On Rhys McKinnon's thread this week,
@Positron posted a four-part precis on Rhys's latest philosophy paper, ""If Ifs and Buts Were Candy and Nuts: The Failure of Arguments Against Trans and Intersex Women's Full and Equal Inclusion in Women's Sport" (
start here). Meanwhile, Joe Lavery is also dipping his moob into the sticky issue of troons in sports!
Rhys and Joe are both tenured professors with PhDs. Rhys's is in Philosophy, Lavery's is in English Literature with a specialization in the Victorian era. Both of them started out as normal men in academia, transitioned, and then gradually started shifting the focus of their work away from their original topics of interest and towards troon studies. Neither one is an idiot, but I generally think Lavery is smarter, his academic work (about non-troon issues) is more highly regarded, and before he trooned out, he had a genuine interest in being an educator and helping his students.
However, Lavery's recent attempts to pwn the terfs on Twitter are so pathetic, I have really come to appreciate Rhys's rhetorical skills. For all his flaws, Rhys understands how and
why arguments are constructed in a two-sided debate. I don't know what the fuck Lavery thinks he is doing, probably imagining himself engaged in lively verbal sparring, but his "arguments" are incoherent spew.
Joe's terf interlocutor states that the interests of women and troons re: sports are at odds. It is in women's best interest to keep troons out. It is in troons' best interest to be let in. It is society's job to find the solution that benefits the most players. Joe's riposte is that troons vs. women is like tall women vs. short women.
A Rhysian venture into the idea of sports as a "civil right." Keeping troons out of
women's sports (remember, no terf wants to bar troons from
all sports) is just like denying troons social care (eg, housing).
"Some women are taller than some men!" and seizing on the word "typically" to deny the strength/size/metabolic advantages of men:
Lavery's interlocutor used boxing as an example: without weight classes, the larger boxer would almost always win. Segregating boxing by weight allows all the bantamweights to have a chance at winning based on their skills and level of training. Without sex-segregated sports, the terf argues, men would almost always win. "Who cares?!" says Lavery. "I want everyone to have prizes because I am a communist!" (Incidentally, he really does make a lot of noise about being a "communist"...in between crowing about his six-figure book deal, showing off his designer dog and luxurious apartment, and bragging that he bought a $650 Dolce and Gabbana tea kettle.)
That last tweet in the image above ^^ contains Joe's stupidest argument in the whole thread. "Sports fans want...harder, stronger, faster etc." He's right that men's sports are much more popular with fans than women's sports. Men are stronger, faster, and better at sports. It's simple reality. But do sports fans want more Hannah Mounceys, Fallon Foxes, Rhyses, and Laurel Hubbards because they are stronger/better/faster than their competitors? Fuck no.
Joe's proposed solution is two divisions: low-T and high-T. Make women ("cis women") prove it.
And finally we get to the crux of Joe's whole argument: "It doesn't really matter because I do not personally care, and if you do care you're an asshole."
complications
