I helped bring some holiday cheer to the Internet with the research paper I co-authored demonstrating that sex differences in sports performance persist regardless of gender self-identification. “Obvious” was probably the most used word in tweets and headlines related to our study, closely followed by “duh” on X. 

With the festive mirth behind us, it’s time for a serious look at the why and so what of our work.

Briefly — for those who had other, better things to do the week before Christmas — our study compared the performances of the males and females in the non-binary category at distance running races with the males and females in the men’s and women’s categories, respectively. We found that males who identify as non-binary are faster than females who identify as non-binary, just as the males in the men’s category are faster than the females in the women’s. (READ MORE from George M.J. Perry: USA Cycling Attempts to Justify Men Racing Against Women)

Obvious. Duh. Right?

Then we have to ask why private corporations, sports’ governing bodies, and governments are implementing policies that contravene the “obvious” finding of our study. Either the primacy of sex over gender in athletic performance is not sufficiently obvious to the necessary number of people, or saying “But it’s obvious!” is not enough to counter the emotion, sophistry, confusion, institutional heft, academic literature, and implied threats of gender activists.  

People outside of the sports industry — particularly endurance sports — may not know the extent of the capture, through which gender activism has successfully displaced sex in favor of gender.

Each year, 15-20 million Americans participate in road running races: 5Ks, marathons, and every distance in between. Over 10,000 races are currently listed on RunSignup, a participant management platform for road races. RunSignup lets you search for races by location, the distance of the race, date range, and whether the race “Supports Non-Binary.” Toggling that last feature reveals that over 3,000 road races — about one-third of their industry leading listings — have a non-binary category.

These races are taking their cues from the top. Our study used the results of races produced by New York Road Runners (NYRR), a New York City non-profit with annual revenue of over $100,000,000. The title sponsors of their races include Tata Consultancy Services, United Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, Abbott Laboratories and Royal Bank of Canada. NYRR launched their gender inclusion initiative in 2018, added the non-binary category in 2021, and began offering equal prize money for the men’s, women’s and non-binary categories in 2022. 

NYRR’s size and history position them as the model running organization in the US. They’ve prepared planning guidance for other groups to “implement a similar policy at your race organization,” with the point of contact being an activist consultant who first approached NYRR about a non-binary category in 2013. (READ MORE: The Non-Binary Athletic Category Hurts Female Athletes)

Similarly, the trade organization for road running races, Running USA, partnered with The Equality Institute to produce a “Transgender and Nonbinary Inclusion Policy Template,” which they direct “should be used with no customization.” 

This template takes the unprecedented step of letting gender self-id provide immunity for doping. The policy framework permits races to excuse a positive test for performance enhancing drugs if the athlete in question demonstrates “a legitimate medical use … in connection with [their] medically supervised hormone treatment for gender transition.” This policy conflicts with national and global anti-doping protocols. Perhaps not for long, though. In October 2023, the United States Anti-Doping Agency granted the first ever waiver for a female athlete to take testosterone without sanction, because it was part of her “gender affirming care.”

If anyone should know and understand the “obvious” differences between males and females, it’s the people working in the sports industry. These policies are the result of either capture or capitulation at two of the most influential endurance sport organizations, and at the Congressionally recognized agency that oversees the intersection of physiology and integrity in sport.

It’s tempting to decry the decision makers at these organizations as weak or woke for not standing their ground on the grounds of “it’s obvious.” 

But perhaps they spent long hours looking for any reputable authoritative support. Upon reading Scientific American or the American Anthropological Association, for example, they may have been reluctantly persuaded to disbelieve the evidence of their senses — or to surrender a futile fight. 

For all we know, these decision makers demanded academic studies from the gender activists, who promptly produced Joanna Harper’s 2015 study in the Journal of Sporting Cultures and Identities. This paper deployed cherry picked self-reports by transgender athletes to conclude that testosterone suppression eliminates the male advantage in sports. As far as science goes, this is as far from science as one could go. But it persuaded the International Olympic Committee to revise their guidelines, permitting males in women’s events at the Olympic Games. 

And if this wasn’t sufficient, the well prepared activists may have produced the literature review published by the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport (CCES), a governing body with authority to “address unethical behaviours and promote a values-based approach to sport.” CCES commissioned the report — which does not name any of its authors — from E-Alliance, “the research engine which propels gender equity in sport in Canada forward.” (READ MORE: Transgenderism Goes to the Olympics)

Or maybe the decision makers know someone who was fired and cancelled as part of the leadership coup at NYRR in 2020. A disgruntled former employee led a woke cancellation mob, whose grievances included “[s]taff have been working on a policy for transathlete inclusion for three years that has not changed much in that time but has continuously been pushed down, particularly by a leader in PR.”

“Capture” has become such a familiar term that we no longer use its original modifier: ideological. That adjective is both implied and superfluous. We don’t worry about empirical capture or evidentiary capture, nor even philosophical capture. If the word “capture” even applies to those ways of thinking, we don’t notice them because we expect and welcome them. The issue only arises with “ideological thinking[, which] is contemptuous of the empirical realm.”

Debaters learn that the goal of a debate is not to change your opponent’s mind, but your audience’s minds. 

The value of quantitative research proving the obvious about sex differences in sports is not that it might sway the gender ideologues. It won’t. 

The value is shielding and strengthening the people at sports organizations — perhaps a silent majority — who want to do the right thing against seemingly unstoppable momentum and unbearable pressure. It probably won’t be enough, but it’s a better alternative to “but it’s obvious” and far preferable to “Well, we didn’t know.”