Radical transgender activist Schuyler Bailar claimed this week that Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’ “long torso” giving him an advantage in swimming is no different than the advantage biological men who claim to be transgender women have over natural-born female athletes.
In Bailar’s tortured “logic,” the fact that Phelps wasn’t banned from using his “long torso” to win races against his male opponents proves that we should not be banning transgender “women” from using their stronger male bodies to beat female opponents in sports.
Michael Phelps of the United States on his way to winning the Men’s 200m Butterfly and his 20th Olympic Gold medal on Day 4 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on August 9, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Bailar delivered his pretzel logic during a podcast with controversial trans swimmer Lia Thomas on the former’s “Dear Schuyler” podcast on Monday when he attempted to justify trans women being allowed to compete against natural-born females,” Fox News reported.
The podcast host, who was the first trans athlete to be allowed to compete as a woman by the NCAA when he swam for Harvard during the 2018-19 season, attempted to bat down the argument that trans “women” have a physical advantage over biological women.
“And I know most people will just go straight for the ‘biological advantage’ argument, saying that some alleged biological advantage makes it unfair for trans women to compete with other women. But let’s consider a few points. Biological diversity exists everywhere in sport, in every demographic of people and every demographic of women,” he exclaimed.
“That’s kinda what sports are based on. I mean if everybody was exactly the same, there would be no competition. Sports depends on the fact that bodies are different and they perform differently. When those differences exist in the men’s category, most people don’t care. In fact, they praise those differences,” he continued.
Bailar then tried to justify his claims using Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps as his example.
“Let’s look at Michael Phelps – winningest Olympian of all time. You probably know who he is. He’s super tall. He’s got this really long torso and he’s got a really wide wingspan – all specifically advantages in swimming. He also produces half the levels of lactic acid than the average athlete. Not the average person, the average athlete,” he insisted.
Michael Phelps of the United States celebrates winning gold in the Men’s 200m Butterfly Final on Day 4 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on August 9, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Phil Walter/Getty Images)
“And all of these things give him a massive biological advantage. But his biological differences are celebrated,” Bailar exclaimed. “When they look at him, they say, ‘wow, what an amazing biological anomaly.’ Does he have biological advantages? Absolutely. But do people say that is grounds for disqualification? ‘Oh, Michael Phelps is too tall’ or ‘wingspan is too long’ or ‘his lactic acid is too low, therefore we should disqualify him.’ No, people don’t do that. They let him have his body as it is.”
Bailar slammed the Olympics for forcing Caster Semenya, who he called a “Black, queer, cisgender, so not transgender woman, who is also intersex,” to alter her testosterone to be allowed to compete even as Phelps was allowed to compete without restriction.
“Michael Phelps is allowed to keep his body as it is and in fact, he’s celebrated for all of his biological advantages. But Caster Semenya and other women like her are excluded. This extends to transgender women, too. When a trans woman is different, immediately it’s called unfair,” Bailar railed.
“But the reality is there are so many women who might be ‘too tall’ or ‘too strong’ or ‘too fast’ and so this debate is actually not about fairness. The attempt to exclude transgender women means you actually have to know which ones are trans and that endeavor requires that you police the entire women’s category, which means you police all women. The legal forces of policing women’s bodies in sport will destroy the women’s category. Not the inclusion of transgender women,” he concluded.
Tellingly, Bailar does not cite scientific evidence that Phelps’ physical frame gives him any advantages over his male competition. Nor did he bother to note that if he decided to become a woman and compete against actual women, Phelps would destroy every female record in existence. He also did not cite any actual evidence that a male body has no meaningful advantage over a female body where athletics is concerned.
But a recent article published by the Telegraph details the physical advantage of male bodies over female bodies in sports.
A look at the standing world records alone shows the extreme differences between the best records set by men and those set by the world’s top female athletes.
“The world record for the men tends to be about 10 percent faster for pretty much every event from 100 metres up to the marathon,” Dr. Richard Bruce, senior lecturer in cardiorespiratory physiology at King’s College London, told the paper.
The Telegraph added, “The same goes for swimming. In field events, such as long jump and discus, there is about a 20 percent difference and in weightlifting it’s 30 percent.”
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines react after finishing tied for 5th in the 200 Freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18th, 2022, at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Georgia. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The world record numbers alone show how much stronger, faster, and more athletic the male body is compared to the female body.
Dr. Bruce added that men produce all the elements to fuel an athletic performance at higher levels than women. From Haemoglobin levels to testosterone to lung capacity, fat, and muscle composition, the male body is superior in these respects for athletic performance.
“The science is pretty simple on this one: the more muscle mass you have, the more power you can produce. ‘That is a really big deal,’ says Professor Paul Lee, a Harley Street specialist in sports, regenerative and orthopedic surgery. Therefore, combined with height, this multiplies the male advantage,” the paper further explained.
The male and female anatomy are very different where athleticism is measured, even to the exclusion of breasts, which gives men an advantage in developing pectoral muscles. It all tends to show that allowing an athlete born with a male body to compete against female bodies is simply not fair, the paper concluded.
Many agree. The male body’s advantages over the female physique in sports are enough to exclude trans athletes, said Eilish McColgan, the reigning Commonwealth Games 10,000 meters champion. Even a one percent advantage is “too much” as far as McClogan is concerned and makes trans athletes joining women’s sports unfair.
“Hormones aside, what we go through every single month within the menstrual cycle; we are not just reduced-testosterone humans. I think there is a lot more work to be done with regards to finding out, ‘Is there an advantage?’ because, even if it is a one percent advantage, then it is too much,” McClogan told the Telegraph in a separate article.
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