There’s a reason why Rationality Rules keeps referencing EssenceOfThought; on YouTube, they‘re by far his highest-profile critic, and have done the most comprehensive critique. Other YouTubers haven’t been silent, though, and today I’d like to highlight one of them. Rhetoric&Discourse do an excellent job of summing up one specific example of dishonest behavior. I’ll only quote their conclusion here:

[11:18] Stephen comes to this conclusion in the same way that he did the last time: comparing cis men to cis women, and by ignoring the actual literature that compares trans women to cis women. To make matters worse, Stephen lies about the content of the studies in order to push his anti-trans agenda. Stephen claimed that he understood what his biggest mistake was – comparing cis men to cis women, and concluding that this comparison applied to trans women who had undergone HRT – but this new video only shows that he either didn’t understand or he cares more about bashing on trans individuals than he cares about intellectual honesty.

Ouch. Go and watch the video to get the full argument. In the meantime, I’ll point out that out of RR’s nearly forty sources used for his latest video, only two were scientific studies of transgender athletes, and only one of those actually evaluated their performance!

Gooren, Lj, and Mc Bunck. “Transsexuals and Competitive Sports.” European Journal of Endocrinology, October 1, 2004, 425–29. https://doi.org/10.1530/eje.0.1510425.

Harper, J. “Race Times for Transgender Athletes.” Journal of Sporting Cultures and Identities 6, no. 1 (2015): 1–9.

Their conclusions?

The pivotal question is this: can reassigned transsexuals compete fairly with others of their new sex? Our data are limited and do not provide insight into all pertinent aspects. In competitive sports, in all likelihood, small differences may be critical for winning or losing. Our analysis is not refined enough to detect these small differences, allowing only an approximation. As far as our data allow conclusions, the answer for F –M is probably yes, provided the administration of testosterone has not generated and does not generate supraphysiological testosterone levels, as these levels and exercise induce a surplus in muscle mass over exercise alone (…). For M –F, there is an element of arbitrariness. There is no conclusive evidence pro or con that the prenatal/perinatal testosterone exposure of men has an impact on future physical traits. […] In real life, there will always be an element of arbitrariness in the drawing of competitive lines. Different individuals are born with and develop postnatally different potentials. The caprices of genetics and postnatal development will make any form of competition intrinsically unfair at some level. In the studies of Bhasin and colleagues (…), changes in muscle size correlated with testosterone dose and concentration. These correlations were established in groups of men receiving graded doses of testosterone. Nevertheless, there was considerable heterogeneity in response to testosterone administration within each group of men receiving the same amount of testosterone. These individual differences in response to androgen administration might reflect differences in activity level, testosterone metabolism and nutrition, or polymorphisms in androgen receptor, myostatin, 5a-reductase or other muscle growth regulators, all genetically determined and inherently personal. The implication is that all men and women are not born equally endowed for competition in sports.

(Gooren 2004)

Despite the fact that transgender women have been allowed to compete against cisgender ones since 2004, there has been no study used to justify this decision beyond the original work of Gooren and Bunck. It bears repeating that this original study was not undertaken on athletes, nor did it directly measure any aspect of athleticism. In fact, this is the first time a study has been developed to measure the performance of transgender athletes. […]

The author chose to use the standard age-grading methodology which is commonly used in master’s (over forty) track meets worldwide, to evaluate the performance of eight distance runners who had undergone gender transition from male to female. As a group, the eight study participants had remarkably similar age grade scores in both male and female gender, making it possible to state that transgender women run distance races at approximately the same level, for their respective gender, both before and after gender transition.

It should be noted that this conclusion only applies to distance running and the author makes no claims as to the equality of performances, pre and post gender transition, in any other sport. As such, the study cannot, unequivocally, state that it is fair to allow to transgender women to compete against 46,XX women in all sports, although the study does make a powerful statement in favor of such a position.

(Harper 2015)

Compare this with what Rationality Rules concludes.

[19:07] In some events – such as long-distance running, in which hemoglobin and slow-twitch muscle fibers are vital – I think there’s a strong argument to say no, [transgender women who transitioned after puberty] don’t have an unfair advantage, as the primary attributes are sufficiently mitigated. But in most events, and especially those in which height, width, hip size, limb length, muscle mass, and muscle fiber type are the primary attributes – such as weightlifting, sprinting, hammer throw, javelin, netball, boxing, karate, basketball, rugby, judo, rowing, hockey, and many more – my answer is yes, most do have an unfair advantage. There are exceptions, of course, just as there are exceptions to everything, but far more often than not their TUE in such events does not bring them down to anywhere near the 100% mark. […]

[20:09] I am opposed [to these athlete’s inclusion] because the attributes which are granted from male puberty that play a vital role in some events have not been shown to be sufficiently mitigated by HRT.

I dunno about you, but I find it comforting that the only way you can justify excluding transgender athletes is to misrepresent the relevant science.