Thread by @KirstiMiller30

The human rights framework controls this “debate.” The practice of sport is a human right (IOC Charter), sex is a matter of legal recognition (CAS), & trans women can be legally recognized as female. Therefore, trans women have a HR to participate in competitive sport as women.

https://twitter.com/michaelshermer/status/1506401138609831936

Trans women don’t have to justify our inclusion. The burden of argument is entirely on those who seek to exclude us. And, as I’ll briefly prove, that burden has not yet been met, and is unlikely ever to be met. 

https://twitter.com/kirstimiller30/status/1505080362199773184?s=21

There currently exists NO evidence to suggest that trans women who elect to suppress testosterone (through, for example, gender affirming hormone therapy and/or surgical gonad removal) maintain disproportionate advantages over cis women indefinitely.

https://twitter.com/KirstiMiller30/status/1505316514425368576?s=20&t=9-enUPKvDJCsO9-qxyqD5Q

Those who oppose trans women’s inclusion forget that they have the burden of proof. Tucker et al tend to focus exclusively on attempting to rebut arguments for inclusion. This fundamental framing error has caused the quality of their arguments to be so low

https://twitter.com/kirstimiller30/status/1494081618348507140?s=21

There isn’t a single trans or intersex woman dominating her sport.

Even Caster Semenya, the most famous, and arguably most successful, intersex woman athlete doesn’t “dominate” her sport. Caster has won a total of two Olympic gold medals and holds no world records.

This paper shows that the bulk of the arguments against trans & intersex women’s full and equal inclusion in sport have been based on assumptions, suppositions, and counterfactuals, not fact.
ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/fpq/…

Since this side of the debate has the burden of proof, I submit that they have not come anywhere close to meeting their burden. The default in human rights is inclusion, not exclusion. Trans women are women, are female. Trans men are men, are male.

And intersex women deserve just as much access to women’s sport as non-intersex women.

Since the IOC has created a rule for trans athletes to compete in 2003, over 71,000 people have become Olympians. Out of those 71,000 Olympians a total of 2 have been trans women & one came dead last the other came 37th out of 42

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

Sports like #WorldRugby banning #transgender women on safety grounds place themselves on a slippery slope. Safety has no gender.

austlii.edu.au/au/journals/Ad…

The sex, gender or chromosomal status of an athlete does not create any inherent danger or risk to safety. Rather, it is dis- parities in strength, speed & endurance and/or physique of each individual athlete that may, depending on the sport.

It is possible that a larger & stronger trans or intersex athlete could pose a safety risk to smaller cis athletes (and vice-versa).

To exclude bigger and stronger trans or intersex athletes from these sports on safety grounds would create a precedent that would argue for the exclusion of equally big & strong cis athletes remembering that, from a safety perspective, it is the disparity in size and strength

that is relevant, not the source of the disparity.

A separate trans policy is not necessary to address physical safety risks in sports.

To the extent that larger & stronger athletes (trans, intersex or cis) may pose a H & S risk, it is best to address that risk by amending the rules of the sport to engineer out (or at least minimise) the risks at their source (to employ more mainstream WHS parlance).

WHS law presents sport governing bodies, clubs & athletes trans, cis & intersex with a valuable avenue to pivot the discussion away from the moralism of a debate grounded in competing rights to a focus on risks & solutions grounded in a debate about safety.