A picture speaks a thousand words. Transwomen in women’s sport

DickKerrLadies
Thanks for those BBC links, it reminded me of something we looked at as fitness instructors. As if women haven't got enough to worry about with male bodied people crashing into them, high estrogen levels can decrease power and performance and make women more prone for catastrophic ligament injury.

Effect of Estrogen on Musculoskeletal Performance and Injury Risk

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6341375/

While the posters are getting back to us to tell us whether they think it is fair if E Bridges competes as a women now and represents GB.

Maybe they can also discuss the fairness in Maxine in Kent who plays not only on the men’s team but on the women’s team. And was declare sportswoman of the year.

These are recent and current examples of transwomen who will take the place of women on these teams and the awards and accolades.

However. Let’s not forget they were males who experienced not only male puberty and those advantages, but also:

• no disadvantage of sexism whereby girls and women are discouraged from playing any sport but certainly no a sport that ‘is for boys!!!’ as a start. Like from age 4 or 5.

• may have had the advantage of better access to coaching, better opportunities to play in school and anywhere, better support from community and focus because they were boys training for sports.

• have their own health issues but have never needed to work through or indeed miss out on games, training etc due to menstruation cycles. (Thankfully menstrual cycles are now being studied to assist women and girls in sports.)

• will never have to deal with pregnancy and losing their position due to pregnancy.

They can use all those advantages including their training and abilities to absolutely take the premier positions of women who have the biological disadvantages of less strength, smaller skeletons, smaller hearts and lungs, difference in types of muscles, and so many large and small advantages.

And take those advantages they have and their training to absolutely blow performance records out of the water because the records are set by women and the race/game parameters (equipment, times etc) are set for the biological needs of women not males with the biological advantages they have.

So please also include the fairness of including Maxine in women’s cricket. (Thanks Mole for posting the reminder) Who is a mediocre male performer but amazingly, with lighter equipment, slower bowling etc, gives a stellar performance in the women’s team. And takes awards for it meant to encourage women to participate. The proof is right there because Maxine is playing both compa at the same time.

I would like to hear what you have to say about the fairness of this example too.

ll grass roots sports I’ve been involved in have been utterly reliant on the time and efforts of female volunteers! ... But there’s no point campaigning for any of this if any male can just take what we’ve worked for.

Ah, but don't worry - once the sport is more inclusive there will be lots of trans volunteers joining the ranks to support their brave sisters.

...

Okay, I'm now trying to imagine McKinnon in a post-racing career working selflessly behind the scenes to help run women's masters cycling events, and... I just can't do it.

But I'm sure that's just an outlier and in no way representative of other similar athletes.

The FA planned to do research into whether menstrual cycles are part of the reason why women seem to get more ACL injuries:

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48333161
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52357300

I haven't looked for an update but clearly someone thinks there's a difference between males and females WRT sport.

That we're being told there's no difference between males and females is ridiculous. It's 2021 ffs.

[quote Quadzilla]This thread on Twitter really does speak a thousands words.
twitter.com/MirandaNewsom/status/1352635083887431687?s=20[/quote]
Very well presented too

One example attached - excellent Twitter thread exposing media deception!

Archived for safekeeping:
archive.is/RjTZH

All grass roots sports I’ve been involved in have been utterly reliant on the time and efforts of female volunteers! Grass roots sport would collapse without females giving up their time, usually for free and usually doing much more of the admin and grunt work. If males get involved ( it’s seemed for me) much more as coaches or just on the day help.

And of course we would all rather be campaigning for better inclusion of women in the TdF or equal prize money in tennis or more safety investigations in women’s contact sports, or more money spent on women’s grass roots teams or better coverage of women’s sports in the media. Yes of course we F-ing would rather be doing that!
But there’s no point campaigning for any of this if any male can just take what we’ve worked for.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-55677697

And twitter.com/femalecoaches/status/1354010051183333376?s=19

So many reasons here why women are different to men. You'd have to be wilfully ignoring them to think that transwomen have any place in women's sport.

How many actually get out beyond their keyboard and do something not just for sport but for their community and are in any way promoting sport or exercise.

Well, I'm afraid I doubt you do.

I saw a post on here yesterday about female head trauma in contact sportswell in that case stop all contact sports tell Katie Taylor she can’t box anymore or Ronda Rousey that she can’t do MMA anymore or stop children from competing in TaeKwonDo as you want them in cotton wool.

Nicola Adams (women's boxing champ) says there should be separate categories for transgender athletes. Gonna tell her she's wrong? Ronda Rousey has retired from MMA and got called transphobic for saying that the advantages of male puberty were irreversible. Gonna tell her she's wrong?

Kids competing in martial arts? Have you any idea how much clubs pay in insurance, and the risk assessments clubs have to do for sparring? And it's not mere red tape. Formal risk assessments, being 100% on the ball, and being fully aware of the difference between male strength and female strength, is the difference between a successful, happy mixed sex club and a club where all the girl children quit or are pulled out by sane parents.

That’s a very good point.

How many actually get out beyond their keyboard and do something not just for sport but for their community and are in any way promoting sport or exercise

YEAH wimmin. You aren’t permitted to discuss this topic unless you have carried 100 hours of sport based community service, AND have participated as a competitor at county level or above.

Move along now...

Oh wait... I meet those criteria. But... I withdrew from refereeing a contact sport I used to participate in because I did not want blood on my hands.

Am I allowed an opinion?

I've played women’s amateur football for over two decades and been involved with organising it for much of that time. I also play mixed friendly football and play and organise mixed softball. In those sports I have played against men by choice (both in scenarios where they are ‘handicapped’ to make playing against women fairer, and ones where they aren’t) and I have played against a trans woman. I could not feel more strongly that men should not have access to sex segregated women’s sports.

I see others have already comprehensively debunked Owning's factual errors, and the internalised misogyny shines out of her post (plus the ageism: "mummies", huh, couldn't possibly have been good at sports in their youth, couldn't possibly have daughters who were good at sport, couldn't possibly be top-class coaches and members of sports governing bodies).

Also I have a feeling that any woman who can make those sorts of idiotic comments about women in contact sports has never played a contact sport against a man.

(I have - mixed football. Officially 5 a side is non-contact, but mistakes happen. It is interesting being shoulder barged by a 6'4", 15 stone, built-like-a-brick-shit-house bloke, to say the least. Not at all like being hit by a woman, even a very tall, very strong, powerfully built woman. No comparison whatsoever. Colliding with a bloke is orders of magnitude more of an impact.)

@Quadzilla

I’m sure they’d both be welcome with open arms into the women’s section by CTT. They only recently stated they couldn’t ‘mandate’ equal prize money for men and women.

How could it go down if someone who had formerly been known as a male competitor came first in a women's event with a time that would have put them fourth or worse in the men's equivalent event, and thus got greater prize money than those who came second and third in the men's?

Would the recipients of the men's silver and bronzes be a little ?

I’m sure they’d both be welcome with open arms into the women’s section by CTT. They only recently stated they couldn’t ‘mandate’ equal prize money for men and women.

Quadzilla

Back in 2018, when I started a thread on the cycling forum about McKinnon, I made a light hearted comment about what would happen if Marcin Bialoblocki decided to transition. I had no idea I was almost being prophetic. E Bridges set their junior record, on the same day, the same course that Marcin blitzed the national record.

www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?/topic/37185-25-miles-sub-5057-minute-menwomen/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcin_Bia%C5%82ob%C5%82ocki

I’m watching the Bridges situation with interest too. I have various friends in women’s racing who are keeping their eyes and ears open.

I believe Covid has scuppered the racing calendar in 2020 but it’ll be worth keeping an eye on racers when (if) they start this year.

Bridges will pose a significant challenge for BC and UK Sport in general. Bridges will be a tall, record breaking example of how fucked up these policies are. And I hope whatever woman is flicked off the team to make way for Bridges takes BC to court. We’ll have her back and will happily dig her too.

You are probably correct northern. It is always ‘scaremongering’ or something to negate it. This poster has probably even missed the latest direction the activists have taken by admitting there is some advantages but ... it is just a few of us males and it is important on a social science level to ignore the biological and sports sciences. Written by one of males winning medals against women.

Be nice women. Your own mental health is meaningless compared to mine in other words.

But i get the impression our real life experience as females is only relevant if it can be used to negate what we have to say by saying ‘it’s too personal’

It doesnt matter what experiences we share about how it impacts us personally posters like the one making false statements about women’s experiences on this thread will always say women are in the wrong when they say ‘no’

I had barriers to continuing the sport I was good as because I was female, it was hugely frustrating. I don’t want other girls to have the same happen to them because they are female. It has had a lifelong detrimental impact on my participation and enjoyment of sport.

I am very keen to see what decisions are made in GB Cycling. It will highlight so many very real and not imagined issues.

OTOH andy ... no one on this thread has any actual interest or experience to offer in sport ...

It really is a recycling of old tropes with no evidence or substance presented behind their points. We can tick them off.

• You probably not involved anyway so you are doing this to be hateful.

• It is just prejudice fuelling this, there is no conflict in women and girls opportunities or safeguarding here at all.

• No 'real' studies that include transwomen sports people (missing the fact that even the study from the military tracing performance of transmen and transwomen agrees with the other studies, but maybe J Harper's friends who reported their decrease in performance should be consider, Harper being trans and all. Despite there being no rigourness to the data and no control.).

• What about 'tall' women, or muscly women, or women with more lung capacity, or x women? Surely these women should not be able to compete either because they have biological advantages.

• Oh, and contact sports! Well, anyone willing to risk their lives playing against the best women will be at the same risk if they played against males who have had benefits of male puberty! People playing against their own category should be wrapped in cotton wool if you are so worried about contact sport.....

• What else are you doing to support women's sport and safeguarding except for spreading hate?

I think we have not yet seen,

• women and girls just try harder, if you trained more you will win against males.
• sport should be open category with no provision for women at all, because it is just about participation. It shouldn't be about winning, that is aggressive and selfish.
• it is only a 'few' women and girls effected, they can suck it up because at least everyone has had an opportunity to play a sport that they love and feel 'included' in the gender they identify as. (may have had that one to be honest. I have not gone back and read them all again).
• why do people bring up that 40+ year old males can beat young females in the prime of their sporting careers?

Winesalot

I am still watching the Bridges affair with interest. Bridges is on a cycling forum which I contribute to on a daily basis.