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

I can't see Wimbledon putting up with this

When I was 13 I used to fight my younger brother. Then one day mid fight I realised our fighting days were over. He was far too strong.
He was 11.
Excellent work Pencils.
This thread is really ruffling some feathers

I can understand a man wearing womens clothing & presenting as female, to ease their gender dysphoria, but I don’t see that then opens the door for Male bodied people to compete in womens sport.

This is absurd and clearly denies women a place on the team/podium.

Why don’t men compete against transwomen? Or start a Trans team, I don’t really have the answer, but expecting women to compete against Male bodied people is the absolute opposite of chivalry!

My oldest son is 11. He's almost as tall as me and is very strong. He works with his dad a lot and can carry big man-sized logs and split and stack them. I'm a pretty strong woman myself (we live on a farm, everyone has to be strong!), and I can still just out lift him. He is stronger than his 13yo sister but he hasn't realised it yet.
Again, he's 11 - he has barely looked at puberty.
The fucking gaslighting, as if we all haven't noticed the obvious, plain as day differences between the sexes.

Thanks bowl. I agree. The whole issue is awful to contemplate.

And yes, this thread seems to have provoked a lot of panic.

It was always going to be an issue that showed transgender activism up. Because of the inherent unfairness. Even if you are a rank misogynist, it's difficult to deny the physical power differential between men and women. Even if you deny the societal one.

The fact that the only argument seems to be that women just aren't putting their backs into it, despite secretly beating men everywhere, was not one, I think, that most people thought would be forthcoming.

🤣

DS is 14 - he is as strong as an Ox and as tall as me.

I have sparred with him (he does MA and I used to) and I only get a few good hits because I learned a different discipline from him, and have moves he doesn’t expect. Otherwise he could cream me (but shhhhhhh he still hasn’t realised). He is male - he is stronger and faster than I ever was and he is still growing!

He is also a very nippy runner - I was always fast, but he was called the fox at his last school.

The best women athletes can only run faster than the mediocre men. That's because men have a physiological advantage. Those transwomen who compete against and get beaten by women wouldn't even be able to beat the mediocre men BEFORE they dropped their testosterone to a level that is still higher than the women's.

Even a few years ago the idea of finding out the answer to the question would have been met with horror - it’s just the sort of experimentation that you do not do.

So I’ve been having a little poke around. Even with complete androgen insensitivity, median adult male height (+1.2 SDS) was closer to the patients’ male target height (–0.3 SDS). [https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/91592]

There’s also a set of hormonal surges quite soon after birth as the infant goes from the body of its mother to the outside world. In males these seem to maintain the external genitalia and maybe ‘prime’ the gonads for later maturation. Children with CAIS don’t have that surge.

I'm going to email Woman's Hour to thank them for covering these issues (albeit somewhat belatedly).

Woman's Hour email address:
[email protected]

It certainly seems to have rattled some cages.

You may be bigger and faster and stronger, TRAs but you don't half suck at debating

yep

and you may be obsessively reporting posts here TRAs, but enough has got through to blow your arguments out of the water

i wonder why this thread in particular is getting so much attention? are transwomen sport obsessed? or is it that it's such an obviously unfair example of what women are being expected to swallow?

Reading that transcript Infind it notable just how much JG emphasises that Beth was happy to debate, it's just she didn't have the time.

I noticed that. I kept thinking of that line, The lady doth protest too much, methinks

Thanks for the transcript.

You may be bigger and faster and stronger, TRAs but you don't half suck at debating.

Thanks, Bowl - that makes for a sobering read. And makes me wonder more than ever why so many responsible people are going along with this.

Having just read the transcript, I'm puzzled as to why Garvey gave Nic a hard time, unless it's because she's been accused of favouring the gc side in earlier debates. Obviously what Nic was saying was sensible and reasonable.

Thanks for that bowl. I asked, because I'm absolutely certain that this will be used as an argument to allow people of the opposite sex to compete.

Because their advantage is eliminated in puberty.

The fact that those children are highly unlikely to achieve any kind of elite sportsmanship, will be irrelevant to the principal being pushed. That if they can, theoretically, then everyone can.

And yes, I agree. Death is being used as the horrific alternative to surgery. When it isn't.

Reading that transcript Infind it notable just how much JG emphasises that Beth was happy to debate, it's just she didn't have the time.

My head is in my fucking hands.

My DD could have come to better conclusions than Beth. How have we got to the point where we are even having these insane debates?

I've emailed WH to thank them for efforts over the last few weeks.

PencilsInSpace, thank you.

Some of what JG said reads really oddly, as if she's falling over herself to say (or in some cases, not to say) certain things.

I don't understand why both sides keep mentioning there not being any relevant scientific evidence. There must be heaps that would inform the debate, at least partially.

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?

datun i have wondered this. The answer of course is that we dont really know, because it’s it’s highly unethical to do it and find out (oh wait... people actually are...) I imagine r it would depend on age of starting those hormones. There’s possibly some natural equivalent in people with total androgen insensitivity - let me have a look and see if there’s any work on comparing that phenotype with those with normal androgen sensitivity.

Long answer: I dont know. I suspect there may be other contributors to the Male developmental program than steroid hormones. A body isn’t a blank canvas to be moulded so easily and testosterone alone isn’t the only hormone at play nor the only mechanism. I’m going to read up on it - I’ll let you know if i find anything interesting. 🤔

We will find out as this cohort ages through. With a few caveats - basically that the surgeries they’ve had will likely damage them enough that elite athletic performance may not be possible. Taking puberty blockers then cross sex hormones is likely to result in lifelong skeletal problems. Roughly half your bone mass is laid down during puberty - cross sex hormones are not a correct puberty of rhevopposite sex so we can expect this cohort to have a myriad of skeletal issues, bone density problems and joint problems. That alone would probably preclude elite performance. Girls using breast binders can damage bone growth as well. Full SRS is brutal to the body - again I doubt anyone would be hitting elite levels after that.

This is another reason why some groups are pushing early (pre puberty) hormone intervention imo.

Bottom line: all these interventions are damaging. There is not a single physical benefit to any of them, only serious physical damage. This is why the suicide stats are inflated, because the risk/benefit calculation only balances in favour of intervention of the alternative is death. That’s how extreme it is.

My heart breaks for these children. I am ANGRY that this is being allowed. So angry.

if they feel that they're then competing against other men, who - we take it in society that men perform better than women, then perhaps they would up their performance and be competing on more of that level

We take it in society that men are performing better than women? Are we just guessing? Is it prejudice?

The way all these TRAs have been humiliated on woman's hour is just extraordinary. No wonder transactivists won't go on there. But even so, you'd think they could find someone who didn't actually spout gibberish.

There are secret women out there beating men, we may not know
she really did jump the shark with that one didnt she :o

I agree with Dr Nic - Beth Jones' conclusions are Badly Wrong

if they feel that they're then competing against other men, who - we take it in society that men perform better than women, then perhaps they would up their performance and be competing on more of that level

Can someone tweet Paula Radcliffe and Venus Williams and ask them why their coaches haven't had this stroke of genius for improving women's sporting performance?

In fact can we have a recording of what their professional, highly experienced coaches say when the question is put to them? I could do with a laugh.

Pencils - it's even more extraordinary written down. The woman is making trans people, whether activists or not, look like unhinged monsters.

They're depressed, so let them win. There are secret women out there beating men, we may not know.

BJ: I don't think any trans person, regardless of whether they identify as male or female, pose a threat to their competitors ...

What???