CeCe Telfer The Latest M2F Transsexual To Whup College Women

Is there a dumber argument in favor of trans women competing against biological women than “doesn’t win every time”? Outsports seems determined to die on that hill, which is getting harder and harder for the heavily politicized trans lobby to justify to the broader public. Let’s Run has a good summary of the situation pre-transition:

Prior to joining the women’s team this season, Telfer was a mediocre DII athlete who never came close to making it to nationals in the men’s category. In 2016 and 2017, Telfer ranked 200th and 390th, respectively, among DII men in the 400 hurdles (Telfer didn’t run outdoor track in 2018 as either a man or woman). Now she’s the national champion in the event simply because she switched her gender (Telfer’s coach told us that even though she competed on the men’s team her first three years, her gender fluidity was present from her freshman year).

The fact that Telfer can change her gender and immediately become a national champion is proof positive as to why women’s sports needs protection. Telfer ran slightly faster in the 400 hurdles competing as a man (57.34) than as a woman (57.53), even though the men’s hurdles are six inches taller than the women’s hurdles. Yet when Telfer ran 57.34 as a man, she didn’t even score at her conference meet — she was just 10th at the Northeast-10 Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2016. Now she’s the national champion.

The shabby, data-free arguments used to justify M2F trans inclusion in sports are unraveling before our eyes, in a sort of open-air experiment being performed before the whole public.

JayCee Cooper And Media Stenography, Deadspin Edition

More trash from Deadspin. Jesse Singal:

"When it came to physical attributes there was complete overlap between the men and women analyzed, McKinnon pointed out."

I meeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaan okay but. pic.twitter.com/rC25Goq20y

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) May 9, 2019

The Univariate Fallacy, Caster Semenya, and Testosterone

Colin Wright continues his excellent string of explainers, this time on the Univariate Fallacy:

1/ The modern far Left has a political agenda to destroy/deconstruct biological realities under the guise of Social Justice. A common way they go about this is by dishonestly applying univariate statistics to multivariate problems. This is called the Univariate Fallacy.

Thread. pic.twitter.com/xi1n4Xkn3s

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) May 3, 2019

2/ This fallacy, when deployed, is commonly done using a single sentence buried within an article or essay couched around a broader narrative on the history of a particular type of oppression, such as sexism. Let me give you some recent examples of this fallacy in action.

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) May 3, 2019

He goes on to talk about several different pieces deploying this fallacy — which he later describes as

Realized I never really provided a simple definition of the Univariate Fallacy. Oops, sorry!

But basically it is this:

The claim that if there is no single, defining trait that can be used to separate two or more categories, then those categories do not exist.

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) May 3, 2019

One of his examples is a New York Times editorial claiming that "The Myth of Testosterone" is what fuels Caster Semenya's run (and the athletic superiority of men over women more generally):

Testosterone’s “authorized” biography, with its pat story about how it fuels male-typical athletic performance, is a powerful distraction from the hormone itself, occluding its fascinating, diverse and contingent actions within the body. Testosterone doesn’t drive a single path to athletic performance, nor even a small set of processes that can be linearly traced from more testosterone to more ability.

The idea that testosterone is the miracle molecule of athleticism, and, accordingly, that people with higher levels would obviously perform better, combines several beliefs: that “athleticism” is a kind of master trait that describes similar characteristics in different athletes, that “athletic performance” across different sports generally requires the same core skills or capacities, and that testosterone has a potent effect on all of them.

But that’s simply not true. The problem with trying to flatten athleticism into a single dimension is illustrated especially well by a 2004 study published in The Journal of Sports Sciences. The study analyzed testosterone and different types of strength among men who were elite amateur weight lifters and cyclists or physically fit non-athletes. Weight lifters had higher testosterone than cyclists and showed more explosive strength. But the cyclists, who had lower testosterone than both other groups, scored much higher than the others on “maximal workload,” an endurance type of strength. Across the three groups, there was no relationship between testosterone and explosive strength, and a negative relationship between testosterone and maximal workload. Though small, that study isn’t an outlier: Similar complex patterns of mixed, positive and negative relationships with testosterone are found throughout the literature, involving a wide range of sports.

In other words, the authors lard their argument with a straw man that ignores the main point — testosterone drives male puberty, which increases muscle mass, bone density and size, and a host of other side effects beneficial to athletic achievement. They also conveniently omit the fact that Caster Semenya is genetically male, despite being phenotypically female:

1) Caster Semenya Has XY Chromosomes

It’s absolutely mind-boggling that virtually every major outlet in the world reporting the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling yesterday has failed to mention one of the most important facts of the entire case. Caster Semenya has XY chromosomes. It was generally accepted by people following the case closely that Semenya was XY, but now it’s been confirmed as fact since the CAS press release specifically says, “The DSD covered by the Regulations are limited to athletes with ’46 XY DSD’ – i.e. conditions where the affected individual has XY chromosomes.” If she wasn’t XY, the IAAF’s regulations wouldn’t apply to her and she’d have no reason to challenge them.

(In case you forgot what you learned in junior high biology, typically females have XX chromosomes while males are XY).

How the Associated Press, Reuters, NY Times, NPR, Washington Post, and BBC could all leave this CRUCIAL fact out of their reporting is beyond me. Not a single one of them mentioned it at all. It should have been in the lead paragraph of every story so people like my mother, who sent me a confused email after she saw an article on Semenya, can really understand what this is all about. Instead, the closest we get to the truth was that some of the articles talked about how Semenya has intersex “traits” or “characteristics.” Let’s be real, if you are an XY woman, you are the very definition of what virtually everyone would think of as intersex.

The woke academy has taken over science discussion.

Warren Buffett Refuses The Diversity Kool-Ade

Warren Buffett is not one of my favorite people, mainly because of his love of higher taxes. Nonetheless, this is refreshing (emboldening mine):

“We are not going to tie up resources doing things just because it is the standard procedure in corporate America,” Mr. Buffett said.

Mr. Munger added: “When it comes to so-called best corporate practices, I think the people that talk about them don’t really know what the best practices are. They determine that on what will sell, not what will work.” He added: “I like our way of doing things better than theirs and I hope to God we never follow their best practices.”

In its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire explicitly states that it does not consider diversity when hiring board members: “Berkshire does not have a policy regarding the consideration of diversity in identifying nominees for director. In identifying director nominees, the Governance Committee does not seek diversity, however defined. Instead, as previously discussed, the Governance Committee looks for individuals who have very high integrity, business-savvy, an owner-oriented attitude and a deep genuine interest in the company.”

Mr. Buffett made a persuasive argument that the obsession among corporate governance experts with appointing so-called independent directors to company boards was one of the great hoaxes perpetrated on public investors.

“The independent directors in many cases are the least independent,” Mr. Buffett said. He explained that many independent directors need the money that comes with being a director, usually an annual fee of about $250,000. “They aren’t going to upset the apple cart,” he said, explaining that these independent directors get put on the compensation committee because they can be controlled.

“How in the world is that independent?” Mr. Buffett exclaimed. “You don’t get invited to be on your boards if you belch too often at the dinner table.”

This obvious point needs to be made again and again, apparently: Silicon Valley, which is rife with this kind of garbage thinking, is also increasingly a political and corporate echo chamber.

The Case Of JayCee Cooper And The Media's Trans Activist Stenography

It is hard, truly hard, to think of a dumber piece about athletic sanctioning bodies permitting M2F transsexuals to compete against biological women, yet here is NBC parroting the trans activist party line. "It’s not fair to genetically eliminate an entire group of people," said JayCee Cooper, whom Powerlifting USA banned from female competition. @SwipeRight put together an excellent thread response on Twitter, the key parts of which are these two tweets:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to support them. Trans activists make the following extraordinary claim: reducing testosterone levels for 1 year totally eliminates the advantages bestowed upon males by virtue of going through male puberty.

7/21

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) April 29, 2019

But when asked for the extraordinary evidence necessary to support this claim nothing is provided. Meanwhile, we have every reason in the world to suspect an advantage persists, b/c reducing T levels for 1 year does not reverse most traits relevant to athletic performance.

8/21

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) April 29, 2019

Transgender activists thus employ ignorance at the heart of their arguments, disguising the lack of actual data on M2F transgender athletic performance as a justification for permitting such individuals to compete with women. The poor quality of the data is a feature, not a bug, as made very clear by Dr. Antonia Lee in Medium, who chides the IOC for using politically-motivated, low-power studies that aren't even well-constructed.

 I’ve written about the methodological flaws in the work of IOC consensus meeting participant, Joanna Harper before (5). Let me be as clear as possible: if you decide to do an observational study, you need to follow the appropriate, recognised and demanding observational study guidelines (6). Failing to do so means that, “any claim coming from an observational study is likely to be wrong” (7). I have nothing against Harper personally; my point is that she is neither an epidemiologist nor a sports scientist and simply doesn’t seem to know how to carry out meaningful health or sports science research.

But you would learn none of this from reading the NBC News story, which frames the whole matter as one of "inclusion", with opponents unfairly "dehumanizing" M2F transsexuals. Despite the spin, USA Powerlifting's position paper is clear — and fair, to biological women:

Through analysis the impact of maturation in the presence naturally occurring androgens as the level necessary for male development, significant advantages are had, including but not limited to increased body and muscle mass, bone density, bone structure, and connective tissue.  These advantages are not eliminated by reduction of serum androgens such as testosterone yielding a potential advantage in strength sports such as powerlifting.

The IOC (and the International Powerlifting Federation) have not endorsed M2F powerlifters, surprisingly, and the current rules permit individual sports the option at their discretion to include transsexual women. Hopefully, other sports will expand exclusions in the name of fairness to biological women.

The Dumb Conservative Response To Student Loan Forgiveness — And The Smart One

Elizabeth Warren’s weak showing in the polls, lackluster fundraising, and late resignation of her campaign finance director make it obvious she’s got questionable staying power in the 2020 field. So, in an effort to remain relevant, she’s pitching mass student loan forgiveness. This is an appallingly dumb idea, mainly due to moral hazard:

• What’s to prevent someone from borrowing the covered amount going forward, regardless of whether they need it, and then sticking Uncle Sucker with the bill?
• What’s to keep institutions from further raising prices knowing they get paid up to the forgiveness limit?
• Why should the public pay for an increasingly uneconomic service when the providers have zero incentive to economize and reduce fees?
• What about debt contracted for private institutions? Won’t there be tremendous pressure to pay those debts off, too (regardless of the socioeconomic status of the families attending them)?

Unfortunately, Philip Klein’s response in the Washington Examiner is not just wrong-headed, but politically naive. His argument can be summarized as, you bought it with borrowed money, you pay it back. I’m in favor of enforcing the sanctity of contracted debt. I further agree with him that debt forgiveness as Warren outlined is a public financing catastrophe. But this response is bad as a matter of both moral clarity and practical politics.

1. The creep of mandatory college degrees even for relatively low-level employment kneecaps the  idea that somehow, people should just suck it up and pay. This needs to change, and perhaps there are signs that it is, but if a degree is a prerequisite to having a career, this is very thin gruel.
2. Universities are owned and operated by Democrats. This is a rare opportunity for Republicans to make the point that Democrats do not care about the people they supposedly serve. The growth of the administrative state inside universities has been fueled by easy college loans. This same bureaucracy administers unjust Title IX star chambers. Their salaries drive endless tuition hikes. Their annual tuition hikes make college unaffordable, and shackle young people with appalling levels of debt, preventing them from buying homes and starting families (in part).
3. Hacking away at the administrative state means clearing entrenched political opponents. As I’ve pointed out before, a rationalization of tuition costs will necessarily mean a reduction in certain majors. Grievance Studies majors will almost certainly be on that short list.

The better response — one which expands on my idea of bankruptcy as a means for fixing the college debt crisis — comes from Kevin Williamson in National Review. His approach, basically, is even more draconian: get rid of college loans altogether.

Here is a three-part plan for something practical the federal government could do to relieve college-loan debt. Step 1: The federal government should stop making college loans itself and cease guaranteeing any such loans. Step 2: It should prohibit educational lending by federally regulated financial institutions or, if that seems too heavy-handed, require the application of ordinary credit standards in any private educational lending, treating the student himself as the main credit risk in all cases, including those of secured or unsecured loans taken out by parents or other third parties for that student’s educational expenses. And 3: It should make student-loan debt dischargeable in ordinary bankruptcy procedures.

This is, of course, sure to meet with howls of protest from the universities, who see the gravy train screeching to a halt. Well, good. It’s about time.

Doximity Physician Pay Survey Raises More Questions Than It Answers

I recently got into it on Twitter with Leah Houston, M.D. regarding physician pay scales, and an alleged gender pay gap:

Serious question: what do you think of the looming physician-hours crisis? It seems to me this comes in (at least) two dimensions:

1) Insane levels of “paperwork”.
2) The feminization of the field. As of last year, a majority of incoming med school students were women. >

— Rob McMillin (@scareduck) April 11, 2019

Then, this:

Seriously? A “pay gap” that compares aggregate wages of male versus female doctors that fails to control for hours worked, continuity of employment, and specialization? For shame. This has been multiply debunked in the broad economy. No reason to think doctors are any different.

— Rob McMillin (@scareduck) April 11, 2019

(I was wrong about the control for hours, but see below.) The principal argument here comes from the 2019 Doximity physician pay report (PDF), but when you skip down to their methodology (p. 16), you see this:

Doximity’s study is drawn from self-reported compensation surveys completed by approximately 90,000 full-time, licensed U.S. physicians who practice at least 40 hours per week. Responses were mapped across metropolitan statistical areas, and the top 50 were ranked by the number of respondents in the data.

To control for differences in specialty, geography, and other provider-specific factors that might influence spending, we estimated a multivariate regression with fixed effects for provider specialty and MSA. We also controlled for how long each provider has practiced medicine and their self-reported average hours worked per week. This regression was estimated using a generalized linear model with a log link and gamma distribution. For the geographic and specialty rankings, we used the predicted values from this regression.

So, some questions:

1. Why does this not take into consideration interruptions in service years? Or, does "how long each provider has practiced medicine" refer to actual service time (opposite time since receiving certification)?
2. Was sex used for the multivariate analysis? If not, why not?
3. Why are self-reported hours not mentioned in the results? Considering the fracas of Relative Value Units, this would be valuable to know.
4. How many hours does an average male full-time physician work? How many for females?
5. When you say you queried "approximately 90,000 full-time, licensed U.S. physicians who practice at least 40 hours per week", is that physician-patient face time, or overall compensated time?

Overall, it does not seem to me that this looks closely enough at the data (and likely, does not ask the right questions) to arrive at any substantive conclusions as to whether there is a gender pay gap for physicians, even in the same specialty and market.