescent boys.
00:33:38.000The world women's... The world female soccer champions, they lose, almost always, to high school boy teams.
00:33:47.000Um, so I don't know if that's super... I feel like we're kind of getting off on a separate path here as far as, like... Well, no, I'm just addressing your argument where you said, well, the difference is depending, and I said, no, no, it's such a huge chasm between biological males and females that that's the reason they're separated.
00:34:02.000I would still make the argument that the chasm is not as big as you make it out to be, but my word against your word, I don't want to look anything... I would argue that it is not as big as... because obviously, I asked for Evidence, and there is a lot of, I'm sure, specific examples.
00:34:41.000And then as far as like the individual cases, They are individual cases, so I'm not gonna, you know... So we'll discount the empirical, and discount the anecdotal, and now it's the broad, and now it's the brutal, and nothing is safe, Isaac.
00:35:07.000If I'm wrong, then I would be okay with it, because I feel like I would have at least tried to protect the rights of all people to play sports, unlike you.
00:35:15.000Well, I mean, you were the one who said that you would not let trans men compete in sports.
00:35:21.000You mean women, you mean biological females who are taking drugs?
00:36:40.000And by the way, you know what's interesting about that?
00:36:42.000The difference of a man on steroids, picture the most jacked out dude on the bodybuilding stage, does not enjoy anywhere near the exponential hormonal advantage that a male enjoys over a female.
00:36:55.000Arnold in his prime does not have a hormonal advantage over you that you do over her or her or her.
00:37:08.000I don't think it sways my... because I guess my question to you would just be, how do you address like the Leah Thomases and all the like transgender athletes who want to compete?
00:37:19.000Your opinion is strictly, just so I'm clear, biological.
00:37:26.000So one is, and you're not going to like it, and you're going to think I'm a dick, you were competing as a man two years ago, you continue to compete as a man.
00:37:36.000Or, if I go along with the idea, which you have presented, and your peers here have presented, and your professors have presented, that gender and sex are different, then you have to change it based on gender, and create a third division?
00:37:50.000Let me ask you this actually, it might help.
00:38:13.000You compete based on biology, like we always have, because it's what's safe, it's what's fair, it's what protects women.
00:38:19.000Or, if you want to go with sort of modern gender theory, which I don't agree with, but I would allow for it in sport where, okay, I think Facebook has you up to 50-something genders now, maybe even be higher than that.
00:38:42.000Yeah, but I'm saying, I'm addressing your point that you're making currently, which is that I don't think that is an issue or a problem or anybody is calling for that to happen.
00:38:50.000Create a third one where all the people can take all the hormones they want.
00:38:53.000Is this your solution for the problem?
00:39:10.000I mean, I would argue trans people do get the target of hate crimes fairly frequently, more so than your average person.
00:39:17.000It's not a hate crime to not let them compete.
00:39:19.000Oh no, I'm not talking about... I'm just talking about hate crimes in general.
00:39:23.000If you want to talk about the protection of trans people.
00:39:25.000But how are you protecting them by putting women, biological females, at risk?
00:39:30.000I don't see that as a form of protection.
00:39:32.000Well, so I think what it all kind of comes down to, and this is why I think that at the end of the day, women's sports are sort of a... and this is not me sort of conceding, because I still do, but at the end of the day...
00:39:45.000It's very important, I think, that you affirm somebody's gender identity as they identify with it.
00:39:53.000So I think it is harmful for the trans athletes to be told, like, if they identify as male, that they are not.
00:41:21.000But I really do think that you've been articulate, and I think you've been, um, I mean, you're probably the kind of, I don't know, you're probably not old enough to say, I would grab a beer with you, and we could sit there and talk.
00:41:35.000I just don't think there's any intellectual consistency to it whatsoever.
00:41:38.000You can't say, well, the term trans woman, because it's gender, it's different from sex, and then say they're allowed to compete with biological females, and then you just, and you've done this several times, you just said who identify as female or identify as male.
00:41:51.000And that's my point, is it's an untenable position.
00:41:54.000And I don't think it's about protecting trans women, to use your term now, see what I did there?
00:41:58.000I think ultimately you need to look at the consequences that harm biological women, and they deserve those same opportunities.
00:42:05.000My final point, I'm not gonna sit here and claim that the language is not confusing, or that all this stuff is not very new and uncharted territory.
00:42:15.000I am not the most educated person in this.
00:42:17.000Just because I do not understand something fully does not mean I should dismiss the validity of it.
00:42:22.000You know, because obviously there are a group of people who, like, this is very important to them.
00:42:27.000And just because, you know, I get mixed up on language... And there's an even larger group of people to whom it's important, and that's biological females.
00:42:39.000Listen, I'm not even addressing the sports thing.
00:42:40.000I'm addressing what you were talking about with the language issue, which is that I am, you know, still learning a lot of stuff about this.
00:42:48.000I am not the most educated person on it.
00:42:52.000But at the end of the day, the complaints that people are levying are valid and it's something that I think people should approach with an open mind and just try their best to understand rather than shut it down immediately.
00:43:04.000I think that's kind of where I stand on it.
00:43:06.000Just because it is something that is new to you and maybe seems nonsensical, does not inherently disqualify it from being bad.
00:43:12.000It's not new to me, it's something I've studied pretty extensively, and I do believe it's nonsensical.
00:43:17.000And I would certainly say, if not the term nonsensical, it is absolutely untenable.
00:43:23.000It's an untenable position to say that sex is biological, gender, Well, look at that.
00:43:38.000I don't find the arguments particularly compelling, but respect, genuinely, to Isaac for sitting down with me and making his case like an adult.
00:43:46.000Which reminds me, I wanted to ask you.
00:43:49.000Have you had this discussion with people in real life?
00:43:52.000Which arguments have you heard that were the most compelling as it relates to biological males competing in women's sports?