From: M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake Date: Sat, 7 May 2022 01:19:42 +0000 (-0700) Subject: Times nonbinary linkpost X-Git-Url: http://534655.efjtl6rk.asia/source?a=commitdiff_plain;h=aa7a64f6bd8fd06f9ad003bd385ec4c84881e392;p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git Times nonbinary linkpost I'm not having a great day, but if I'm drafting something and even publishing something, maybe it's an okay day? Maybe I deserve a reward; maybe I deserve to exist. --- diff --git a/content/2022/link-nonbinary-runners-have-been-here-the-whole-time.md b/content/2022/link-nonbinary-runners-have-been-here-the-whole-time.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..855a96b --- /dev/null +++ b/content/2022/link-nonbinary-runners-have-been-here-the-whole-time.md @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +Title: Link: "Nonbinary Runners Have Been Here the Whole Time" +Date: 2022-05-06 18:25 +Category: commentary +Tags: news, sports + +_The New York Times_ reports on [nonbinary divisions in competitive footraces](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/sports/nonbinary-runners-races.html). ([Archived](https://archive.ph/3dkMt); hat tip [Steve Sailer](https://www.unz.com/isteve/run-of-the-mill-also-ran-finally-wins-a-running-race-just-by-calling-himself-nonbinary/).) + +The piece is impossible to parody, but in a way, the absurdity is—clarifying. I always want to ask trans-inclusion-in-sports people what they think the _point_ of sex-segregation in sports is (as opposed to just having everyone in the same category): if they admit that it's a pragmatic policy to give women a domain to compete in despite the sport-relevant trait distributions of females and males being different, then that at least opens up the _empirical_ debate on whether hormone replacement therapy gets "close enough" for trans women to relevantly count as women. + +But with the nonbinary category, there _is no_ empirical issue to get confused with! It's _pure_ identity narcissism—or, in more detail, it's a _pure_ instance of the way in which sex-related [high-dimensional](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cu7YY7WdgJBs3DpmJ/the-univariate-fallacy) trait clusters get [reified](/2019/Dec/more-schelling/) into [social categories](/2020/Jan/book-review-the-origins-of-unfairness/), resulting in some people learning a desire to escape their reified social category even in situations where sex actually is the decision-relevant trait, resulting in other people who are frustrated by being socially punished for pointing out that sex is sometimes a decision-relevant trait disparagingly accusing those people of "identity narcissism".