Yours sincerely
Recent controversy over US male basketball players brings the 'test' for 'what is a woman' into stark relief.
There’s a new Queen in Town. Royce White, a 6 foot plus US basketball player is now in his ‘feminine’ era and wants to be picked to play with the ladies. I assume he is engaging in some top quality trolling but of course one can never be quite sure in these most Crazy of Days.
But like all the best jokes, its making a deadly serious point. The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) now have to meet to discuss what exactly makes a person eligible to play for the WNBA and we are all waiting with unseemly eagerness to follow these discussions.
My social media timeline is of course awash with angry huffing from those who apparently only now recognise that it is appalling that enormous men are attempting to muscle in to women’s’ sports on a simple declaration that they are women. These men can’t possibly be trans they say, it’s just some pathetic joke. The irony of their comments is of course forever lost to them. But it has proved a helpful opportunity for me and many others to ask (again, and again, and again) ok then - if Royce White isn’t a woman because he says he is, and because he looks damn fine in his wig - what exactly IS the test to enable us to discern between a true and honest transwoman and a pisstaking cis gender man?
We know it can’t be surgery. The European Court has explicitly ruled that it is not allowed to make surgery a pre-requisite for a claim that you are the opposite sex - see the ruling in this case against the Czech Republic.
We know it can’t be hair and make up as Mr White has gone to great trouble to find a really fantastic wig which simply screams femininity. It could possibly be taking female hormones as some have argued Mr White is ineligible simply because he hasn’t been taking estrogen for two years. This is however rather bad news for the majority of trans identifying men who don’t take hormones. Are they simply remaining men until they do?
What it seems to boil down to is a ‘sincere belief’ on the part of the man claiming he is a woman that he is actually a woman. Mr Mercado cited below concludes his post by saying
Neither man identifies as trans, nor sincerely identifies as a woman. This is a calculated dog whistle aimed at mocking trans people and manufacturing outrage. They think they’re playing 4D chess, but they’re literally men attempting to force themselves into women’s sports so they can pretend their invented threat was real all along.
This is of course the ultimate aim of trans activists - that ‘self ID’ shall be the only test. That there should be zero gatekeeping, so even Mr Mercado might find himself criticised for importing a test of cisheteronormative ‘sincerity’ into a declared belief.
But how do we test this ‘sincerity’? How far back does this ‘sincere belief’ have to go? If your ‘sincere belief’ makes your willy hard, does that have implications for its ‘sincerity’ or is it enough to be really ‘sincere’ about your tumescence?
And the ultimate response to all of this is simply - so what? What does your ‘belief’ no matter how deeply or sincerely held matter AT ALL to other people’s reality? If Mr White can prove that he ‘sincerely’ thinks he’s a woman and he’s drafted onto a woman’s team then his size and strength will sincerely put the bodies of the women he plays with at immediate risk of serious physical harm.
We see this playing out in the Arday scandal - others have written at length about this so I will not make detailed comment save to say where we seem to have ended up is that so many desperately wanted to believe Arday’s quite fantastical lies and his academic credentials in order to promote narratives about diversity and achievement, that they abandoned all effort at objective evaluation of both the man and his claims, and are now left embarrassed and in retreat as Reality asserts herself. Well, not quite all of course. The Good Law Project is still shilling for donations, even as it publishes news of his resignation.
Not for the first time and I sadly suspect not for the last, I have to give thanks to how my physical disability although the source of much misery, has enabled me to be inoculated against this infection that has taken down so many otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people. It does matter what is real. Reality is not changed by what people ‘believe’ about it and ‘sincerity’ is not remotely a test of whether a belief is worth protecting. Many of those who have committed serious atrocities throughout history, had no doubt at all that they were on the Right Side of History as they did.
Whether or not I accept my amputation as ‘real’, I can’t walk if I don’t wear my artificial leg. If Mr White starts taking hormones and applies again for the WNBA in 2 years maybe some of those scoffing now will accept he believes he is a woman. After 2 years on hormones, we would presumably have to accept his belief is ‘sincere’.
But he isn’t a woman. He can never be a woman. What he or anyone else ‘thinks’ about that is irrelevant. What he does appear to be is a brave and funny man and I thank him for the opportunity to shine yet another spotlight on the confusion and gibberish that passes for coherence in the world of gender identity.
It has been reported that when some of Arday's students complained about poor or absent supervision, getting lower than deserved/ expected grades and his general incompetence, they were accused of racism.
Hi Sarah
Great piece.
Have cross posted
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/modern-times
Dusty