Stats on why we have women and men sports?

rat what do you want out of this? Nothing we are proposing seems to be working for you. You've mentioned the "status quo" recently, which appears to be categorise athletes on the basis of gender ID. So you think it's ok for people like Laurel Hubbard and Fallon Fox to compete against women? Despite the increased safety risk to those women in contact sports?

goodbye moral compass, you're bad for women!
If it's a moral compass that thinks women boxers should be in the ring with a man who ticked a box & lowered their testosterone levels for a year then yes that is bad for women. Men can hit harder & are less susceptible to damage as their bones are more dense.
Even if you disregard the honours of winning & the financial opportunities please ask your moral compass to consider women's safety!

Oh come on everyone panders to the trans lobby now.

Here's the bit it wilfully misprepresents.

Are you sure you read the article? And you did understand the context in that it is an article produced by "LAW IN SPORT"??

I came to the conclusion, having considered all the information, that sex discrimination exists for sound reasons.

It does, of course it does!

Here's the bits it misses out.
Testosterone is (a) only part of the story (as explained upthread VO max and height and weight and skeletal differences also play a part), and (b) the fact that the limit for transwomen is set at 10 nmol/litre, 5 sigma above the average female level, at a level women could only reach by doping.

Oh, so that isn't what they're talking about when they say,

"On the other hand, an approach based exclusively on testosterone levels (such as that of the English FA, and suggested by the Sports Council Equality Group) may not always cater for all scenarios (for example, factors such as height and size may also be relevant in certain sports)."

and

"After the onset of puberty, however (when male serum testosterone levels increase to around ≥10 nmol/L7, while female testosterone levels remain at around 0.1-3.08 nmol/L), the physical advantages enjoyed by men raise fairness and safety concerns in relation to the participation of trans athletes in line with their gender identity."?

It seems that my carefully-thought out comments on the "everything is lovely and due process is followed" link are completely invisible.

Ho hum.

Not quite as annoying as when Rat pointedly ignored a number of transwomen on one of the other threads because their gender critical views didn't match up with her presuppositions, but still moderately annoying.

Now I have done my absolute best not to get drawn into whether or not transmen are men or transwomen are women, because frankly I don't feel qualified - either in virtue of scientific or medical knowledge, or through personal experience - to think my answer to that would be definitive. But what I will do is trust the very many professionals who sat around the table to discuss whether or not they thought it was both right and appropriate to include these individuals in either category. I literally have to defer to that, and it would seem to me that almost everybody out there is coming at this from the perspective of how to best manageincluding those people in the competition of their chosen gender. Not my choice, not my rules, but I am literally no-one^ to argue with that right now.

So starting from that perspective, I will obviously fight tooth and nail to see that that is done with all consideration for the fairness and safety of women. And the thing is, that link I provided lists exactly the rules and regulation for entry into the various different mens' and womens' competitions of numerous different sports. Take one example: "under the IAAF's current regulations14 a male-to-female transsexual's eligibility to compete in female international athletics competition is dealt with by an expert medical panel on a case-by-case basis." An EXPERT MEDICAL PANEL tasked with establishing whether or not a single, individual transwoman's involvement preserves the safety and fairness for women? Sure they won't always get it right, and likely they haven't in the past, doesn't this quieten any of your concerns?

Ereshkigal, perhaps when you look outside and think "the whole world's got this wrong", perhaps it isn't them... There's always the possibility. And here I am, exploring that possibility.

I don't think the "whole world" thinks like you, Rat. Not in my experience of a wide range of people who are quite shocked when the penny finally drops about this, due to the obfuscation with which the trans agenda is generally presented to them by transactivists and the wider media,

I did read the link.

Here's the bits it misses out.
Testosterone is (a) only part of the story (as explained upthread VO max and height and weight and skeletal differences also play a part), and (b) the fact that the limit for transwomen is set at 10 nmol/litre, 5 sigma above the average female level, at a level women could only reach by doping.

Here's the bit it wilfully misprepresents.
The Dutee Chand case involved an intersex (not a trans) athlete with hyperandrogism and complete androgen insensitivity (CAIS). She had raised levels of testosterone, but no receptors to enable her to process those raised levels into increased muscle bulk. Her lawyers therefore argued that forcing her to undertake medical treatment which was not needed was a violation of her rights. (Contrast other intersex athletes with partial androgen insensitivity, PAIS, - who are often required to take androgen blockers). Chand having won her case, it then opened the way for athletes with PAIS to take part without blockers, leading to the results of the Rio 800m final with PAIS women 1,2 and 3 and the rest of the pack a long way behind. (Chand was not in this race - she's a sprinter).

This has nothing to do with transwomen who are biologically male, have raised testosterone levels, and, equally importantly, fully working, normal male androgen receptors.

@RatRolyPoly My concern isn't specifically for transfolk actually, it's that refusing or denying the trans phenomenon isn't the right thing to do. Simply that.

But unfortunately welcoming in the trans phenomenon as it is currently being mooted is directly bad for women. How can that possibly be seen as the right thing to do?

You can be as right-on and inclusive as you want, but we are not just being mean girls for shits and giggles. We will accept inclusivity when it doesn't damage us (the fair third space option). So far that has not been accepted. That is not our fault, nor our issue to resolve.

I've read the links. I'm just trying to get you to answer a list of questions in a logical order. In the hopes that you might come to a conclusion.

So far we've established that men and women have different competitions in order to be fair (otherwise there would be no women winners).

So my next question was "do you think that some men should be able to compete in the women's category?"

You may see where I'm going. My next one is going to be "How do we decide which men are allowed to and which aren't?"

If your answer is "let any man tick a box to say he's a woman and then he can compete in the women's category" we have a problem. Because that means any man who wants to can compete as a woman

So we no longer have sex segregation - so things are no longer fair, women will no longer have a chance to win.

Feel free to destroy my argument

Ereshkigal, perhaps when you look outside and think "the whole world's got this wrong", perhaps it isn't them... There's always the possibility. And here I am, exploring that possibility.

And for me personally my whole ethical and moral compass has been set to tolerance and inclusion; I'm finding it hard to stomach being told that in order to care about women and girls I can pretty much chuck that right out the window; goodbye moral compass, you're bad for women!

Perhaps your "moral compass" is faulty. And not really concerned with women at all? Or particularly moral or ethical after all?

But no-one reads the links, right?

This is the intro to the article from Law In Sport that I linked in my very first post on this discussion topic:

The vast majority of sports divide competition into male and female categories.2

This is due to the significant physical advantages enjoyed (on average) by men from puberty onwards3, which at elite level result in a gulf in sports performance between the sexes. For example, the world records in athletics show an average performance difference between men and women of around 12%.4

These physical differences between the sexes are thought to be due, principally, to the much higher levels of testosterone produced by males from puberty onwards, giving males greater strength and power than females5. As a result, separation of the sexes is therefore required to allow for fair and meaningful competition, as well as to address potential health and safety concerns (for example, in contact sports).

This notion of fair and meaningful competition goes to the very essence of what sport is about. It reflects the underlying need to preserve the uncertainty of the sporting outcome, with success being determined by those particular factors that are valued by the sport in question (such as natural talent and training).

And it is this need that underlies the various dividing lines that are drawn in sport, such as age and weight categories, and the numerous Paralympic classifications. It would not, for example, be fair or meaningful for a flyweight boxer to compete against a super heavyweight boxer: there is little doubt who would win, and it would not celebrate any worthwhile sporting values.

Similarly, if women were required to compete against men, they would have very limited opportunities to succeed (at least at the elite level), and would not be rewarded for their sporting excellence or incentivised to make the sacrifices needed to reach their potential.

Obviously I agree with it.

I cross-posted with your post of 15:11.

Presuming your answer is yes, we should have sex segregation in sport, do you think that some men should be able to compete in the women's category?

Just any old man who wants to? Would that be fair?

Equestrian sports are the only ones where men and women compete against each other equally.
I'm not sure of the statistics but the best dressage rider in the world is a woman.

RatRolyPoly, why do we have sex segregation in sport, and do you think we should continue to do so?

No-one's doing that

Perhaps I've misunderstood, but that's the gist I've been getting? If that isn't how people want to come across in this debate I think there's a lot of work to be done on the tone and choice of language because really I think a lot of people get that from this debate.

It does appear disengenuous for you to focus on inclusion whilst appearing to ignore the question of why women’s sports exists TODAY

I didn't ignore that question, it was a question that had been answered repeatedly already Didn't we establish that the answer was simply to provide safe, fair and meaningful competition for all competitors as without it that wouldn't be possible for women? I meant simply to ask of the decrying the status quo where we might go from here.

refusing or denying the trans phenomenon

No-one's doing that

No-one's saying chuck your tolerance out the window either. Just don't accept that biological men competing with biological women is anything other than grossly unfair to the women.

It's really really really simple.

if at all possible

Usually it isn't possible. And that really is the end of the debate - or at least it shoudl be.

I think it might be because we have given hundreds of ways in which thousands of girls/women will be negatively affected, and yet you are still saying you are on the fence and worrying about a few men who feel they are women

I'm hearing about those hundreds of ways - some of which I think are likely but could be avoided, some of which I think are inevitable and extremely problematic, and some of which I think vanishingly unlikely catastrophising - and I will look at them further; forgive me if I always take the information people try and ram down my throat with a hefty dose of skepticism, particularly when it bears very little relation to what I have experienced as a woman.

My concern isn't specifically for transfolk actually, it's that refusing or denying the trans phenomenon isn't the right thing to do. Simply that. Looking back through history I can't see a time when any comparable phenomenon not being tolerated has been a good thing for the culture involved. Perhaps this phenomenon is completely incomparable though, I don't know, is that likely? Surely there is some way to move forward from this point rather than trying to reverse this tide?

And for me personally my whole ethical and moral compass has been set to tolerance and inclusion; I'm finding it hard to stomach being told that in order to care about women and girls I can pretty much chuck that right out the window; goodbye moral compass, you're bad for women!