Speaker 1: Let's talk about the truth about men in women's sports. Now, listen, the truth
is what we're talking about here is trans women in athletics. That's the issue. The right has
made this into an issue, and they call it boys in girls sports or men in women's sports. What we're
talking about is trans women born biologically male in women's sports. Now, the reason I'm going
to do this today is I want to have one clip to point to when people call in and call in and ask
me about this. It's not a super interesting issue to me because I don't think it is even remotely a
super important issue. But we will get to that. The right has been talking about this endlessly.
Trump and others regularly get applause when they say we will ban men from women's sports.
Speaker 2: And we will ban men. Speaker 1:
Okay, here's just one example of Trump at CPAC. I could play a thousand of these clips
of different Republicans talking about this, but this is the gist of how they discuss it.
Speaker 2: I will revoke every Biden policy promoting the
chemical castration and sexual mutilation. Unidentified: Legalization of are you.
And ask Congress to send me a bill prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states.
That should be easy.
And we will keep men out of women's sports. Speaker 1:
Big, big, big applause line. All right. So what is the deal with so-called men in women's sports? Is
it an issue? Sure, it's an issue. Think about it this way. And we're going to put up like a
flowchart here. You've got all issues and then you have specifically issues related to gender
and sexuality, which are a fraction of that. And then within that, you know, LGBTQ, you've got
trans issues within that. That's a slice. And then within trans issues, you know, you've got
a mental health component. You've got other health elements like, for example,
you know, hormone therapy and gender affirmation, all these. Okay. And then you've got like
discrimination related issues within trans issues, within gender and sexuality, within all issues,
and then within discrimination related trans issues. We have sports issues. And then under
sports issues, it's trans women in sports issues. And then within that it's sports where muscle mass
confers an advantage issues. So let's not pretend that the issue is bigger than it is. Okay. So then
they get to usually a discussion about fairness. Now, when they talk about fairness, remember,
they don't care about trans men in men's sports. They also don't really care about trans women in
women's leagues, in chess or shooting or archery or curling. Curling has men's women's and coed or
equestrian. Even in golf, I mean, driving distance is absolutely a factor in golf. But like even in
golf, this isn't a big issue. Sailing, which is already coed darts. Bowling. Right. So we're
talking about some sports. We're talking about basketball, weightlifting, wrestling, rugby,
track and field often comes up. Swimming is one that's gotten a lot of attention. There are three
or four so-called solutions that are sometimes mentioned when we talk about a trans women in
women's sports. One view is banned trans women from women's sports. It raises the question of
what do you do with the 1% of folks who are born intersex? Okay. But you basically say we're not
going to allow trans women to compete in women's leagues. All right. Second option, allow trans
women in women's sports, period, or allow trans women in women's sports. If they have a doctor
that signs off that they have, you know, achieved. They've been on hormone treatments
long enough that a doctor determines that there is no advantage or, you know, we have
to find the right words. But the idea is a doctor signs off that this is an individual who should
be allowed to compete in women's leagues. Okay. Fourth thing that's mentioned is have a separate
league or a separate division specifically for trans women, and that's the way you deal with
it. So let's first agree that we don't need to worry about some sports. As I already mentioned,
we're really just concerned with sports where this might be relevant. The first question is,
do trans women actually have an advantage if you're going to seriously discuss this? You
first have to address the question Do trans women actually have an advantage? Everyone assumes,
of course, always in every single one of these sports. The real answer is sometimes and the
reality is that many trans women transition early in adulthood. Sometimes they don't undergo male
puberty in the same way that cisgender males do and end up being indistinguishable from cis women
by any casual observer. And there's not really a concern there. So with that group and again, we're
subdividing subdividing to really get to the core of this. I don't know that they should be excluded
from Women's Sports league. So if these early transition trans women have no muscular advantage,
they may not have undergone male puberty. It seems they should be allowed to participate without
any issue based on everything I've read. Then there's the issue that a viewer wrote to me about
Basketball players are selected for height. There are demographic groups that on average
are shorter. They are already underrepresented, for example, in basketball. So what about trans
women who are already smaller in stature due to their genetics? Are they really a threat to the
integrity of so-called women's sports? Maybe that's another group that should be allowed to
participate without much controversy. So then we get to what about trans women who have undergone
hormone therapy? The data suggests that after two years. We're talking about running. Let's
talk about running as a sport. Running. After two years of hormone therapy. The average advantage
for trans women in running is 12%. Now, that's a bell curve, and it would overlap with the bell
curve for biologically born women. 12% on average means that many trans women, after two years of
hormone therapy, have no advantage or actually have a disadvantage if you understand how a bell
curve works. And then, of course, there would be some trans women who, after two years, would have
a bigger than 12% advantage. But the point here is 12% is less than the variability within the group
of biologically born women. So that becomes a tough case to also say ban all of them. So
the point here is it's really easy and simple and popular to the right and within the culture
war to say ban wet men in women's sports. If you actually want to do the topic justice
and talk about it like an adult and see the nuance and the complexity of the issue, there are some
real questions to be figured out. The the zoom out and again, this I feel like this is the most
important part. This is not the most important issue. Now, somebody will say, David, my 14 year
old little girl has been training for softball for years, and they brought in a trans 14 year old
girl and that that trans girl hit a thousand home runs and destroyed the league. Okay, let's figure
that out. Let's not pretend, though, that this is the foremost issue facing America right now that
is worthy of the vitriol and the hatred that's coming from the right. And also, importantly,
let's not even pretend that this is the biggest issue under the umbrella of trans issues. When
we have attempts to block gender affirming care, we have groups openly discriminating,
we've got the bathroom stuff, we've got all these different things. I don't even believe for a
second that trans women in women's sports is the biggest trans issue today. Never mind one of the
biggest issues in the country. If my daughter in 15 years imagine that. Beacham she ends up being
really good at soccer and all of a sudden half of the other team is trans women. Am I going to what
am I going to think about that? I don't know what I'm going to think about it, but what I do know
is I'm not going to go around looking to insult people or deny anybody rights, that's for sure.
And that's the starting point where we should all start from and then we can figure out what it is
that should be done. Let me know your thoughts. Of course, all of these discussions will be on
our YouTube channel, which you can subscribe to at YouTube.com slash the David Pacman Show. Folks,
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