In the past couple of weeks, Nigel Farage has had a milkshake thrown over him, David Davies has been called a liar and a traitor, and Chris Bryant has had the word 'traitor' painted across his office in giant red letters. It's also becoming a fairly regular occurrence for female MPs to receive death or rape threats - often from members of the public online but sometimes from other politicians! No doubt this is just the tip of the iceberg; probably countless other politicians have been verbally or physically attacked on the street. It is evident that threats and violence against MPs is at 'unprecedented levels'; some news outlets have suggested that this rise is because of Brexit.
Whatever the cause, it is not just shocking, but shameful, that so many news outlets - even supposedly respectable ones such as the Independent - have branded the Farage-milkshake incident as "funny". Assaulting politicians who are trying to do a day's work is not funny, and it's not OK. Three years ago in June 2016, Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a far right lunatic. This was not funny or OK either. If Nigel Farage or David Davies had been seriously injured or killed, would this have been "funny"?
Whether you have left-wing ideals or right-wing ideals, whether you're a Leaver or a Remainer, whether you're online or in person, it is not acceptable to abuse or attack politicians (or anyone).
There may be some extreme circumstances where it is OK - perhaps if the country's leader is a genocidal dictator, and everyone (even his entourage) wants rid of him, and the only way to remove him from power is through violence, then maybe if other possibilities have been exhausted, violence may be permissible (or even right).
But we are light years away from that sort of extreme situation. Nigel Farage is not a genocidal dictator; he is a politician trying to do a day's work to increase support for his party. The same can be said of David Davies, Jess Phillips, the late Jo Cox, and other UK politicians who have been victims of assaults and abuse.
We might disagree with their policies; we might think they will ruin the country; we might think they are liars, dangerous for politics, or even that they are horrible human beings. But that doesn't entitle us to assault or abuse them.
Politicians are just people who are responding to public demand, so if we want to see the real villains who have caused this country's problems, we need only to look around us. We, the British people are the cause of British political problems. If the BNP, UKIP, or the Brexit party are becoming more successful, that is because of the will of the people; the parties and their leader are just fulfilling demand and trying to rise to power by giving people what they want. If no one voted these people in, they would be powerless. The Brexit referendum was promised by David Cameron in 2013 and that promise was at least partly the reason for Cameron's re-election as Prime Minister. It may have thrown our country into temporary turmoil, but democracy involves giving the people what they want, and once the votes have been cast, we should accept the results with some good old British resolve. I don't like the Conservative government, but that's what people voted for and so that's what we've got. Democracy is very valuable, and we can still value democracy while hating it's outcomes.
If we don't like our country's leaders then there are reasonable and unreasonable ways of making our views known:
- voting in elections and referendums = reasonable
- writing to our MPs or other politicians in a firm but non-abusive way = reasonable
- telling politicians face-to-face that their policies are misguided, abhorrent, or problematic = reasonable
- taking to Twitter or other social media to publicly insult and threaten politicians = unreasonable
- throwing food, drinks etc. at politicians in the street = unacceptable
- physically attacking politicians = unacceptable
If we don't like our politicians (and I can't say I do) then we should criticise their policies and show up their policies for what they are (eg. lies, bigotry, nanny state or whatever) rather than attack individual politicians. Last year I wrote this post about why people should stop criticising Donald Trump's hairstyle, skin colour and saying he has a tiny penis; instead they should criticise his racist policies and mysogynistic attitudes. The same is true of Nigel Farage and indeed all politicians; criticise and attack their policies, not the individuals themselves.
In the heat of the moment, it might seem that a rare opportunity to throw a drink at Nigel Farage is something to make the most of, but I can't help but wonder what might have transpired if his attacker had been holding a knife rather than a milkshake. Would people rejoice in the same way they declared "Ding dong the witch is dead!" when Margaret Thatcher passed away?
Whether someone throws a knife, throws a punch, or throws a milkshake, it is still an assault and it won't stop Farage's devoted following. In fact it might even increase his following - he will probably gain at least some sympathy votes out of it (mine won't be one of them though). At any rate, it won't diminish any following he has, and as The Sun points out, "it'll be him who has the last laugh".
Vigilantes are vigilantes, whether they are left-leaning or right-leaning. We may not like our politicians - we may actively hate them - but that doesn't legitimise abuse and violence. Twitter (and other social media such as Instagram) is a forum for the worst humanity has to offer. People get bolder behind their keyboards and say and do things which they might not normally do in person. I wrote about this just recently in this post, in response to a girl who took her own life after 69% of people in an Instagram poll voted that she should kill herself. As I noted earlier, it is reasonably commonplace for female MPs to receive death threats and rape threats via social media. It's just appalling, whatever the policies leanings or policies of the politician. We must remember that even if someone with horrendous policies is elected, they may be unable to push those policies into law. For example if a politician were elected whosee manifesto supported the introduction of Sharia Law, the reintroduction of slavery, and legalisation of child abuse, these policies would not make it through the House of Commons or Lords, and would quite possibly be prevented by international bodies and organisations. Politicians usually only deliver on their most centrist of pledges.
Whatever we may think about politicians and their policies, we need to behave with a certain amount of decorum; this involves civilised discussion, not violence. But if violence is inflicted upon politicians, I support their right to respond with proportionate violence, the way John Prescott did when he punched a man who threw an egg in his face.
Wednesday 29 May 2019
Sunday 19 May 2019
Why people encourage suicide online
Many philosophical issues - and many interactions with others - are not matters of life and death. But some are.
Please note that this post contains discussion of suicide, and why some people endorse suicide. If you think you will find this upsetting then you may choose not to read on.
One of this week's headlines involves a 16 year old girl who took her own life after she posted a poll on Instagram asking her followers or others to decide whether or not she should die; 69% of respondents voted that she should die... A few hours later she took her own life.
This is an utterly tragic story. Any loss of life, particularly one so young, is really sad. It's made so much more tragic when the cause of the death is suicide. And worse again that she did so upon the suggestion, encouragement and endorsement of others. Suicide is, in my opinion at least, the most overwhelmingly sad cause of death for family and friends of the deceased. Whenever someone dies it provides some small amount of comfort to know that "he had a good life" "he fought right till the very end" or "he made the most of his life" but these cannot be said when suicide is the cause of death, because the deceased was not just unhappy, but so immeasurably unhappy that they think there is nothing worth living for any more. My son is only young but I know there is no greater fear for a parent. It's the second leading cause of death in children and teens (behind car accidents) in the Western world. It can happen to anyone and is totally preventable and never something which should be encouraged or done flippantly as a result of a poll on Instagram. Suicide is not a hashtag; it ends the life of a person and ruins the lives of family and friends - particularly parents - of the deceased, and I hope if anyone close to me ever feels so desperate, that they turn to me rather than social media.
But this is not a post solely about the tragedy of suicide - the tragedy of suicide is fairly obvious. This post concerns the girl who took her life after the Instagram poll and asks the question: why did 69% of people vote that she should kill herself?
In some sense, people's motives are an empirical matter; their motive is what it is, and that's the end of it. But it's my blog so I can do it if I want, even if it's not "real philosophy", so I'll hypothesise and comment upon some possible reasons why someone might vote yes in a suicide poll.
So here are some possible reasons I think someone might vote yes to a suicide poll on Instagram. I think they're fairly exhaustive but maybe there are other motives too.
- they're using reverse psychology to save her life
- they think suicide is the ideal way for her to end her pain and suffering
- they think suicide is awesome
- they're evil, sadistic bastards
- they don't think she'll really do it
- the distant and impersonal nature of social media makes people say things they wouldn't normally say
Let's consider each of these:
So did people vote yes out of misguided sympathy, or giving the girl what she wants? This is possible, but highly implausible. If someone really cared about the girl, they'd urge her to seek help and go on living.
But do I believe anyone voted yes because they have this viewpoint? It's a distinct possibility. Social media can become an echo chamber and maybe her followers think that suicide is a good thing, as she did.
The Trolley Problem is a famous philosophical thought experiment involving a runaway train, where a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or pull a lever and you kill one person (saving five). Most people say they'd pull the lever. In a second scenario, a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or physically push another person onto the train tracks, and you kill one person (saving five). Here, most people say they wouldn't push the person -- even though the consequences and indeed the motives are identical to the scenario with the lever.
Why?
Probably some sort of proximity effect. Physical contact with the victim brings it much closer to home, and that makes us more mindful of our actions. Knowing that some people died in a faraway land is easier to cope with than knowing that some people died in a nearby area, even when we don't know the victims. News organisations are well aware of this, and the agenda is always local-centric. Translate this into social media and suicide and we might understand that the suicide of someone in front of you in the flesh is more shocking than the suicide of someone far away whom you never knew, and don't see them dying, you don't see their family grieving, and you don't see the aftermath of their death. Analogously, being mean to someone online is 'easier' than being mean to someone in the flesh.
But being mean is still being mean, and encouraging suicide is still encouraging suicide; would a person of good moral standing be mean or encourage suicide simply because they're online? I don't think they would. It seems to me that the anonymity of the Internet coupled with the ease of making comments without dealing with the consequences merely makes people say things they kind of want to say anyway, but they stop themselves because of social convention. Social media is a bit like a "truth serum" inasmuch as people who are nasty at heart show themselves to be nasty when online. Nice people don't encourage others to commit suicide simply because they've gone online. For example, before social media, when chat rooms and online forums were a thing, I frequently corrected people's spelling, grammar, and apostrophe usage, I pointed out flaws in their arguments, and I told them when they'd got their facts wrong. The Internet didn't make me become such a pedant; I am a pedant, and the Internet gave me the means to say the things I always felt like saying, but was (often) too inhibited. In other words, it showed me up for what I really am. Analogously, the people who endorse suicide online almost certainly have a nasty streak in them, and social media has merely brought it out for all to see. The distancing effect of the Internet does not on its own explain people who voted yes to the suicide of a girl. The idea that people say things online which they wouldn't normally say is only a partial explanation, and must be coupled with some underlying personality trait or belief such as the ones mentioned above (eg being an evil bastard, or thinking she won't do it) in order to be a full explanation.
Please note that this post contains discussion of suicide, and why some people endorse suicide. If you think you will find this upsetting then you may choose not to read on.
One of this week's headlines involves a 16 year old girl who took her own life after she posted a poll on Instagram asking her followers or others to decide whether or not she should die; 69% of respondents voted that she should die... A few hours later she took her own life.
This is an utterly tragic story. Any loss of life, particularly one so young, is really sad. It's made so much more tragic when the cause of the death is suicide. And worse again that she did so upon the suggestion, encouragement and endorsement of others. Suicide is, in my opinion at least, the most overwhelmingly sad cause of death for family and friends of the deceased. Whenever someone dies it provides some small amount of comfort to know that "he had a good life" "he fought right till the very end" or "he made the most of his life" but these cannot be said when suicide is the cause of death, because the deceased was not just unhappy, but so immeasurably unhappy that they think there is nothing worth living for any more. My son is only young but I know there is no greater fear for a parent. It's the second leading cause of death in children and teens (behind car accidents) in the Western world. It can happen to anyone and is totally preventable and never something which should be encouraged or done flippantly as a result of a poll on Instagram. Suicide is not a hashtag; it ends the life of a person and ruins the lives of family and friends - particularly parents - of the deceased, and I hope if anyone close to me ever feels so desperate, that they turn to me rather than social media.
But this is not a post solely about the tragedy of suicide - the tragedy of suicide is fairly obvious. This post concerns the girl who took her life after the Instagram poll and asks the question: why did 69% of people vote that she should kill herself?
In some sense, people's motives are an empirical matter; their motive is what it is, and that's the end of it. But it's my blog so I can do it if I want, even if it's not "real philosophy", so I'll hypothesise and comment upon some possible reasons why someone might vote yes in a suicide poll.
So here are some possible reasons I think someone might vote yes to a suicide poll on Instagram. I think they're fairly exhaustive but maybe there are other motives too.
- they're using reverse psychology to save her life
- they think suicide is the ideal way for her to end her pain and suffering
- they think suicide is awesome
- they're evil, sadistic bastards
- they don't think she'll really do it
- the distant and impersonal nature of social media makes people say things they wouldn't normally say
Let's consider each of these:
They're using reverse psychology to save her life
Sometimes I can't decide between A and B, so I flip a coin to help me decide. Sometimes when it turns up A, I feel disappointed, and that tells me that what I really wanted was B, so I do B. Similarly, sometimes when you can't decide something, having another person suggest a course of action can actually persuade you to do the opposite; it makes you realise what you actually want. Perhaps some people were attempting this sort of 'bluff' to make the girl confront the reality of suicide so as to realise that she did in fact want to live, in the same way that sometimes telling a child to give up X-ing makes them try harder to X. It's reverse psychology at its simplest. So yes it's possible that people were trying to do this, but I don't think there are many people who would want someone to live and therefore tell them to commit suicide; it's too risky a bluff. But it could combine with another reason below such as they don't think she'll do it.They think suicide is the ideal way for her to end her pain and suffering
It's possible that some people voted 'yes' to the girl's suicide out of some sort of misguided sympathy. They saw someone in mental anguish and felt sorry for her; they wanted her pain to end. In the same way that someone might see a dog in extreme pain and conclude that it's better for the dog to be euthanised so its pain ends. This sort of mentality relies on the mistaken assumption that staying alive will be bad, and is almost certainly the faulty reasoning which suicidal people utilise. Even if something terrible has happened in your life, suicide is never the answer. There will be some bad parts of life but life is still precious and suicide only ruins the lives of others. Except in cases of painful terminal and degenerative illnesses, life is better than death. Most people know this, and enjoy most of life. I'm not trying to be flippant, as I've felt suicidal before, but life got better and now I have an awesome life.So did people vote yes out of misguided sympathy, or giving the girl what she wants? This is possible, but highly implausible. If someone really cared about the girl, they'd urge her to seek help and go on living.
They think suicide is awesome
I suppose there are some people who think suicide is a good thing. Perhaps because it rids the world of sad people, and it's just basically cool and decadent, that it's done by celebrities, and a way of gaining notoriety. This is a ludicrous viewpoint. Anyone who thinks suicide is good is serously mistaken; it's the worst thing in the world. I don't think that any living person genuinely thinks suicide is cool and a great thing to do, but if they do they need to turn to family and friends and mental health services to seek help (some links are at the bottom of this post).But do I believe anyone voted yes because they have this viewpoint? It's a distinct possibility. Social media can become an echo chamber and maybe her followers think that suicide is a good thing, as she did.
They're evil, sadistic bastards
This is the go-to reason which most of us assume when we hear that people voted yes to someone contemplating suicide. There have been polls (I don't have any references though) where people have said that if murder was legal or they knew they wouldn't face punishment then they would probably do it. I guess many people who have that feeling are thinking it with a particular person in mind. They don't want to kill just anyone, they want to kill their ex or someone who bullied them, for example. But yeah there are undoubtedly people who just want the experience of killing. Maybe they've killed insects and small animals and enjoyed it and they fancy killing someone but they don't want to go to prison... but then up pops an Instagram poll and they get the chance to cause someone's death just for fun, and so they click yes. All the fun of a murder, without the prison time (however it's worth noting that encouraging or helping someone to take their own life is a crime in the UK.)
I think the "guiltless murder" mentality probably (sadly) accounts for some of the yes votes.
I think the "guiltless murder" mentality probably (sadly) accounts for some of the yes votes.
They don't think she'll really do it
Many people who see a poll about suicide probably doubt that the poster will really follow through, but that alone wouldn't explain them clicking yes. It would have to be teamed with another belief, like "I don't think she'll do it, so I'll call her bluff" or "I don't think she'll do it, so it doesn't matter if I click yes". Even so, either of these motives are taking a very risky and very flippant attitude towards life and death. Because it shows that the person voring hasn't really grasped the gravity of the situation. Yes the girl who posted the poll might be bluffing, but are we so sure that she's bluffing that we're willing to bet her life on it? If yes then we fall into the "evil sadistic bastard" group above, and if no then we would not click yes, just in case she means it. I doubt that the butcher would stab my mum, but if he's stood there with his knife and asks if I would like her to be stabbed, then I'm not going to call his bluff. We wouldn't risk someone else's life on the basis of a hunch unless we kind of wanted the death to occur, or simply didn't care one way or the other, in which case, we're evil sadistic bastards.
The distant social media effect
This is the notion that the distant and impersonal nature of social media makes people say things they wouldn't normally say, and although I think this is probably true, it still does not fully explain people's actions.The Trolley Problem is a famous philosophical thought experiment involving a runaway train, where a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or pull a lever and you kill one person (saving five). Most people say they'd pull the lever. In a second scenario, a person must make a choice: do nothing and five people will die, or physically push another person onto the train tracks, and you kill one person (saving five). Here, most people say they wouldn't push the person -- even though the consequences and indeed the motives are identical to the scenario with the lever.
Why?
Probably some sort of proximity effect. Physical contact with the victim brings it much closer to home, and that makes us more mindful of our actions. Knowing that some people died in a faraway land is easier to cope with than knowing that some people died in a nearby area, even when we don't know the victims. News organisations are well aware of this, and the agenda is always local-centric. Translate this into social media and suicide and we might understand that the suicide of someone in front of you in the flesh is more shocking than the suicide of someone far away whom you never knew, and don't see them dying, you don't see their family grieving, and you don't see the aftermath of their death. Analogously, being mean to someone online is 'easier' than being mean to someone in the flesh.
But being mean is still being mean, and encouraging suicide is still encouraging suicide; would a person of good moral standing be mean or encourage suicide simply because they're online? I don't think they would. It seems to me that the anonymity of the Internet coupled with the ease of making comments without dealing with the consequences merely makes people say things they kind of want to say anyway, but they stop themselves because of social convention. Social media is a bit like a "truth serum" inasmuch as people who are nasty at heart show themselves to be nasty when online. Nice people don't encourage others to commit suicide simply because they've gone online. For example, before social media, when chat rooms and online forums were a thing, I frequently corrected people's spelling, grammar, and apostrophe usage, I pointed out flaws in their arguments, and I told them when they'd got their facts wrong. The Internet didn't make me become such a pedant; I am a pedant, and the Internet gave me the means to say the things I always felt like saying, but was (often) too inhibited. In other words, it showed me up for what I really am. Analogously, the people who endorse suicide online almost certainly have a nasty streak in them, and social media has merely brought it out for all to see. The distancing effect of the Internet does not on its own explain people who voted yes to the suicide of a girl. The idea that people say things online which they wouldn't normally say is only a partial explanation, and must be coupled with some underlying personality trait or belief such as the ones mentioned above (eg being an evil bastard, or thinking she won't do it) in order to be a full explanation.
Conclusion
We're a highly evolved species, but for all our advancement we still have some very primitive drives within us. The drive to be successful, and to out-compete others is right up there with the drive to procreate as one of our most primitive urges. One way to out-compete others is by making yourself look better; another is by making others look worse. That explains bullying (in a very clinical and woefully inadequate way). When people think they can improve their social standing - eg by being nasty to someone else - they may take the opportunity to do so. And when people think there is no possible way for them to ever improve their social standing, they may perceive that there is just no point in anything any more. People are the best thing in the world, and the worst thing in the world. But there is never a good reason to encourage another person to take their own life, and there is never a time when suicide is the only or best choice. There is always, always something that can be done, and someone who can help.
Here are some useful links if you are feeling unhappy, depressed or suicidal, or you know someone who is:
The Samaritans website or phone 116123
Child line website or phone 0800 1111
Mind website
And of course, if you feel you can't keep yourself safe right now, call your GP for an emergency appointment, or 999.
Here are some useful links if you are feeling unhappy, depressed or suicidal, or you know someone who is:
The Samaritans website or phone 116123
Child line website or phone 0800 1111
Mind website
And of course, if you feel you can't keep yourself safe right now, call your GP for an emergency appointment, or 999.
Saturday 11 May 2019
Should sports segregate by sex? If so, how?
A couple of weeks ago, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled against South African athlete Caster Semenya. The findings about her case in particular are supposedly confidential, but based on the ruling, it is easy enough to work out what her sexual situation probably involves, and it has been all over the news. It is thought that she has a disorder of sexual development (DSD); such people are commonly referred to as intersex because of their ambiguous genitalia or mixed sexual chromosomes. Semenya has hyperandrogenism - unusually high levels of testosterone for a female. Women with hyperandrogenism might have external genitalia resembling standard female genitalia, but internally, they may have testes, and they may have XY chromosomes, unlike most women who have XX chromosomes.
Semenya has been subjected to over a decade of speculation and testing of her sex, to determine whether she is "in fact" female. The ruling earlier this month states that she must lower her testosterone levels (via drugs) if she is to compete in female events.
Below I argue that we should have sex segregation in strength / stamina sports and as such, it is fair and reasonable for sex testing to occur and for sporting adjudication bodies to make rulings regarding the sex of athletes. Although it might be annoying for Semenya herself, it is fair for Sport that the ruling reached the decision it did. (For the flip side, there's a great article here giving 10 reasons why the ruling is flawed.)
Let's get back to first principles: why do we have sex segregation in sports? We have it because on average, men are stronger and faster than women. That's not to say all men are stronger or faster than all women, of course; if we take some top female athletes I'm sure they'd be faster than most men with office jobs.
I recall when I was at Keele University doing my undergrad degree back in the 90s, some of the female sports teams had an idea to prove how great girls are, which rather backfired. The idea was this: the female teams would play male teams from other sports clubs at the female team's own game - so for example, the female football team would play football matches against the male hockey team and the male rowing team; the female athletics team would play athletics events against the male rugby team and the male swimming team. As I said, it backfired horribly, as the women's teams lost at their own games a startlingly high number of times. What was intended to show Girl Power instead only showed that men were better at sports - even ones they'd hardly ever played - than the women who practiced them every week! It was a tough bullet to bite (I was on the hockey team and we got trounced by the male cricket team in a hockey match). It showed us that men were faster and stronger than women were, and that gave them a huge advantage over us.
If men were to compete "on a level playing field" against women, then Olympic teams would probably consist of over 95% men. There are some events - say, shooting, horse riding, diving, synchronised swimming and a few others, where strength and speed are not so important and women could fare well again men. But for the most part, men will outperform women in almost every sport. Most people think that because of this, there should be men's events and separate women's events. This seems fair in the same way that we wouldn't expect a primary school football team to compete against a university football team; the primary school team should play other primary school teams, to make for a fairer contest.
So let's go with the idea that it's not fair for men to compete against women because men have greater strength, speed and possibly stamina too.
Now for a trickier question: what is a man, and what is a woman? In the old days this was an easier question to answer: at birth, babies with a penis were called boys, everyone else was called a girl, and that sex stayed with the person for their whole life.
Now things are a little more complicated. There are people whose sex doesn't correspond to their gender identity; there are people with ambiguous genitalia; and there are people whose sex hormone levels are unusually high or low. Of course, such people have probably existed throughout human history, but weren't recognised. Quite simply, way back when, if you were deemed to have a penis at birth then you were a man, and if not then you were a wonan, end of story. So those who had female bodies but felt they were male, were still classed as female. Those with ambiguous genitalia were classified at birth and that was that. People who had, for example, testes inside the body, no uterus, but an externally "normal" looking vulva would have been classified as girls, and it would probably never have been discovered that they had testes. And the same goes for those with female genitalia but abnormally high testosterone levels - they would have been classified as girls and probably no one would ever have discovered their high testosterone levels.
But that's not the world we live in today: those things can be discovered, and then we have issues for people such as Caster Semenya.
Let's ask ourselves what it is that makes men stronger and faster than women. I'm not an anatomist, but the people in the know suggest that it's because men are taller and have proportionally greater muscle mass than women do (both of which are caused by testosterone levels) and that testosterone levels themselves increase endurance and oxygen transfer or something or other. I don't really know, but the experts do know, and they say that higher testosterone levels give athletes an advantage over others with lower levels.
Testosterone is what causes bodies to develop into a male physique - taller, more muscular, broader shoulders, and so on. And of course, high testosterone levels are closely correlated with external male genitalia. So we usually see higher testosterone levels in men than in women. I haven't been able to find the exact details of Semenya's testosterone levels, but I'm guessing they must be closer to normal male levels than to normal female levels - or at least, that she has substantially more testosterone than most women or most female athletes.
So if it's testosterone which gives a person an advantage, (and which is usually correlated with being a man), then it seems right that someone such as Semenya whose testosterone levels are excessively high is prevented from competing against other women with a more average level of testosterone.
But then, so the argument can go, what about people who have an advantage because they are tall, sturdily built, have long legs, long arms, a bendy body etc.? They have an advantage that was afforded to them by a mere whimsy of genetic chance, but they are permitted to compete against other smaller, chubbier athletes as if it were a fair contest. Also, it cannot be denied that some ethnic groups seem to have an advantage over others in particular events: the Jamaicans do well in sprint races, but not so well in swimming; the Kenyans do well in marathons, but not so well in sprints ... so if we want to make things fairer by counteracting genetic traits, we'll have a lot of work to do with regard to non-sexual genetic traits.
But the point is this: we don't (thank goodness) segregate events based on ethnic group or height - although some events such as judo, boxing etc do separate events based on weight, because weight is an advantage in such sports. But we do - universally in the world of sport, I think - separate events based on the sexes.
If we think it is fair and right to prevent men from competing against women because they have a physical advantage, then we need a way to determine the sexes in a definitive way so that it is clear - for the purposes of competing in the sport, at least - who is in which category. I think it would be fairly universally agreed upon that women should not have to compete against men. (I imagine even staunch feminists would agree on sex segregation - especially if they were to experience humiliating defeats at the hands of men in the same way my university colleagues and I did!)
So if we want sex segregation then we need a segregation method. The Court of Arbitration for Sport have used testosterone levels as one method of segregation, and there are many people - including Semenya herself - who say that testosterone levels is not a fair method of segregation, so what are the alternatives? Here are three possibilities:
- external genitalia
- genetic sex chromosome testing
- gender identity
None of these are unproblematic.
First of all, external genitalia. Imagine the indignity and the personal intrusion and embarrassment of having a sports adjudicator judge the status of your genitals to see if they are female enough to run in a race! But embarrassment aside, it would not be an unequivocal test which satisfied everyone, would it? Because there are people with ambiguous genitalia who would then be test cases for whether a penis is penisy enough to be called a penis. Also, because if a male sportsman were so inclined, in a bid to win medals, he might decide to have surgery to give him a vagina. Unlikely but probably some might try it (see my argument below about gender identity and the danger of fake transsexuals).
Sex chromosome testing is an option rather similar to what they are currently doing, where unseen genetic markers are used to determine an athlete's sex. A potential problem with this is that there will probably be some people who are physically male and identify as male and are trying to make it as sportsmen - and perhaps not succeeding - and then a test reveals that they have XX chromosomes and suddenly they can compete against women - even though they are physically male. Then they are suddenly a really successful athlete! This is far from ideal. Besides, this is unlikely to please the people who support Semenya's case because it is thought that she has XY chromosomes, so if chromosome testing is the decider, then she should compete against the men.
Gender identity has been a buzzword (well, a buzz phrase) for the past decade or two, even though people with gender dysphoria probably existed throughout human history. In everyday life - shopping, the workplace etc - it is nice if we respect people's gender identity, even if this means that we let people who are physically male into female areas such as toilets because they identify as female. And aside from (probably unfounded) worries about sexual predators, this doesn't really cause a problem. It doesn't make much difference whether the person in the cubicle next to mine is a cisgender man, an intersex person, a non-binary person, a transsexual woman, or a cisgender woman... but it does make a difference if these people are competing against me in a race. This is because - as noted above - testosterone levels enhance performance. The average cisgender man has higher testosterone than the average cisgender woman. I don't know enough about gender dysphoria or non-binariness to know whether they are correlated with differences in sex hormones, but if it turns out that a transgender woman (whether or not she has had gender reassignment surgery) has testosterone levels which are normal for a cisgender man, then that person has an athletic advantage over cisgender women athletes. Simply claiming to identify as a woman cannot be sufficient reason to allow that person to compete against women. Or else the event is not an event for women, but for anyone who decides to say they're a woman. Boxing weight categories are based on boxers' actual weights, not merely the weights they claim to be - and the same should be true for sex. "Ah, but gender is different because if one identifies as female then one is female; but identifying as a Featherweight does not mean one is a Featherweight. The two are not analogous" I hear you say. And that is true, but the point is that anyone can claim they identify as female and we would just have to take them at their word. This is fine in most aspect of life, but in sports we'd have to let them compete as a female sportsperson. A (largely unfounded) worry about transsexuals and toilets is that straight cisgender men could gain access to female bathrooms by claiming to identify as women. What would such men gain from pretending to be transgender in a bathroom situation? Some say they'd gain the chance to hurt or rape women; this seems like very little "gain", given that a man can walk into a female bathroom to rape women at any time without claiming to be transgender. A would-be rapist would not be deterred by the woman symbol on the door. So a bad man gets almost no gain from pretending to be transgender. But what could a man gain from claiming to be a transgender sportswoman (if gender identity is what counts in sport)? Well, he could gain thousands or millions of pounds. Consider: the US Open tennis championship has $3.8 million for the winner of the women's singles. Are there any half decent male tennis players with little moral integrity? Why yes I would think there are (and yes he might only need to be half decent to beat a top ranking female tennis player). And that is a second reason why gender identity cannot be the only factor to decide in which event one competes. (The first was mentioned above - namely that transsexual women may well have male physiques and testosterone levels in the normal male range, giving them a physical advantage over cisgender women.) Gender identity should be respected in everyday life, but should play no part at all in sporting sex segregation. When huge sums of money are involved, any man can claim to identify as a woman, win a few huge cash sums, and then 'revert to being male again. It would be immoral, but allowed under te rules if we were to say that gender identity is what counts.
So where does that leave us? We could let men and women (and all the people who have gender dysphoria, disorders of sexual development, and everyone else) compete against one another without restriction, and thus confine almost all female athletes to obscurity... or we can accept that men and women should compete against their own sex. Some sort of 'middle ground' could involve a handicap system such that all people have their testosterone levels, chromosomes (or whatever we decide) assessed, and are given a handicap score or a head start. This would certainly change things drastically, and could mean that the fastest and strongest people no longer win the events... This would seem odd, not to mention confusing to watch (I like to watch the Paralympics but I do find it frustrating when the person who comes first in the race is deemed not to have won because of his disability score; sometimes I give up watching the races and just read the results. This could happen if everyone has a testosterone score which deducts or adds points to their score: how would we know who'd won?! It would perhaps be fairer, but a lot less compelling.)
If we choose to clearly segregate by sex into just two categories, then there must necessarily be a way of discerning who competes against whom, and whatever method is chosen, some people will be placed into a category which they or others might see as objectionable. Unfortunately that is the price to be paid. Chromosome testing and testosterone levels seems as good and as scientific method as possible, and so although it may not please Semenya and her coach, it is reasonable, and it protects women's sporting events from competitors who have genetically male hormone levels and/or chromosomes, which gives them an advantage on a par with a man.
Semenya has been subjected to over a decade of speculation and testing of her sex, to determine whether she is "in fact" female. The ruling earlier this month states that she must lower her testosterone levels (via drugs) if she is to compete in female events.
Below I argue that we should have sex segregation in strength / stamina sports and as such, it is fair and reasonable for sex testing to occur and for sporting adjudication bodies to make rulings regarding the sex of athletes. Although it might be annoying for Semenya herself, it is fair for Sport that the ruling reached the decision it did. (For the flip side, there's a great article here giving 10 reasons why the ruling is flawed.)
Let's get back to first principles: why do we have sex segregation in sports? We have it because on average, men are stronger and faster than women. That's not to say all men are stronger or faster than all women, of course; if we take some top female athletes I'm sure they'd be faster than most men with office jobs.
I recall when I was at Keele University doing my undergrad degree back in the 90s, some of the female sports teams had an idea to prove how great girls are, which rather backfired. The idea was this: the female teams would play male teams from other sports clubs at the female team's own game - so for example, the female football team would play football matches against the male hockey team and the male rowing team; the female athletics team would play athletics events against the male rugby team and the male swimming team. As I said, it backfired horribly, as the women's teams lost at their own games a startlingly high number of times. What was intended to show Girl Power instead only showed that men were better at sports - even ones they'd hardly ever played - than the women who practiced them every week! It was a tough bullet to bite (I was on the hockey team and we got trounced by the male cricket team in a hockey match). It showed us that men were faster and stronger than women were, and that gave them a huge advantage over us.
If men were to compete "on a level playing field" against women, then Olympic teams would probably consist of over 95% men. There are some events - say, shooting, horse riding, diving, synchronised swimming and a few others, where strength and speed are not so important and women could fare well again men. But for the most part, men will outperform women in almost every sport. Most people think that because of this, there should be men's events and separate women's events. This seems fair in the same way that we wouldn't expect a primary school football team to compete against a university football team; the primary school team should play other primary school teams, to make for a fairer contest.
So let's go with the idea that it's not fair for men to compete against women because men have greater strength, speed and possibly stamina too.
Now for a trickier question: what is a man, and what is a woman? In the old days this was an easier question to answer: at birth, babies with a penis were called boys, everyone else was called a girl, and that sex stayed with the person for their whole life.
Now things are a little more complicated. There are people whose sex doesn't correspond to their gender identity; there are people with ambiguous genitalia; and there are people whose sex hormone levels are unusually high or low. Of course, such people have probably existed throughout human history, but weren't recognised. Quite simply, way back when, if you were deemed to have a penis at birth then you were a man, and if not then you were a wonan, end of story. So those who had female bodies but felt they were male, were still classed as female. Those with ambiguous genitalia were classified at birth and that was that. People who had, for example, testes inside the body, no uterus, but an externally "normal" looking vulva would have been classified as girls, and it would probably never have been discovered that they had testes. And the same goes for those with female genitalia but abnormally high testosterone levels - they would have been classified as girls and probably no one would ever have discovered their high testosterone levels.
But that's not the world we live in today: those things can be discovered, and then we have issues for people such as Caster Semenya.
Let's ask ourselves what it is that makes men stronger and faster than women. I'm not an anatomist, but the people in the know suggest that it's because men are taller and have proportionally greater muscle mass than women do (both of which are caused by testosterone levels) and that testosterone levels themselves increase endurance and oxygen transfer or something or other. I don't really know, but the experts do know, and they say that higher testosterone levels give athletes an advantage over others with lower levels.
Testosterone is what causes bodies to develop into a male physique - taller, more muscular, broader shoulders, and so on. And of course, high testosterone levels are closely correlated with external male genitalia. So we usually see higher testosterone levels in men than in women. I haven't been able to find the exact details of Semenya's testosterone levels, but I'm guessing they must be closer to normal male levels than to normal female levels - or at least, that she has substantially more testosterone than most women or most female athletes.
So if it's testosterone which gives a person an advantage, (and which is usually correlated with being a man), then it seems right that someone such as Semenya whose testosterone levels are excessively high is prevented from competing against other women with a more average level of testosterone.
But then, so the argument can go, what about people who have an advantage because they are tall, sturdily built, have long legs, long arms, a bendy body etc.? They have an advantage that was afforded to them by a mere whimsy of genetic chance, but they are permitted to compete against other smaller, chubbier athletes as if it were a fair contest. Also, it cannot be denied that some ethnic groups seem to have an advantage over others in particular events: the Jamaicans do well in sprint races, but not so well in swimming; the Kenyans do well in marathons, but not so well in sprints ... so if we want to make things fairer by counteracting genetic traits, we'll have a lot of work to do with regard to non-sexual genetic traits.
But the point is this: we don't (thank goodness) segregate events based on ethnic group or height - although some events such as judo, boxing etc do separate events based on weight, because weight is an advantage in such sports. But we do - universally in the world of sport, I think - separate events based on the sexes.
If we think it is fair and right to prevent men from competing against women because they have a physical advantage, then we need a way to determine the sexes in a definitive way so that it is clear - for the purposes of competing in the sport, at least - who is in which category. I think it would be fairly universally agreed upon that women should not have to compete against men. (I imagine even staunch feminists would agree on sex segregation - especially if they were to experience humiliating defeats at the hands of men in the same way my university colleagues and I did!)
So if we want sex segregation then we need a segregation method. The Court of Arbitration for Sport have used testosterone levels as one method of segregation, and there are many people - including Semenya herself - who say that testosterone levels is not a fair method of segregation, so what are the alternatives? Here are three possibilities:
- external genitalia
- genetic sex chromosome testing
- gender identity
None of these are unproblematic.
First of all, external genitalia. Imagine the indignity and the personal intrusion and embarrassment of having a sports adjudicator judge the status of your genitals to see if they are female enough to run in a race! But embarrassment aside, it would not be an unequivocal test which satisfied everyone, would it? Because there are people with ambiguous genitalia who would then be test cases for whether a penis is penisy enough to be called a penis. Also, because if a male sportsman were so inclined, in a bid to win medals, he might decide to have surgery to give him a vagina. Unlikely but probably some might try it (see my argument below about gender identity and the danger of fake transsexuals).
Sex chromosome testing is an option rather similar to what they are currently doing, where unseen genetic markers are used to determine an athlete's sex. A potential problem with this is that there will probably be some people who are physically male and identify as male and are trying to make it as sportsmen - and perhaps not succeeding - and then a test reveals that they have XX chromosomes and suddenly they can compete against women - even though they are physically male. Then they are suddenly a really successful athlete! This is far from ideal. Besides, this is unlikely to please the people who support Semenya's case because it is thought that she has XY chromosomes, so if chromosome testing is the decider, then she should compete against the men.
Gender identity has been a buzzword (well, a buzz phrase) for the past decade or two, even though people with gender dysphoria probably existed throughout human history. In everyday life - shopping, the workplace etc - it is nice if we respect people's gender identity, even if this means that we let people who are physically male into female areas such as toilets because they identify as female. And aside from (probably unfounded) worries about sexual predators, this doesn't really cause a problem. It doesn't make much difference whether the person in the cubicle next to mine is a cisgender man, an intersex person, a non-binary person, a transsexual woman, or a cisgender woman... but it does make a difference if these people are competing against me in a race. This is because - as noted above - testosterone levels enhance performance. The average cisgender man has higher testosterone than the average cisgender woman. I don't know enough about gender dysphoria or non-binariness to know whether they are correlated with differences in sex hormones, but if it turns out that a transgender woman (whether or not she has had gender reassignment surgery) has testosterone levels which are normal for a cisgender man, then that person has an athletic advantage over cisgender women athletes. Simply claiming to identify as a woman cannot be sufficient reason to allow that person to compete against women. Or else the event is not an event for women, but for anyone who decides to say they're a woman. Boxing weight categories are based on boxers' actual weights, not merely the weights they claim to be - and the same should be true for sex. "Ah, but gender is different because if one identifies as female then one is female; but identifying as a Featherweight does not mean one is a Featherweight. The two are not analogous" I hear you say. And that is true, but the point is that anyone can claim they identify as female and we would just have to take them at their word. This is fine in most aspect of life, but in sports we'd have to let them compete as a female sportsperson. A (largely unfounded) worry about transsexuals and toilets is that straight cisgender men could gain access to female bathrooms by claiming to identify as women. What would such men gain from pretending to be transgender in a bathroom situation? Some say they'd gain the chance to hurt or rape women; this seems like very little "gain", given that a man can walk into a female bathroom to rape women at any time without claiming to be transgender. A would-be rapist would not be deterred by the woman symbol on the door. So a bad man gets almost no gain from pretending to be transgender. But what could a man gain from claiming to be a transgender sportswoman (if gender identity is what counts in sport)? Well, he could gain thousands or millions of pounds. Consider: the US Open tennis championship has $3.8 million for the winner of the women's singles. Are there any half decent male tennis players with little moral integrity? Why yes I would think there are (and yes he might only need to be half decent to beat a top ranking female tennis player). And that is a second reason why gender identity cannot be the only factor to decide in which event one competes. (The first was mentioned above - namely that transsexual women may well have male physiques and testosterone levels in the normal male range, giving them a physical advantage over cisgender women.) Gender identity should be respected in everyday life, but should play no part at all in sporting sex segregation. When huge sums of money are involved, any man can claim to identify as a woman, win a few huge cash sums, and then 'revert to being male again. It would be immoral, but allowed under te rules if we were to say that gender identity is what counts.
So where does that leave us? We could let men and women (and all the people who have gender dysphoria, disorders of sexual development, and everyone else) compete against one another without restriction, and thus confine almost all female athletes to obscurity... or we can accept that men and women should compete against their own sex. Some sort of 'middle ground' could involve a handicap system such that all people have their testosterone levels, chromosomes (or whatever we decide) assessed, and are given a handicap score or a head start. This would certainly change things drastically, and could mean that the fastest and strongest people no longer win the events... This would seem odd, not to mention confusing to watch (I like to watch the Paralympics but I do find it frustrating when the person who comes first in the race is deemed not to have won because of his disability score; sometimes I give up watching the races and just read the results. This could happen if everyone has a testosterone score which deducts or adds points to their score: how would we know who'd won?! It would perhaps be fairer, but a lot less compelling.)
If we choose to clearly segregate by sex into just two categories, then there must necessarily be a way of discerning who competes against whom, and whatever method is chosen, some people will be placed into a category which they or others might see as objectionable. Unfortunately that is the price to be paid. Chromosome testing and testosterone levels seems as good and as scientific method as possible, and so although it may not please Semenya and her coach, it is reasonable, and it protects women's sporting events from competitors who have genetically male hormone levels and/or chromosomes, which gives them an advantage on a par with a man.
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