Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central, Veronica Ivy's gonna self thank you.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say from the top, because I've noticed
Speaker 1: this happens in every conversation every time you bring up
Speaker 1: trans right. So if you have a discussion and you
Speaker 1: say trans people tense up, I understand why we live
Speaker 1: in a world where now there are people who are
Speaker 1: so transphobic that it makes it almost impossible for people
Speaker 1: who aren't to ask any questions, to have any conversations,
Speaker 1: to have any discourse that doesn't lump them in with transphobia.
Speaker 1: And so I'm really glad that you're joining us on
Speaker 1: the show to talk about this because it feels like
Speaker 1: one of the biggest issues in America and yet no
Speaker 1: one can seem to talk about it. So let's start
Speaker 1: with your journey. Um, you've competed at some of the
Speaker 1: highest levels in sports, and you know, as your hoodie says,
Speaker 1: sport is a human right, that that is, that is
Speaker 1: what you believe in. Total me through, check me through
Speaker 1: just a little bit of of of why you believe
Speaker 1: fighting for transgender athletes to compete in the catch of
Speaker 1: reason they'd like to in sport is so important. So
Speaker 1: it's a fundamental tenant of like the Olympic movement that
Speaker 1: sport is a human rights. So in their Olympic Charter,
Speaker 1: in their fourth Fundamental Principle of Olympics UM, they say
Speaker 1: participation in sport is a human right and they mean
Speaker 1: that at the competitive level. So this issue, people like
Speaker 1: to say that it's a complicated issue, and I don't
Speaker 1: actually think it is. I think it's very simple. It
Speaker 1: all boils down to do you actually think that trans
Speaker 1: women and intersects women are real women and are really
Speaker 1: female or not? And if you do, it's very simple,
Speaker 1: just stop policing who counts as a real woman. Because
Speaker 1: this has had history of racism built into it over
Speaker 1: the years. It's not an accident that the intersex athletes
Speaker 1: who get singled out are women of color from the
Speaker 1: global South, because who gets singled out for scrutiny is
Speaker 1: based on white women's conceptions of femininity, and that's being
Speaker 1: weaponized against trans people too. So it's a fear of
Speaker 1: protecting the fragile, weak cis white woman from the rest
Speaker 1: of us. So there are many elements to what you've said,
Speaker 1: which I appreciate, So let's try to break them down.
Speaker 1: One thing that confuses me personally is it seems like
Speaker 1: we have discussions about who should participate in which category
Speaker 1: and how you know, on the face of it, it
Speaker 1: seems simple, as you say, you know, if somebody identifies
Speaker 1: as a woman, if they transgender, they can compete against
Speaker 1: women who are born biologically and and then if not,
Speaker 1: then not. But then there are many who would argue
Speaker 1: who are not transferbs. There are many who born biologically
Speaker 1: women who will say, but you have an unnatural advantage
Speaker 1: over me, and that makes the sports unfair. How do
Speaker 1: you how do you respond to that? Yeah, there's lots
Speaker 1: of ways respond to that. So the first is the
Speaker 1: very language of you were born and I'm not biological somehow,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think I'm a cyborg. So like this
Speaker 1: idea that like, oh, you're not a biological woman, Well,
Speaker 1: I am a woman. That's a fact. I am female.
Speaker 1: So all my identity records, my racing license, my medical records,
Speaker 1: I'll say female, right, and I'm pretty sure I'm made
Speaker 1: a biological stuff. So I'm a biological female as well.
Speaker 1: So this question of do trans women have an advantage
Speaker 1: over CIS women, we don't know. Um In fact, there's
Speaker 1: basically no published research on this question. However, uh, there's
Speaker 1: good reason to think that there isn't. But I think
Speaker 1: it's irrelevant because we allow all kinds of competitive advantages
Speaker 1: within women's sport. So one example I love to talk
Speaker 1: about is the real Olympic women's high jump final. First
Speaker 1: place was over six ft three, tenth place was foot five,
Speaker 1: So a ten and a half inch hype difference between
Speaker 1: first and ten at the Olympics in high jump, and
Speaker 1: we call that fair. So the range of body types
Speaker 1: within the female category is way, way bigger than anything
Speaker 1: that could be attributed to trans women. So if there's
Speaker 1: an advantage, and I'm not saying that there is for
Speaker 1: trans women and women's sport, it's not an unfair advantage.
Speaker 1: But also, we've been competing at trying to compete at
Speaker 1: the highest level for decades, would be allowed to compete
Speaker 1: for decades, and no one has won an elite world championship,
Speaker 1: no one has won an Olympic gold medal. This Tokyo
Speaker 1: Olympics was the first time trans women even qualified for
Speaker 1: the Olympics. So this idea that trans women are suddenly
Speaker 1: going to take over women's sport is an irrational fear
Speaker 1: of trans women, which is the dictionary definition of transphobia.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting that you say that, you all, because
Speaker 1: it interesting that to say that, because I think if
Speaker 1: if I were to push back or you know, even
Speaker 1: not even playing Devil's advocates, there were there are a
Speaker 1: few things that could be argued. Number One, you could
Speaker 1: argue that although the trans women who competed in the
Speaker 1: Olympics didn't dominate, she did beat a field of women
Speaker 1: who might have qualified for that position, right um. Secondly,
Speaker 1: when you talk about the hype differences, I agree with
Speaker 1: this completely, but there are many who would argue that
Speaker 1: we exist in a state where a lot of the
Speaker 1: surgeries on you, a lot of the technology, just the
Speaker 1: technologies and new. Transgenderism is not new. We know it
Speaker 1: throughout time, We've seen it throughout history. But there are
Speaker 1: many who would say, how do we ensure that we
Speaker 1: are creating some sort of standard? And the reason the
Speaker 1: reason we talked to this, you know, we talk about
Speaker 1: this is it's the reason I have to regulate regulator
Speaker 1: performance enhancing drugs. For instance, what is fair? What can
Speaker 1: you drink, what can you not drink? What can you consume?
Speaker 1: What can you not consume? Um some would say if
Speaker 1: you are born that way, that's how sports has determined
Speaker 1: who goes where, and then some would say, no, who
Speaker 1: regardless of who you are, you should be able to compete.
Speaker 1: My question then comes in from a really honestly a
Speaker 1: different place. I look at somebody like Oscar pa Stories
Speaker 1: from South Africa, right, he was the double amputee, And
Speaker 1: Oscar Pastorius actually went well, I want to compete in
Speaker 1: the able bodied race, right, and people like, well, do
Speaker 1: you have an advantage do not, etcetera, etcetera, the prosthetics.
Speaker 1: But then could there not be an argument if there
Speaker 1: is no advantage in that that then trans women should
Speaker 1: be able to compete, but in the men's racism because
Speaker 1: they'd still be able to compete in the sport. But
Speaker 1: they're women and they're female. So, like I said, this
Speaker 1: boils down to our trans women really women? Are they
Speaker 1: really female? Because if you think yes, then we belong
Speaker 1: competing with other women. So it's an extreme and dignity
Speaker 1: to say I believe you're a woman except for sport, right,
Speaker 1: So you can't single out one of the most important
Speaker 1: facets of our society. We are obsessed with sport at
Speaker 1: D to some of the most highly praise, highly paid
Speaker 1: people on the plan. Definitely, so you can't say that
Speaker 1: like I believe you and I support you, but not
Speaker 1: for this one really big thing that society really cares about. Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm I'm saying I get confused by why
Speaker 1: we distill it down into just two things. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you why. As we learn about gender being a spectrum,
Speaker 1: as we learn that people can identify in a multitude
Speaker 1: of ways, we accept the fact that we don't have
Speaker 1: to put people into categories of man or woman. You know,
Speaker 1: That's why they say protect trans women's like otherwise, which
Speaker 1: women are you protecting? It's it's it's an argument that
Speaker 1: doesn't separate or diminish anybody, but gives more specificity to
Speaker 1: what people are saying. And so when we talk about
Speaker 1: these things, I sometimes get confused by why we're trying
Speaker 1: to force the people into two again when we've been
Speaker 1: taught that there isn't a two. Whereas a sport like
Speaker 1: let's say boxing, for instance, in boxing, people fight across
Speaker 1: all weight categories. They don't just go men's boxing women's boxing,
Speaker 1: they go no men heavyweight, super heavyweight, and then they'll
Speaker 1: be like middleweight, bantam weight, flyweight, featherweight. There's like guys
Speaker 1: who wait nothing punching each other. And I mean the
Speaker 1: genuine is I've always thought to myself, it's interesting how
Speaker 1: in boxing they went, well, we don't just want to
Speaker 1: see guys fighting, we want to see guys fighting at
Speaker 1: different ways. The UFC does the same thing. They go,
Speaker 1: you're gonna fight in your weight class, which has it
Speaker 1: seems crazy? How can you break it down? And yet
Speaker 1: it's worked. And so I wonder if you've ever considered
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's your job, by the way,
Speaker 1: but if you've ever considered it, oh, then great. Have
Speaker 1: you ever considered a world where it becomes more specific?
Speaker 1: Then you know the same thing they did in the Paralympics.
Speaker 1: They had to find a way where they classified how
Speaker 1: a single ampute could run against somebody who's partially blind
Speaker 1: or a double emputy, and how do how do we
Speaker 1: grate that? So do you not think that we're limiting
Speaker 1: ourselves by saying men's sports women's sports when we now
Speaker 1: know that there's so many more genders. So I'm really
Speaker 1: going to just satisfy you right now. But you don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm looking for those, so you can't I do.
Speaker 1: I know you're looking for something other than what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, and that that is a very important question
Speaker 1: and a very difficult question, but it's a separate question.
Speaker 1: The question we're talking about is, given how sport is
Speaker 1: currently structured, should we include trans women and intersect women
Speaker 1: in women's sport? And my answer to that is a
Speaker 1: clear yes. If you want to say, should we revisit
Speaker 1: how we structure all of sport? I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should do that. But if your only reason for
Speaker 1: doing that is because you can't just accept trans women
Speaker 1: or women, that's a problem I got with you. I understand,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's not no, No, I hear
Speaker 1: what you're saying. No, completely, I completely hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this. Then, you know, again,
Speaker 1: eliminating fringes, because everything on the internet becomes fringe, everything
Speaker 1: becomes a fight in an argument. If somebody comes to
Speaker 1: you in good faith and I mean genuinely good faith,
Speaker 1: and they say to you, you know, Veronica, I was
Speaker 1: born a woman, raised a woman. I I've suffered or
Speaker 1: lived in experienced life as a woman. This is where
Speaker 1: I am. This is where my body has gotten me too.
Speaker 1: I've grown as a woman. My bodies had the testosterone
Speaker 1: estrogen that it had to get me to those points,
Speaker 1: and that's why I am here. And I feel like
Speaker 1: you may or may not have the advantage, but we
Speaker 1: don't know yet. So why can't we wait to know
Speaker 1: these things before you compete against me? How would you
Speaker 1: respond to that? Because that's not how human rights work.
Speaker 1: So the way human rights work is that the default
Speaker 1: is inclusion, and the burden of proof is on the
Speaker 1: people seeking to exclude, not that people seeking to include.
Speaker 1: So I want to share something shocking with everybody. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until five years ago that we actually studied the
Speaker 1: relationship between natural testosterone and performance, and we found that
Speaker 1: there's no relationship whatsoever between unaltered, natural and doogenous testosterone
Speaker 1: and sport performance. About point five percent of elite mail
Speaker 1: track and field athletes at the world championship level are
Speaker 1: below the women's average of testosterone, competing with men with
Speaker 1: eighty to a hundred times as much testosterone at no
Speaker 1: competitive disadvantage, and that fact has not been picked up
Speaker 1: by the broader media. Landscape. So when you say I'm
Speaker 1: a woman and I have this much testosterone, well, first,
Speaker 1: there's a huge range within women into the male range,
Speaker 1: and there is no relationship between her having a competitive
Speaker 1: vantage over women with lower testosterone. So there are elite
Speaker 1: sis men with low testosterone lower than a given woman
Speaker 1: who's out competing her. So our bodies and biology is
Speaker 1: not this simple. We thought it was, and it isn't.
Speaker 1: So we know that when you add testosterone to your
Speaker 1: natural levels, like doping, you tend to get bigger, stronger, faster.
Speaker 1: We also know that when you drop your testosterone levels,
Speaker 1: like trans women tend to do, you tend to get slower.
Speaker 1: But what your natural level is has no relationship to
Speaker 1: your performance, and we've been singling out that factor, testosterone
Speaker 1: against the scientific evidence. But I'm a little confusing, and
Speaker 1: forgive me if I'm slow to understand this. You just
Speaker 1: said the natural level doesn't give you an advantage or
Speaker 1: a disadvantage, but you said if people do have an
Speaker 1: addition or subtraction of it, then it does give you
Speaker 1: a disadvantage or an advantage. Well, it affects things. So
Speaker 1: for example, like my body doesn't produce testosterone and it
Speaker 1: hasn't for a decade. But I switched sports from a
Speaker 1: road cycling event to a track power event, and I
Speaker 1: switched training, and I put on twenty five pounds of muscle,
Speaker 1: and I went from being able to squat one seventy two.
Speaker 1: So I don't produce a testosterone and I squat a lot,
Speaker 1: and that's just because I change training. So it's not
Speaker 1: so simple as Okay, if you drop your testosterone, you
Speaker 1: will get weaker. Because if you change your training, your diet,
Speaker 1: your rest and recovery, your sport, your performance can change.
Speaker 1: You bought will change. It seems like we're always going
Speaker 1: to end up in a cul de sec because many
Speaker 1: people use it as a cudgel. I've realized to scare people. Oh,
Speaker 1: the transgenders are coming for you, your both through and
Speaker 1: your sports. Everything. Be careful what you say. Um. But
Speaker 1: but it feels like there are many discussions to be had.
Speaker 1: It feels like, as you said, you know, the research,
Speaker 1: the science, that everything hasn't caught up. But I appreciate
Speaker 1: you for coming on the show and discussing this with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me to watch The
Speaker 1: Daily Show weeknights and eleven ten Central on Comedy Central
Speaker 1: in stream full episodes anytime, I'll on Paramount Plus. This
Speaker 1: has been a Comedy Central podcast