If “Ifs” and “Buts” Were Candy and Nuts

Veronica Ivy

doi:10.5206/fpq/2021.2.10726

Abstract

It’s relatively easy to say that the debates about whether trans and intersex women athletes deserve full and equal inclusion in women’s sport is a contentious contemporary issue. I’ve already argued for the legal, ethical, and scientific basis for full and equal inclusion of trans and intersex women in women’s sport. In this paper, I want to analyze what I take to be a representative selection of recent arguments against full and equal inclusion of trans and intersex women in women’s sport. In short, these arguments tend to be based on mere assumption, unsupported “common sense,” straw arguments, fallacious question begging, and a number of hypotheticals and unsupported counterfactuals rather than established fact. Essentially, they’re based on a lot of “ifs.”

Highlights

It’s relatively easy to say that the debates about whether trans and intersex women athletes deserve full and equal inclusion in women’s sport is a contentious contemporary issue
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) all clearly state that there is a human right to participate in competitive sport
One National Review article claimed, “But what the Olympic Committee and the media are loath to discuss is that their system for allowing transgender athletes to compete in the women’s category is ripe for abuse.”43 Another article stated, “It is inconceivable that athletes who have spent most of their lives as men wouldn’t have greater muscle mass, skeletal growth, and lung capacity than someone born female even after undergoing the hormone treatments the IOC requires, which halt male development without entirely reversing it. . . . That is a