Nic Williams on Woman's Hour (Tuesday) talking about sport and gender identity

There are so many posts being deleted on this thread...

I listened to this and thought Nic was great.

I had forgotten about my own experience of mixed sex teams. At work we had a mixed sex team sport which we played against other firms in a summer league (in the winter i played in a female only team) .

A few observations. The rules stated you needed a minimum of 3 women in each team (of 11). There was never any trouble finding the 8 men, but each week there were only ever 3 women to play, which meant we never had subs. Also the mixed game was much faster, more intense and more physical then when i played with just females. So we had a much harder time physically (and with no substitutes). Women would play a few games here and there but were less enamoured of playing as it was basically just less fun, always being outrun or outstrengthened (for want of a better word). Many only played 1 match and decided it wasn't for them. Also the captain (male) was a bit of a nob and wouldn't listen to where you wanted to play, but would put you on a unfamiliar position, so could be even more disadvantaged (like putting a striker in defence). This rarely happened in the women's only games.

Finally at our prize giving evening, the captain got drunk and came on to one of the women players, when she( nicely) formed him down, he turned very nasty and told her she was shit at the sport. Charming.

I played for 3 seasons and was relieved to give up when i was pregnant. Most of the guys in the team were great, but they were all physically much stronger and you only need 1 guy to be a nob to spoil it all on and off the pitch.

If you reduced a man’s testosterone to the lowest level of the women’s range he would STILL have all those advantages.

bowl, this might be an unanswerable question, but if a boy took puberty blockers, and cross sex hormones, do you have any idea how that would affect those parts of his physiology that would otherwise give him a natural advantage?

Look, you just need to take ANY athletics event. Let’s say the great north run. Plot Male times and Female times. Averages and winning times

There's some decent analysis of male/female records for the same event and using comparable sizes in the post I quoted upthread:

fondofbeetles.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/harder-better-faster-stronger-why-we-must-protect-female-sports/

People aren't to blame for their intelligence level or poor mental health.

The funders, employers and media are responsible for failing the public and allowing people out of their depth to gain undue influence, behaving inappropriately and without challenge and management.

and yes of course trans people should compete in sport. Sport is great.

In their own categories. Not in the women’s

Do they have a dispensing machine for PhDs these days?

Look, you just need to take ANY athletics event. Let’s say the great north run. Plot Male times and Female times. Averages and winning times. What does that show you? Doh...

‘Only been around since 1964’ isn’t an argument ffs. Unless you’ve got people who were born in 1964 or before running...

It isn’t ‘level of testosterone on the day’ that dictates performance. It’s the fact that the male body has been sculpted by testosterone since birth, a process which becomes even more pronounced in puberty. Men have a more robust skeletal system. They have a higher VOmax, they have longer levers (limbs) bigger hearts, deeper chests, bigger lungs. A more robust muscular with stronger muscle attachmemts. The angle of the thighs to pelvis alone gives men an advantage in running. If you reduced a man’s testosterone to the lowest level of the women’s range he would STILL have all those advantages. A man matched for height and weight will still be stronger and have those advantages.

@arranbubonicplague,

Great link, that was the first Olympics I watched. Ann Packer got silver in the 400m and gold in the 800m.
When you think of the damage that this movement/cult could do to women's sport.
Just imagine if Usain Bolt was to come out of retirement and identify as a woman, it would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.
This didn't happen in the end (I hope) but would anyone have known if it had?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3671937/Transgender-British-athletes-born-men-set-make-Olympic-history-competing-games-women.html

eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/rio-2016/2016/07/19/out-transgender-olympics-rio-caitlyn-jenner-chris-mosier/87188798/

I don't even know how many folks realise that the IOC is pushing through all these rules which make it easier for transgender atheletes to compete.

If testosterone makes no difference, please can someone explain these stats to me?

These four women's Olympic records are suspected to be drug enhanced, but as this has never been proved they remain on the record books. They are:

100m - 10.49 sec
200m - 21.34 sec
400m - 47.6 sec
800m 1:53.28

I looked at the US Youth Olympics all time records to see how they stack up against the fastest boys. In other words, if these women (all competing in the prime of their careers, running times that women have not been able to achieve since) had been running alongside boys / young men, how would they fare?

These are the records for boys aged 13-14:

100m - 10.94 sec
200m - 21.84 sec
400m - 47.16 sec
800m - 1.56:36

These are the records for boys aged 15-16:

100m - 10.51 sec
200m - 21.10 sec
400m - 45.99 sec
800m - 1:50.51

The records for boys aged 11-12 (ie before puberty takes effect )are significantly slower

If it's not testosterone and male physique, why are 13-14 year old boys running faster than elite, trained women (possibly) with additional help?

If scientists have jumped to the conclusion that testosterone is not such a big factor, they need to tell us what is. Because otherwise they just look like inept, weak, idiots who are happy to see the end of women's sport

the androgenisation of Easter European athletes in the 1970s. That was not fair. And it is now unacceptable. What is the difference between this and making it acceptable for trans women to complete in sports against women?

There is no difference as far as I can see either (and welcome to you, andy and other delurkers)

We can argue back and forth with them till the cows come home

It comes down, as it always comes down, to the belief 'transwomen are women'.

Either you hold it, or you don't. If you do hold it, then in the words of Dickens, nothing hereafter will make sense. But that's ok, because TWAW. It's an article of faith regardless of fact or logic. Hence the bullying and nagging about the damned space and where to put it because trans_women is about servicing and enforcing the belief that TW ARE W. It's insidious.

But as a faith and belief, no organisation has any business enforcing this belief on others, or making massive, unilateral changes to national services and activities such as sport in line with a belief that others - the majority of others - quite reasonably do not share in. It is quite reasonable to believe that transwomen are men, and for your reality to function accordingly.

Freedom of belief.

So despite an overwhelming body of evidence to demonstrate that males will have an advantage over females, you could argue that if we are taking trans people as another (and completely separate) group for research purposes, then there is no research and therefore no evidence.

and drive a coach and horses through fact - historical and biological as well as common sense. Presumably, this is why Nic agreed that more research was needed into that group - but why then is the elephant in the room not mentioned? That doesn't mean that the default position is that there should be no more single-sex sport

The sports bodies are like all other organisations dominated by men - blind to women

The 100 metres for women was introduced

Agreed, I unintentionally deleted the relevant info. of the 400m event when I was editing it.

The 1964 Summer Olympics were the first to feature the women's 400 metres.[1]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1964_Summer_Olympics_–_Women%27s_400_metres

@arranbubonicplague,

"(e.g., sprinting didn't turn up for women until the 1960s for the Olympics"

The 100 metres for women was introduced at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1928_Summer_Olympics#Women

It is true that a parity between women's and men's events has only been a recent thing.
I think that the East German women used to hold the overall World record for small bore rifle.

Thanks 🙂!

mobile.twitter.com/BBCWomansHour/status/1069897614697684992

This should work:

twitter.com/BBCWomansHour/status/1069728063255134208

BBC WH: twitter.com/BBCWomansHour/status/1069924328387592193

Can anyone link to WH's Twitter feed about this? I'm not quite up to speed with Twitter yet 😳.