On a recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, Neil deGrasse Tyson sparred with Piers Morgan about including trans athletes in women’s sports.
“What I see is sports is on the frontier of how to handle this frontier of people who are trans,” Tyson said.” “It’s on the frontier of how to resolve that. And I’m making this up now: imagine the future of sports does not distinguish sex; it distinguishes and sorts people by hormone ratios.”
Tyson continued, “I’m making this up, but imagine if that were the case. That would be interesting. You get a hormone test, you’re in this range, and then you compete against other people with the same range.”
Having none of it, Morgan shot back: “That’s ridiculous. Neil, that is ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not! I’ll tell you why it’s not,” Tyson responded.
Morgan sought to clarify why Tyson’s idea was ridiculous.
“I say this respectfully because I love you, but it just seems to me like you’ve dug yourself into a slight hole on this issue, and you’re trying to get out of it,” Morgan said. “And now you’re suggesting slightly mad cat theories, whereas the science, to me, is obvious. You’ve already given the best argument I’ve heard for why we separate the sexes.”
Tyson clarified that he believes men are, on average, bigger, faster, and stronger than women.
“Across the board, that is the case,” Tyson said. “There is no dispute there. That is just objective truth.”
Tyson continued, “Now we have to ask: Why do we watch sports at all?” We like the equality of the contest and not knowing who would win. That’s what makes sports fun.”
“If there’s a wave of trans women who dominate the sport against other women, all those sports will become less interesting based on how we all watch sports.”
