New guidelines for transgender participation unveiled by UK sports councils

BBC R 4 WH need to get the shadow minister for sport back on air (Alison McGovern I think?) as this goes against her own stated beliefs, and indeed Labour policy, as extracted from her by Emma on that excruciating interview

Yay - we all knew the earth isn’t flat and was never flat but good to see it in writing

If claims start coming in they will likely cough up and it will be an industry wide sudden effort to update wordings.
That’s what happened a bit with pandemic clauses, although some of it in health insurance here was not having paid attention to these clauses so there were errors eg referencing old legislation

Also massive press interest hoo-ha. Reputational damage. When it's not paying claims that can impact the reputation across all lines of business. Avoided at all costs. (Literally).

If claims start coming in they will likely cough up and it will be an industry wide sudden effort to update wordings.

Male men are often not very 'inclusive'. Eg football massive racism, are there any openly gay premiership footballers yet?

They're a woman so have to play sport with the women.

Likely to have massive advantage and be star player/ win loads of things.

Other reasons around knowing women mainly won't like it but they can't say anything etc.

It may not be an upfront issue in terms of not being able to get insurance, but I reckon they'll use it as an excuse to avoid on paying out on claims if they can.

I genuinely cannot understand why they don't compete in the male category but under their new female names, female clothes, etc.

We'd soon get used to seeing the odd female name in the list of males.

Re insurance.

This comes up a lot.

I doubt many if any insurance companies have even thought about it. It's a very slow moving industry in certain lines. No one wants to move first. Rates are derived from the past. And extrapolated. Often societal shifts or even medical legal ones etc if not directly in their line of vision only get picked up after the claims start coming in and there are enough for someone to say hmm what's going on here.

I looked at the insurance policy for a local martial arts club on another thread. Ploughed through the whole thing

Not mentioned at all. Iirc women/ girls was used. Or the participants covered by the policy or something can't quite remember.

If anyone has an update happy to hear it but a few months back anyway that was the content of a policy and I doubt that the insurance industry has cast aside 100s of years of tradition and caution! (And well it's the reinsurers and they definitely don't have their fingers on the pulse unless stuff like motor IE ever changing situation, very high claim volume, very tight margins due to massively competitive marketplace).

On the back of this I can't see any Insurance Company willing to risk insuring sports teams or individuals if males are included in female sport.

A follow up Q and A. Bravo Sean Ingle who has been very clear on this and pursued facts, and hasn’t been hampered by the Guardian’s ideological editorialising.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/29/what-does-the-new-transgender-guidance-mean-for-sports-in-uk

Evidence indicates it is fair and safe for transgender people to be included within the male category in most sports.

I doubt the TRAs will be happy with that sentence, in fact I can almost hear the building rage as I type.

Whilst I'm very happy and relieved to see the conflict laid out plainly I still feel angry that so much time, effort and no doubt money had to be spent proving what virtually everyone other than extreme ideologues know to be true.

It's fucking infuriating really.

If a sport organisation declares that it is single sex, female only under the EQ Act exemptions and a trans women still joined would they be liable if a woman was injured. Shouldn't it be possible to prosecute for fraud? There ought to be an obligation to abide by the rules for transgender people.

This sounds encouraging. Sean Ingle’s report is also balanced and neutrally-framed too.

Some common sense!

PLUS

'The landmark report is highly significant because it comes from UK Sport, Sport England, Sport Wales, SportScotland and Sport Northern Ireland, who between them invest hundreds of millions of pounds in sport each year. '

the Scots govt are going to go bonkers. This is an agreed statement across the whole UK. It's huge.

The other thing is that we have been performing so well in international competition for a fair few years now. Women especially are all over the medal boards in a way that weren't before.

We punch way above our weight (population size).

I suspect the sports council don't want to jeopardise the excellent results of UK women.

And ones that make that decision can then be asked for justification and/ or women can move away. Which yes it shit.

Actually this also opens the door to new female only orgs. That is legal. And fair. And so any criticism is unwarranted. Plus of course as it's probably a sport that has stuck two fingers up at women then they are perfect for all trans people.

A big win, I think. This will have ramifications internationally. In the UK the tide has been mostly against women, I think this will stop that.

Pizza I totally get what you're saying and why.

I am fine with this statement though.

1. Sex segregated. That's legal and fine.
2. Female and open categories. Male transpeople whether suppressing t or not, and female people on t. Compete in the open category.
3. If you want to proritise trans inclusion by including anyone male and anyone female on t in the female category. Despite the clear Risk/ unfairness. That's up to you but you need to be clear you are doing this, and that you have decided to open the women's cat up anyway.

Additionally they can think about additional options for their sport eg including a mixed non contact version.

I'm fine with that.

The important part is what will the sports orgs do about it. Ball in their court. With this clear statement on the table, if they prioritise inclusion then it will be clear to all that this is an active decision and they know it's detrimental to female competitors.

Not passing the buck so much as giving sports bodies the backup to keep sex categories. Or have female only and open category. Or if they want to prioritise trans inclusion then be open about it and consider and understand the impact on women.

I think it's great tbh.

Also note they included a reminder of the law- that sex categories are legal.

The only sports that can allow everyone to compete together are sports where women already compete directly against men; see, equestrianism. There aren't too many others that can be added to that list and it's for good reason.

I used to play contact rugby many moons ago. I was shit but it was a fun hobby for a while, and some of the (very good) female players were absolute powerhouses. My body ached for days after a match. However, as strong as they are, biology talks and if a man was to play contact rugby against us, most women would be leaving the sport early with horrendous injuries, if not worse, completely regardless of how strong the women in question were.

We don't need wishy-washy advice. We need it outlined and made entirely unambigious. If you are trans and want to play in a sport where men already can't compete directly against women, I'm sorry but you'll just have to find another sport or compete against other transwomen.

I really don't understand why this is so difficult for people to understand. It isn't being transphobic, it's speaking an uncomfortable truth. And as much as people want and beg for life to be fair, life is never going to be fair. If it was, we wouldn't have millions of people living in poverty across the world.

Wow - no gaslighting us by telling us that biological males will have no advantage when competing against biological females!

I was assuming they'd cravenly follow all the other sheep bleating that the emperor's clothes are splendid.

Happy they're shining a light on the difficulties of this instead. Good stuff.