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With caster it’s impossible to unpack without looking at it as racism, I can’t find a piece which links this into the wider discourse of how anti trans feminism and anti black feminism go hand in hand, but I think if you’re familiar with both you can piece them together
McKinnon is more clear cut, but interwoven none the less, I haven’t found a piece of writing which I think captures it, but here’s something I wrote a while back which also doesn’t but is my thoughts on anti black and anti trans discourse similarities in sports from a trans perspective (very broad stroke):
if we take this and then apply it to the other side of the coin, like phillipa york, who self admittedly again, says she could not possibly be "out" and a cyclist, she couldn't even be "privately out" because she feared for her growth in the sport we can say cycling is transphobic,
Rachel Mckinon is the US national champ in senior track cycling, regularly she is accused by competitors, fans and media "for cheating" as she "has an unfair advantage", this is not 20 years ago, this is what phillipa york was scared of however, we can say even now, professional cycling is transphobic, blanketly. if it wasn't any fan, press, competitor would be banned for even suggesting it, there is no discussion here, there is no "two sides", rachel mckinon is a woman, and is competing as such. A trans woman takes hormones to feel her self, which actively reduce their testosterone advantage, within 6 months, and there are rules in place to request this in professional sports already, so the natural extension is “yea but they still have the biological advantage”
people may say "she's destroying the field through a natural advantage", micheal phelps, was noted in his medical files to have an obscenely high lactic threshold, abnormal, inhuman, yet he was celebrated, not once was his manhood questioned, not once was his utter destruction of the field seen as tarring the sport, at least in a meaningful way, yet caster semenya? she cannot compete unless she takes hormone blockers in track running even tho she was born and is a woman.
this again only focuses on the very high echelons of sport, it doesn't focus on the transwomen who lose day in day out because they only got into sports post transition, where they felt safe and happy too, where others started from when they could walk, transwomen started from their mid 30's, suddenly trans women are not an issue here, we don’t hear the names of transwomen who lose. and it should be noticed transwomen are not saying this is a problem either, they just want to compete in a field they feel accepts them and they feel mirrors them, win or lose, it's their passion.
trans teen wrestler, mack begs, a man routinely won the womens texas state wrestling champs why? because he was FTM and the sport did not permiss him to compete with the men, as such he proceeded to win everything in the womens division, funnily, nothing noted here with him having a testosterone based growth advantage (which he needs to feel himself)
these examples show that the individualised models lead to conflicting narratives, meant to support the dominant powers of racism, transphobia, anti blackness, and sexism within sports, the individualised and attomised nature allows the rules to be drawn where they suit the public mood, not the sport or the competitors.
they're not consistent, they're not meaningful, especially when all people affected by these meandering morals is fair and equal opportunity to do what they love.
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Maj
Are you able to point me toward any balanced pieces on the balance of Semynea and Mckinnon?