Popular science booster Neil deGrasse Tyson has been going all-in for male-born athletes competing against women. In a recent podcast appearance, he became furious over those who question transgenderism in women’s sports. He finished the appearance by raising his voice and calling those who oppose his position “completely ridiculous.”
Tyson has been standing in support of transgenderism for quite some time and sides with those who imagine that just altering hormone and testosterone levels can make it “fair” for a male body to compete against natural-born women, quite despite the reality that male bodies have a long list of physical advantages in sports that cannot be altered by chemical means. And he again espoused that view during his appearance on TRIGGERnometry, a Youtube show hosted by British satirist Konstantin Kisin.
Tyson’s unique and very unscientific view is that because women wear makeup, that somehow proves that we constantly alter our “gender spectrum.”
The astrophysicist delivered his feelings-based explanation of this supposed “spectrum” last year in a debate with science writer and podcaster Michael Shermer.
“The XX, XY chromosomes are insufficient,” Tyson exclaimed in 2022, “because when we wake up in the morning, we exaggerate whatever feature we want to portray the gender of our choice. Suppose no matter my chromosomes today, I feel 80% female, 20% male. Now I’m going to I’m going to put on makeup. Tomorrow. I might feel 80% male; I’ll remove the makeup, and I’ll wear a muscle shirt… What business is it of yours to require that I fulfill your inability to think of gender on a spectrum.”
He also insisted that in 100 years, humanity will find this debate we are having today to be “weird.”
“It is a little weird that we split people by male and female in this way. I’m imagining a hundred years from now looking back and saying, ‘Do you know back 100 years ago, they split boys and girls, and they couldn’t compete?’ And … that’d just be kind of a little weird,” he said.
These are the statements that Kisin was referring to when he confronted Tyson over his support for transgender athletes being allowed to play against women.
Tyson insisted that the issue of transgenders in women’s sports is a “solvable problem” and one that can be addressed so that “inclusion” can be achieved.
“What the trans conversation is foisting upon us is the need to find ways to slice the athletic universe such that we still have interesting, fair matches,” Tyson said. “And is it a combination of did you go through puberty as a male and then transition? Did you have puberty blockers? What is your hormone level now… if you want to compete?”
“So it requires more creative thought rather than saying no to at all,” he added. “It’s an unsolved problem. Yes, but it’s not unsolvable, given what we know about human physiology. So why not rise to that occasion and solve it rather than take your older view of the world and force modern emergent conduct of people to fit that?”
But Kisin and his co-host raised the issue that males have an unfair advantage physically over women. Tyson disagreed and said hormones can be altered to erase that advantage. Kisin, though, found Tyson’s idea a bit hard to accept.
“Well, hold on a second. The difference is the difference is physiologically between men and women is not just hormonal. Women have a different hip angle. They have different heart capacities. They have different lung capacity. I mean, there are profound physiological differences, different bone density,” Kisin retorted.
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas accepts the winning trophy for the 500 Freestyle finals as second place finisher Emma Weyant and third place finisher Erica Sullivan watch during the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 17th, 2022, at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Georgia. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Tyson then offered the idea of weight classifications to further “slice the population” to make things fair, adding, “So, for example, I wrestled in my life. I was captain of my high school wrestling team. It would be unfair for me at 190 pounds, which is what I was back then, to wrestle someone 120 pounds.”
Kisin was still not convinced.
“Hold on. It would actually be unfair for you to wrestle a woman who is also 190 pounds,” Kisin countered. “But there are women whose opportunities are being curtailed today because they are being forced to compete, whether in sports or elsewhere, against people who have some kind of advantage.”
“We’re in a transitional period. So we have to figure that out. But the way to figure out things that require solutions to progressive change is not to regress it to how things once were. If that were the case, I would still be drinking from a segregated water fountain,” Tyson replied, throwing the race card.
Kisin’s co-host was also unconvinced and said, “I think a lot of people would have an issue with what you’re saying now because they see women being denied opportunities, they see an unfair playing field, metaphorically and literally speaking.”
This sent Tyson into a tirade.
“So fix the playing field, damn it!” he yelled. “Well, don’t say it’s an unfair playing field, so all of a sudden, the big issue is trans women taking the slot of a woman in an unfair playing field. Fix the playing field! And you know something? The day you fix that playing field, this conversation will look completely ridiculous. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
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