Athletics: China field a women’s relay team featuring two men

Peakyblinders.

Don't be daft it is MUCH more nuanced than that.

There are races for men and races for women.

And people with penises can take part in the women's races and people with vaginas can take part in the men's. Except you never see people with vaginas in the men's races because having a penis gives you all sorts of advantages in sports like bigger hearts and denser muscles. But of course these advantages don't exist for people with penises who take part in the women's races because...magic.

I also hope that this comes to the forefront in the Olympics. It gets so much viability. Nobody gives a shit about some track event but hopefully they will care when it is beamed all over tv screens across the world. Country leaders also tend to get competitive about numbers of medals so there may be serious noises made if the Chinese team is seen as cheating their way to a win.

Also I don’t know if it’s true but I think I read that the Iranian women’s football team was made up of 50% males.

How can we explain this to our daughters? Well, there is the men's race for men, and the women's race for women, and er..... men, who will win all the medals. When you grow up you can be in the women's race and be beaten by men.

I'm praying that the madness will be over by the time she is old enough to be affected by these things.

I won't be able to bring myself to watch the Olympics, or let my daughter watch them if men are going to be competing against women and cheating them of medals.

I showed my 4 year old the picture in the article and she told me it was '2 mans and a lady' :(

I'm just thinking of myself as a kid, I used to do a martial art from age 10 and by the time the boys in my club were 12 or 13 they were already getting much bigger and stronger. How depressing if I'd have had to fight them in competitions or gradings and get beaten every time.

"A few retired sportspeople have spoken up, but surely you see how hard it is for women who are actually currently competing to say anything about this."

If you read above, I clearly stated male athletes need to speak up, too.

This is why women don't speak up. Lynsey Sharp did about Semenya- she's an 800m runner.

This is an article in Grazia which basically calls her a racist: graziadaily.co.uk/life/real-life/lynsey-sharp-cry-800m-race/

And in this article, she says she's received death threats:
www.sport24.co.za/OtherSport/Athletics/lynsey-sharp-ive-received-death-threats-for-caster-comments-20190504

And Semenya isn't even trans. But he's not a woman either.

This is going to be the most common argument to have men in women's sport.

They can't argue that it would never happen and they can't argue that the men have an advantage, so it will just be about validation.

McKinnon is already all over that one.

"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.”

So it's all basically fine and you can stop worrying about women in sports, and start worrying about trans rights instead. Thank god we've got McKinnon to sort out this stuff!

On googling about this, i found a report about the Asian Games 2018 mixed relay event, 2 men 2 women running in any order.

So... biology matters? Or not?

We do speak up. Many of us have written to sporting bodies, politicians, the media, posted on social media etc.

Problem is no one in authority is listening. It is depressing to see, in real time, how very little power ordinary people have being shoved in our faces.

We all need to speak up. Who else is going to do it for us?

I know it is easy to say, but I damn sure would speak up.

Would you? When speaking up means you risk losing all your sponsorship, and for women it means being branded as someone who can't accept that they didn't win. A few retired sportspeople have spoken up, but surely you see how hard it is for women who are actually currently competing to say anything about this.

It's the job of the governing bodies to step up, stop acting like cowardly snivelling shits, and to say 'No, anyone with a Y chromosome does not get to compete in women's events'. Right across the board. They could put a stop to this right now, but they're deliberately choosing not to.

This is exactly what needs to be done.

"That's not their responsibility. It's the job of the governing bodies to step up, stop acting like cowardly snivelling shits, and to say 'No, anyone with a Y chromosome does not get to compete in women's events'. Right across the board. They could put a stop to this right now, but they're deliberately choosing not to."

I did not say it is their job. Clearly no one is standing up to this nonsense. Yet they are sitting idly by, letting it happen. I know it is easy to say, but I damn sure would speak up.

Why are you a sportsman if you don't represent the values of fairness and be sporting?

....a woman called Koch. How appropriate.

Still, look on the bright side. It means someone might finally break Koch's 400m record from 1985... the one that no-one's been able to get close to since anti-doping procedures tightened up. Of course, that person might have a bit more than average down their shorts, but we could all promise not to look too closely if they promised to wear baggy shorts.

The insanity of 2019.

Discussing whether it is 3 males in a women's relay race.

Or just the 2.

Amazing, isn't it?
And the 'expert' who conducted the so-called study that started it all is a man who believes that crying at Disney films is evidence of his womanhood.

I agree entirely. It just struck me as i was scrutinising the photo, how utterly nuts this situation is. But yes, I still dont want my middle ranking athlete son, good competitor that he is and loving his sport, to be told there's a way for him to be an Olympic standard runner. And i dont want his female squadmates to find he's suddenly beating them in the U17 girls' events.

Call me cynical Temporary but I don't think this has much to do with gender identity and them living their own way. It's about winning and that's why the current rules are so dangerous. We have tighter and tighter restrictions on doping and an easy way in for those lowering their testosterone levels.

Fuck, the indignity of staring at these athletes and wondering whether to believe my own eyes or have a cautious approach in case we're being trolled.

It's undignified for the athletes and for all of us. The dignity of your own biological reality and living your own way, while acknowledging that the biology does exist.

There are fewer bulges in this phot

Same number of men though.

Most of the sporting organisations have a rule that a man can compete as a woman if he declares that he has a 'female gender identity' and his testosterone is below 10nmol/l. This level is at the lower end of the normal male range and about 4 times the higher end of the normal female range.

What is the maximum level of testosterone allowed in female competitors? I haven't been able to find this anywhere, but I assume it would be somewhere around 3 nmol/l, since any higher and it would be assumed that the woman was doping.

Even better if it’s non invasive. That way, they can get some international doctor to swab the athletes under suspicion and then release the results. If I was a biological woman and people thought I was a man, I would welcome this because I would want to prove them wrong.

I suggest they are all subjected to a medical examination

A cheek swab would be pretty non-invasive

That's because the team had a fire in the hotel beforehand, Tinsel.

All the women's shorts were destroyed apart from one pair which miraculously survived the blaze. The team coach had to go to Decathlon at the last minute in order to buy some red women's shorts. And they were only £5.99 so obviously they don't fit as well as the standard women's shorts. The coach also had to buy some dark underpants for the other 3 runners precisely because the new shorts didn't fit as well.

The coach only had £30 on him, so couldn't stretch to buying underpants for the fourth runner.

Alternatively, one can believe one's own eyes.

Its very striking how different the pants/ shorts of the woman on the left are.