BBC Elite British Sportswomen survey

[JellySlice]

BBC Elite British Sportswomen's Survey results www.bbc.co.uk/sport/53593459

Question 22, "Do you feel rules around transgender athletes are fair in your sport?" The vast majority answered "Don't know".

Question 25, Have you experienced sexism in your sport? A substantial majority answered "Yes".

And question 26, If you have experienced sexism in sport, did you report it? The vast majority answered "No".

Interesting.

[Redshoeblueshoe]

I think I would die of shock if any woman currently participating sports said anything that was not approved by Stonewall.
Thank goodness we have Sharon Davies and Martina Navratilova

[NotBadConsidering]

Would love to see comparison survey results for men, particularly the financial part. Some really interesting results.

17. Is your performance affected by your period or have you ever missed training/competition because of your period?

Yes: 321 (59.8%)

No: 184 (34.3%)

Don't know: 20 (3.7%)

Not applicable: 12 (2.2%)

Take note, males and Caster Semenya .

22. Do you feel rules around transgender athletes are fair in your sport?

Yes: 82 (15.3%)

No: 82 (15.3%)

Don't know: 311 (57.9%)

Not applicable: 62 (11.5%)

Hard to interpret this. Do all these sports actually have rules around transgender athletes? If they don’t, the women will answer “don’t know” because they won’t know what the rules are. If a sport has rules that keep things fair for women then they could answer this question “yes”. Can’t even infer that these women are sitting on the fence, too many sports, too many organisations and too many variables to know what to make of this question.

[JellySlice]

But this is, presumably, anonymous.

They know the sexism is there, and the majority do not state positively that they think the rules around transgender athletes are fair in their sport.

Perhaps they don't know these rules. Perhaps they've never experienced that specific misogyny. Or perhaps they're struggling with cognitive dissonance, being young and tied up in Be Kind...but are aware of what it will do to their sport.

[JellySlice]

Come to think of it, why is that particular question about "your sport "? Several other questions are about "women's sport". As a PP said, maybe their sport has no TW rules that they are aware of, so they cannot answer the question clearly.

[FWRLurker]

Yeah they clearly did not do a design study on this survey, That question is utterly uninterpreble without an additional question asking if their sport allows trans women to participate (yes / no / don’t know).

If they answer yes or no, they get this as a follow up.

Terribly designed. One might think intentionally so if one was cynical.

Fortunately seems most of the women went with the safe don’t know response so their views can’t be twisted. Though next someone is going to interpret this as “only a minority of elite sports women think trans women participation is unfair”.

[NotBadConsidering]

Yes, some questions are odd. The “Not applicable” option, for example.

“Have you experienced racism?”

“N/A”.

In what circumstances would that be anything other than a yes/no answer? And without knowing ethnicity it lacks weight. 20% answered yes. How many of the respondents are black? If every single black or Asian athlete answered “yes” to that question it’s a great deal more significant and shocking (it’s still bad as it is of course). And which sports? Is one sport more racist than another?

It’s just a bit lightweight as it is, need more data.

[merrymouse]

N/a presumably relates to sports that aren’t sex segregated e.g. show jumping, long distance single handed sailing.

[NotBadConsidering]

10 women said that asking about witnessing racism in their sport wasn’t applicable to them. I don’t get it. There’s either incidences of racism in sailing or there isn’t, etc etc.

[AntsInPenzance]

@NotBadConsidering

Would love to see comparison survey results for men, particularly the financial part. Some really interesting results.

17. Is your performance affected by your period or have you ever missed training/competition because of your period?

Yes: 321 (59.8%)

No: 184 (34.3%)

Don't know: 20 (3.7%)

Not applicable: 12 (2.2%)

Take note, males and Caster Semenya .

22. Do you feel rules around transgender athletes are fair in your sport?

Yes: 82 (15.3%)

No: 82 (15.3%)

Don't know: 311 (57.9%)

Not applicable: 62 (11.5%)

Hard to interpret this. Do all these sports actually have rules around transgender athletes? If they don’t, the women will answer “don’t know” because they won’t know what the rules are. If a sport has rules that keep things fair for women then they could answer this question “yes”. Can’t even infer that these women are sitting on the fence, too many sports, too many organisations and too many variables to know what to make of this question.

re your period comment, do you we know that Semenya doesn't have periods?

[SmileTolerantly]

I think that if I were a white yachtswoman asked this question and I’d only ever mixed with white competitors and organisers and none of them had ever made a racist comment in my presence it would be much more reasonable for me to answer N/A rather than say No.

[334bu]

As to Caster Semenya question....According to the article below the answer would be no periods.
antidopingworld.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/caster-semenya-case-womens-athletics-star-is-biological-male/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[merrymouse]

Sorry, I misread and thought n/a only related to question on transgender athletes.

However, because participation in some sports (including sailing) is not very diverse, it’s possible that somebody might feel its better to put N/A than to say that they have or haven’t experienced or witnessed racism.

[ErrolTheDragon]

@SmileTolerantly

I think that if I were a white yachtswoman asked this question and I’d only ever mixed with white competitors and organisers and none of them had ever made a racist comment in my presence it would be much more reasonable for me to answer N/A rather than say No.

It may be that in some sports this applies, and the participants never notice or wonder why there is no racial diversity.

[merrymouse]

X post with smile tolerantly

[merrymouse]

I think most people involved in competitive sport at a high level are aware when their sport lacks diversity, because

1. accessibility affects funding
   
2. they are always looking for the next international star and they want to cast their net more widely.

[NotBadConsidering]

AntsInPenzance

I have read the full Cas report. Caster Semenya has 5 alpha reductase deficiency. Semenya has XY chromosomes, testes, and is lacking an enzyme that enables the proper development of Male external genitalia. Semenya has never and will never have a period. It’s one of the many advantages that males have over females when it comes to sporting training and performance.