Why ‘Meaningful Competition’ is not fair competition

ABSTRACT

In this paper I discuss a new conception that has arrived relatively recently on the scene, in the context of the debate over the inclusion of transwomen (hereafter TW) in female sport. That conception is ‘Meaningful Competition’ (hereafter MC) – a term used by some of those who advocate for the inclusion of TW in female sport if and only if they reduce their testosterone levels. I will argue that MC is not fair. I understand MC as a substitute concept, as an attempt to substitute for the perfectly serviceable concept of fair competition. It is an attempt at conceptual engineering that should be resisted. This is important because some International Federations have accepted MC as good coin, and the underlying theory of MC, which I explicate for the first time, underpins the stance taken by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in its Framework Document. To establish that the inclusion of TW in female sport meets the criteria of MC in the sense I explicate here, does not show that the inclusion of TW in female sport is fair. Such inclusion is not fair, and the proper currency of sport is fair competition. ‘Meaningful Competition’, on the other hand, is a snare and a delusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Fairness
• inclusion
• trans athletes
• female sport
• Meaningful Competition

Acknowledgments

This paper has been on a bit of a journey, and I am grateful to audiences at the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport, the Open University Philosophy Department, Keele University, the Royal Society of Medicine and the Welsh National Assembly for challenging questions and discussion. Thanks to the Royal Institute of Philosophy for sponsoring the talk at Keele. I am also grateful to my colleagues from across disciplines in the ‘Fair Sport Brigade’ including Cathy Devine, Emma Hilton, Leslie Howe, Miroslav Imbrišević, Tommy Lundberg, Ross Tucker, Fiona McAnena, and for discussion and inspiration, the athletes who keep pushing for fair sport, including Mara Yamauchi, Sharron Davies, Nancy Hogshead-Makar and Martina Navratilova. All views are my responsibility, and all remaining errors are my fault.

I would also like to thank Paul Gaffney and two anonymous referees for their comments and guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This is one reason some criticisms miss their target Burke, M. (2022) ‘Trans women participation in sport: a feminist alternative to Pike’s position’, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 49(2), pp. 212-229. The view that TW are women here is a form of petitio principii. The assumption that TW have some sort of entitlement to be included in female sport is, it seems to me, wholly unmotivated. It’s not that this claim is wrong, so much as that no argument is given, beyond a preference. But eligibility into regulated categories in sport is not justified based on preferences. This is what eligibility and regulation means. On this see (Imbrišević 2022)

2. In the 2018 passage Harper says that male advantage must be minimised. But this doesn’t make sense. Suppose it turned out that ‘gender affirming therapy’ – when minimising male advantage, turned out to do it only by 1% of the 12% standard that is generally understood to apply to endurance running. This leaves 11% residual male advantage. The fact that residual male advantage existed at this level would not be propitious for advocates of the inclusion of male bodied athletes in female sport. The degree to which male advantage can be diminished is an empirical matter. But the thought that minimising might meet some sort of criterion of fairness is mistaken. The dialogue – ‘look, I’ve done all I can to reduce my advantage’ ‘Oh, well, that’s now fair’ is not one that captures our reasonable understanding of fairness. I’m reasonably confident that the disproportionate clause has simply replaced this.

3. Phelps’ advantages over his fellow male competitors ran at less than 0.5%. In contrast, male advantage between matched male swimmers and matched female swimmers runs at 10-12%. Phelps’ world records have almost all been beaten, just as he was sometimes beaten by other swimmers with different advantages (such as the extremely fast start of Caleb Dressel. https://www.yourswimlog.com/caeleb-dressels-start/)