Thread by @Scienceofsport

Of all the arguments in this controversial area, this is the one I find most difficult to address, because the person has such a different view about what creates value in sport that we may as well be discussing a totally different subject. Worth discussing the concepts briefly:

https://twitter.com/RobynRyle/status/1362023664590483456

Let’s discuss one sporting example, from the Osaka vs Williams match yesterday. I watched that, knowing that both those players had opportunities that many others, perhaps with similar potential, did not have. I often watch sports like tennis, cycling, rowing etc, and wonder how

…many others, given the same opportunities, would be capable of better performances than I’m watching? That’s not to say people are given success on a platter, but it’s undeniably true that sporting success = innate ability or potential realised through training PLUS opportunity

So Williams & Osaka are exceptional athletes, the best we have, because they had enough of all three elements. That’s precisely what sport is intended to celebrate. Emergence from a population IS THE POINT, and sport is set up to reward that. Does this create inequity? Of course!

Is it to some degree arbitrary? Yes. In the sense that someone who is not 1.80m tall sees their chances of NBA success drop dramatically. One could create a category for shorter players, the equivalent of weight classes in boxing, *IF* being inclusive of everyone was the purpose

The key is that sport, especially elite sport, is meant to reveal exceptionalism, so its outcome is “exclusive". Between its zero-sum nature (my podium spot or selection means you won’t get one), and competition for those spots, sport is in fact structured to exclude many...

…in favour of a few. Take 128 players at the start of the Aus Open, there are now 2 left. 126 excluded. That’s how it works, and one can play “whataboutery” forever, agonising over the millions who didn’t have the chances to access the sport, but that’s a different debate.

What matters is that those who did have a legitimate chance of success against people who also did. So, like vs like, and then let sport (including the pathways that brought Osaka, Williams, Brady etc to this point) discover who has that combination of three elements i mentioned

Because the trouble with the original piece is that if you just lump social & genetic factors in one big bucket of “it’s unfair”, you’re actually arguing, at least initially, for no sex category at all. After all, if everything is unfair and random, why have a female category?

If your paradigm is that unfairness created by social factors is the same as unfairness created by biology (M vs F), and that because we accept social/economic unfairness, we should also accept biological unfairness, do you realise where we end up? Pull the thread, it unravels

So we could then just have one Aus Open draw, 128 PLAYERS, no male-female separation. Do you think we’d see Osaka vs Williams? Not a chance. They wouldn’t be in the draw at all. But it’s cool, right, because that’s just another part of the unfairness that exists in sport?

So then, even though those two women represent the best in the world (with accepted “inefficiencies” as noted), they disappear from sport, because you’ve basically just added unfairness to unfairness, in the name of inclusion. I’d wonder what you have against women to do this?

In effect, you’d created such a powerful unfairness that it will exclude 50% of the world from that level of sport, irrespective of social, economic etc factors. You could invest billions in youth development to overcome this, but you’d fail. You’ve built an insurmountable wall

The wall currently does NOT exist on the basis of biological sex, because there is a protected category for women. The category eliminates one aspect of unfairness. It’s ironic that a person who seems passionate about fairness is so willing to get rid of something that creates it

All this said, because their value system and understanding of sport, from first exposure & opportunity, through the pathway to its summit, is either misunderstood or maliciously distorted, these arguments enter a void. Sport shouldn’t be about identity validation, but once it...

…is given that purpose (most often by people who have no real stake in it otherwise), there’s little chance of a reasonable discussion. We’re looking at the same thing, but some see it as a tool for X, some for Y. Best not to waste time on futile persuasion. End.