Certainly how Tony makes it sound his TikTok on the subject (
source,
archive).
Been a little while since I posted up any of Tony's TikToks, but he's had a couple recently on sport that have gotten a lot of traction: one about Will / Lia Thomas (
source,
archive), and one about sex testing of Olympic athletes (
source,
archive). The Will Thomas video has over 130,000 likes, which if it were a tweet would be Tony's second-most-liked post.
Warning! Both of these are very dumb and side effects may include reduced intelligence in the viewer, nosebleeds, headaches, and uncontrollable autistic rage.
We'll take Thomas first. Background if you're unfamiliar:
source,
archive.
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Tony's argument is that Thomas has always been fast, and people are only complaining because Thomas now identifies as trans. Which, I mean, OK? Thomas is male and should not be competing against female swimmers.
Whew, that was surprisingly easy. Next, sex testing in the Olympics:
View attachment 3366209

Where to even start with this dog's breakfast.
Ok, easy one, Tony says that prior to the 1996 Olympics, "most sex testing was done via panels of men doing internal and external gynecological exams". Not true: women were subjected to physical examinations at some international competitions in 1966–68, but not at the Olympic Games. The first sex testing done for the Olympics was chromosomal testing (by cheek swab and lab analysis for the Y sex chromosome) from the 1968 Olympics onwards. (
source,
archive)
The IOC did discontinue chromosomal testing from 1996, and this continues to be controversial. The most high profile case is that of Caster Semenya, who was subjected to sex testing in 2009 at the request of the IAAF (now World Athletics). Semenya has a DSD called 5ARD, where Semenya may have appeared to have female genitals at birth, but is an XY male with testes.
Marvin wrote a good summary in the discussion thread recently. Emma Hilton wrote a good thread on the details of how individuals with 5ARD develop (
source,
archive).
The outcome of the Semenya case was that in certain athletic events, competitors would have to keep their testosterone levels below a threshold. This is a complete bodge that skirts the real issue (athletes who have undergone male development) and pleased precisely no-one outside the IAAF.
Back to Tony, he says in the video that there is "no biological way to define a woman without excluding some cisgender athletes". Aside from nitpicking that the whole point of women's sport is to exclude a certain group of "cisgender" athletes (males!), this is also wrong. Most competitors will be typical XY females, and for the very small number of others we can test for DSDs that involve male development (like 5ARD).
Tony, don't you find it exhausting to be wrong all the time?