Rachel McKinnon story has made the Daily Mail

Maybe women athletes need to follow the example of US NFL players and ‘take the knee’.

This was a protest against police brutality. Players would kneel during the national anthem instead of standing to attention.

The women’s campaign might have to take a different form but there must be some shared symbolic gesture they can make.

correction "women's sports in the US"

The reason women's sports have funding is because some Congressmen added "sex" to the proposed Title 9 bill in order to get it defeated. Ever since, male sports organizations have been trying very hard to get it repealed, and have all, say college funding, go to men's football.

I hope they sent McKinnon very nice thank cards for the effort McKinnon has made on their behalf.

It's so good to see that the general public is behind the female competitors. That must give them a bit more confidence for when they feel ready to protest.
StormClouds you're right, but I think it needs to be a mass boycott. People are starting to speak up, but it would be much more effective if every woman sat down at the start of the race or something.
The governing bodies are responsible here. They should have said No at the outset, and stuck to it. It doesn't require a degree in sports science to know that women cannot compete equally with men in most sports. It's just basic knowledge. Just like the prison service knew that sexual predators would identify as trans to gain access to women's prisons. It was easily predictable, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Unforgivable in both cases.

I wonder what sponsors will make of this in due course, when they are trying to sell sports clothing and goods to female consumers but the competitors are increasingly male born.

Maybe they hope they can recoup their losses selling lady jockstraps.

in that video the commentator sounds like they are doing their best to convey their disgust through their tone, no?

I come from a competive sporting background, was part of a Olympic development squad till catastrophic injury ended my sporting career, I can hand on heart tell you I would have protested on the podium.

I simply wouldn't have accepted 3rd place and left the podium space blank.

If I had to compete against biological males, I'd loose every time.

This needs to stop, for all our future aspiring female athletes, this needs to stop now. Getting girls in to sports is hard enough, we can't have them deciding to not bother from the beginning because the boys will take over and win.

Sport teaches so many good qualities and life lessons, women shouldn't be forced out by biological men exclaiming they are women!

This makes me so angry.

The money in sport usually comes from sponsorship. I wonder what sponsors will make of this in due course, when they are trying to sell sports clothing and goods to female consumers but the competitors are increasingly male born.

Bunce finds time to volunteer with 'trans' kids but doesn't do jack shit for equal pay. Doesn't need to, he/she is being paid as a man.

Like merrymouse said, I'd say Jennifer Wagner-Assali has played this well in adopting the moral high ground. This gives her more freedom to say that the system is shit while insulating herself from (rational) criticism that she's being a sore loser.

But I doubt she was expecting the bonus of the petulant response from McKinnon. This is so incredibly telling.

Of course it’s nothing like civil rights movement, poc never demanded everyone believe they are white.

Never knowing from one day to the next who is going to show up and forcing people to be massively on their guard whilst doing their job, making them worry about their own reactions, forcing all this difficult mental stress on hundreds of people for his own personal satisfaction is a huge imposition.

Actions like this always make me think of stories about Stalin compelling exhausted officials to sing and dance at all hours - and they did it for fear of being added to purge lists. This extract from Archangel in which he compels members of the Politburo and one of his daughters to dance to the sound of howling/baying dogs - even pulling his daughter by her hair when she was too tired to continue.

books.google.co.uk/books?id=erBfSDj63CQC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=stalin+howling+dogs&source=bl&ots=IIZ17qICAn&sig=niHaKJCjdNxIs1tEO-TH-HxLWOo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwin8YyZ_pXeAhWEJ8AKHRW2BpoQ6AEwD3oECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=stalin%20howling%20dogs&f=false

Obviously, no comparison to Stalin but the same sort of indifference concerning their behaviour to others and their demands: the same abuse of power towards people frightened of losing their livelihood.

arranfan I agree, I was taking it to the logical conclusion that anti-doping would end up being inherently sexist.
He said it's so unfair to force this huge discomfort on people at work. Never knowing from one day to the next who is going to show up and forcing people to be massively on their guard whilst doing their job
Yeah, I wouldn't use that argument though, it's just being reactionary. Men felt like that when women entered the workforce, a certain amount of discomfort around new people or situations is unavoidable. I'd be careful to mention it's uncomfortable dealing with someone's obvious sexual fetish in the workplace instead. Because no woman wears that get-up in Credit Suisse. Do they?

Good for Sarah Fader, what a brave and principled stand.

The comments are a tonic to read. Everyone saying it is unfair and ridiculous.

I had a long conversation this week with a good friend who has worked for many years at Credit Suisse around the world (not there now) and knows the CEO. He's appalled at Phillip Bunce.

His take on it was interesting. He said it's so unfair to force this huge discomfort on people at work. Never knowing from one day to the next who is going to show up and forcing people to be massively on their guard whilst doing their job, making them worry about their own reactions, forcing all this difficult mental stress on hundreds of people for his own personal satisfaction is a huge imposition.

It's the same with this cyclist. What a lot of distress, stress, damage, wasted training and upset everyone has to go through for this person's "human rights".

Surely a female competitor could supplement with testosterone, then?

There's a perceived difference between your 'natural' hormones and supplemental ones - it's why there's all the controversy even about athletes with asthma taking steroids for their condition.

And, for various reasons, even supplemented T wouldn't have the same impact on women's muscles (different twitch fibre composition; anatomical differences is ligament attachments, density of bone etc.).

Didn't get much applause did they? That video really shows the difference in size. Really struggled with that winners jersey. What a truly objectionable human being.

Women can't object - they will be thrown off the teams.
It shouldn't be down to the victims of this unfairness to object, it should be blindingly obvious to the sports governing bodies.
When they are SO strict on drugs it seems absurd that they have this gaping loophole.

Surely a female competitor could supplement with testosterone, then? To bring it up to the same level? I mean, it'd be disastrous for their health and for women's sport but logically it should be allowed?
If I identify as transabled do I get to swim against the Paralympians with missing limbs? Would that be fair?

Or this

was born in a male body and has the size, muscles, strength and speed of a male

McKinnon has been a critic of forcing transgender athletes to suppress their testosterone.

In an interview published in January by USA Today, McKinnon insisted that forcing trans people to alter their physical condition to be allowed to participate in sports is a violation of their human rights. McKinnon thinks the requirements to lower testosterone is inherently discriminatory.
“This is bigger than sports and it’s about human rights,” McKinnon said. “By catering to cisgender people’s views, that furthers transgender people’s oppression. When it comes to extending rights to a minority population, why would we ask the majority? I bet a lot of white people were pissed off when we desegregated sports racially and allowed black people. But they had to deal with it.”

McKinnon also insisted that if we “legally recognize” transgenders in society, then we have to do so in sports.

“We cannot have a woman legally recognized as a trans woman in society, and not be recognized that way in sports,” McKinnon told the paper. “Focusing on performance advantage is largely irrelevant because this is a rights issue. We shouldn’t be worried about trans people taking over the Olympics. We should be worried about their fairness and human rights instead.”

Copied and pasted from the Breitbart link from the velonews.com link

So McKinnon wants to compete with normal male testosterone levels too? Perhaps the win wasn't easy enough? Also -if someone has their testes removed surely they'd have a medical reason to supplement testosterone? McKinnon could be cycling with 30nmol/L and the other cyclists with 0.5.
Because human rights.

Interesting that whenever testosterone levels are talked about its always

Lower than females

Or

So low they are nearly negligible

Never ' 3 or 2 or 1 ...or 5 or 6'

There could be an argument for privacy ...or transparency

It's not clear that McKinnon takes androgen hormone suppressors:

Bearden agrees with the International Olympic Committee that naturally occurring testosterone gives transgender women an unfair advantage in competition against cisgender women, meaning women who were born female, while McKinnon believes subjecting trans women to testosterone blocking violates their human rights.

eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2018/01/11/these-transgender-cyclists-have-olympian-disagreement-how-define-fairness/995434001/

Regardless of what she identifies as, or calls herself, she was born in a male body and has the size, muscles, strength and speed of a male. Of course she’s going to beat other women who were born in female bodies. Totally unfair and she shouldn’t need anyone to point that out.