Hm, that source makes some rather dubious statements, imo:
THE CLAIM: Gender-affirming surgeries are using a lot of health-care resources.
FACT CHECK: Gender-affirming surgeries represent a tiny proportion of the total number of surgeries performed in B.C. each year. [¶9-10]
This is a bit misleading as John was providing an example that spinal surgeons get less allotted time to do spinal surgeries than what is allotted for gender affirming surgeries:
“A doctor I was talking to just last week, he is a specialist in spinal injuries and neck injuries — a specialist surgeon. He gets two days every two months at the facility he’s working at. That’s it — that’s all the time that has been allocated,” Rustad said.
“One of his colleagues gets 12 days a month for doing gender-affirming surgeries. We can do better folks. We can figure out how to make sure that our professionals have the ability to go and provide the services that we need in British Columbia.” [¶6-7]
Now, of course, John’s claim is also flawed, as just because one doctor has less time for one specific treatment than another doctor for another treatment doesn’t mean that the latter’s treatment is being favored more than the former’s. There’s no proof in this example that the spinal surgeon is sitting idle when not doing spinal surgeries, or that they are being offset by the gender affirming surgeries. That being said, for clarity, this is not a statement that one should be favored over the other, I’m simply speaking objectively based on the claims.
THE CLAIM: Sexual orientation and gender identity policies in schools violate “parents’ rights” and indoctrinate children.
FACT CHECK: SOGI policies are intended to protect children and youth from bullying. [¶20-21]
This fact check is a strawman — it doesn’t address the original claim.
THE CLAIM: To keep sports fair, transgender athletes must be excluded from women’s sports.
FACT CHECK: There is no sure way to test women’s bodies to ensure they are female, and experts note that at most levels there are no competitive or safety reasons not to allow all participants. [¶33-34]
First, regarding
There is no sure way to test women’s bodies to ensure they are female
This should also be taken with the following excerpt:
At the highest levels of sports, there is a long history of attempts to verify that women athletes are female, from visual inspections to gynecological exams to testing of chromosomes and sex hormone levels.
But these testing methods have always run up against the same problem: human bodies don’t always conform to binary sex markers. [¶38-39]
When the fact check is taken with this second bit, it is technically true (in that there may not be a reliable way to universally establish the competitive fairness between two people), but both John and the fact checker are somewhat missing the mark for the issue of strength/performance differences between groups of people that put competitors at an unfair disadvantage. Fist, the exact linguistic definition of the term “female”/“women”/etc. is very important here, second it’s crucial to look at, and define, the exact traits that make competition unfair in the respective competition, and, to that end, what extent “fairness” is to be achieved. It’s a complicated issue, and rather philosophically driven, and is often subject to borderline disingenuous levels of reductionism.
Second, looking at
experts note that at most levels there are no competitive or safety reasons not to allow all participants.
The article doesn’t appear to cite anything for this claim. I would certainly like to know more about why they are stating that as logic would dictate that if you have one person who is substantially stronger than another person, then the weaker person would be at a disadvantage if the competition in question favors strength.
Hm, that source makes some rather dubious statements, imo:
This is a bit misleading as John was providing an example that spinal surgeons get less allotted time to do spinal surgeries than what is allotted for gender affirming surgeries:
Now, of course, John’s claim is also flawed, as just because one doctor has less time for one specific treatment than another doctor for another treatment doesn’t mean that the latter’s treatment is being favored more than the former’s. There’s no proof in this example that the spinal surgeon is sitting idle when not doing spinal surgeries, or that they are being offset by the gender affirming surgeries. That being said, for clarity, this is not a statement that one should be favored over the other, I’m simply speaking objectively based on the claims.
This fact check is a strawman — it doesn’t address the original claim.
First, regarding
This should also be taken with the following excerpt:
When the fact check is taken with this second bit, it is technically true (in that there may not be a reliable way to universally establish the competitive fairness between two people), but both John and the fact checker are somewhat missing the mark for the issue of strength/performance differences between groups of people that put competitors at an unfair disadvantage. Fist, the exact linguistic definition of the term “female”/“women”/etc. is very important here, second it’s crucial to look at, and define, the exact traits that make competition unfair in the respective competition, and, to that end, what extent “fairness” is to be achieved. It’s a complicated issue, and rather philosophically driven, and is often subject to borderline disingenuous levels of reductionism.
Second, looking at
The article doesn’t appear to cite anything for this claim. I would certainly like to know more about why they are stating that as logic would dictate that if you have one person who is substantially stronger than another person, then the weaker person would be at a disadvantage if the competition in question favors strength.