sex vs. gender redux

A rapper (temporarily) identifies as a woman and goes on to easily break a women's weightlifting record in order to prove a point regarding the "absurdity" of the trans movement's insistence that trans women are ultimately no different from cis-women.

Enjoy the wackiness:


I've already written a couple posts laying out my own position on the whole "trans" thing. To recap: I'm fine with gender fluidity, gender spectra, etc. because I take gender to refer to a social construct, i.e., something that comes from the mind. Because it comes from the mind, gender is infinitely polymorphic, and as linguistically annoying as that's going to become for those of us who like our sex-binary pronouns, we're all going to have to learn to deal with this new social reality. That said, chromosomally speaking, sex is binary—period. A trans woman is basically a chromosomal male, and when you put a trans woman into the MMA octagon with a cis-woman, you're going to see what it's like when a man beats up a woman. Do you think that's fine? If so, then our discussion is over. Go in peace. If, however, you're horrified by the notion of a man's using his closed fist to repeatedly strike a woman until her bones break (as I blogged about), then you'll agree that the trans issue still needs to be fleshed out.

Chromosomal men and chromosomal women are different. In most ways, men are physically superior. True: there are individual exceptions. If you were to put my doughy, untrained ass in the octagon with Gina Carano, there's no doubt she'd beat the snot out of me. But put Carano in the ring with a male fighter who has equivalent MMA training, and she's toast. She won't suddenly show off any superhero magic: she'll be lucky to walk out of the arena on her own two feet. So, yes: rapper Zuby is making a legitimate point in the above video—one that should be heeded for the sake of women and women's sports.