How do the people who believe gender is more important than sex think about the sport issue?

[quote DottyHarmer]@MangyInseam - frankly why should the boys be playing down to the lowest common denominator? They should be playing football etc with other boys! (As an aside I think PE should be set: as a galumphing idiot with two useless-at-PE dcs, no one benefited from all-ability PE and Games.) I was scared at school of the larger girls playing hockey and netball. I think I would have run a mile if boys or trans pupils had been thundering towards me.

To return to OP: the fact is that the most militant state that TWAW - end of argument. If you are built like Conan the Barbarian but feel (even if twice a week) like a woman, then that’s that. No debate.[/quote]
I agree with you to a point.

But school PE class does tend to be a time when you will have some kids who are much more proficient than others even in single sex settings. Sometimes that can be managed by breaking up the group, but other times it just has to be more of a recreational rather than seriously competitive game.

But where there are enough students to have the girls and boys separate it just seems odd to never take that opportunity. That age group in particular often will struggle with mixed sex games.

@MangyInseam - frankly why should the boys be playing down to the lowest common denominator? They should be playing football etc with other boys! (As an aside I think PE should be set: as a galumphing idiot with two useless-at-PE dcs, no one benefited from all-ability PE and Games.) I was scared at school of the larger girls playing hockey and netball. I think I would have run a mile if boys or trans pupils had been thundering towards me.

To return to OP: the fact is that the most militant state that TWAW - end of argument. If you are built like Conan the Barbarian but feel (even if twice a week) like a woman, then that’s that. No debate.

Can't find that group but "juggling world" public group is an interesting read as they're discussing unfair representation of women....

Now a community that's interesting to look into is the circus world (specifically acrobatic performers.) They had a big fracturing a few years ago where one prominent circus person was ostracised for daring to say trans ideology was an issue and damaging to bodies.

Last time I looked at a public fb group, they'd got round the v tricky issue if the fact that women are simply not as strong as men (watch any acrobatic display!) by labelling them xx people and xy people....

Those are interesting conversations as they're clearly clear this is not people with dsds. They talk openly about impact of strength to males. This though allows more self id and non medication.

It's the women who again are more affected. They could take some testosterone (I didn't see a conversation about that.) I saw one female performer had chosen to have a mastectomy. She was a contortionist so I imagine actually needs her flexibility and any hormonal treatment could affect that.

It reminds me of an opera singer who identifies as male but obviously can't take testosterone as that would affect the vocal chords.

Truth and Kerala, it was when the idiocy started to infect extremely good breastfeeding peer support groups, parroted by people I'd previously rather respected for their dedication to for example setting up sling libraries and helping new mums access bf support. I could tell there was an overwhelming sense of sjw / 'these people are so disadvantaged.'

The other type of woman in those groups doing this is herself identifying as non binary / "queer" and very angry. I see a mix of trauma and depression. They need to believe this. This is their "community." But they know they still need female communities and they can't cope that we don't agree.

Its a difficult question as it depends on what kind of important you mean. Its more important in some ways, especially if youre suffering with it, but less in others.

I do think sports should be restricted to boilogical sex as the advantages and unfairness is glaringly obvious

Could someone point me to the evidence that Semenya uses male pronouns, doesn't identify as female, and was married in a country where homosexuality is illegal? I wouldn't want to repeat those things unless they are definitely true, and I read, for example, that she was married in Pretoria in 2015 (South Africa legalised same sex marriage in 2006).

Absolutely warrior it seems to be "compassionate" women eager to throw away women's protections for a vocal minority group. Most men (DH an example) are very very cynical about other men's motives in a way many naive (sorry but they are) women are not and frankly should be.

Oh I forgot the DSD card, where magically males without DSD should compete against females, because tada, DSD conditions exist.

Key points are:

1. Misunderstanding or lying about intra and inter class differences: "Sports is all about genetic advantages". Yes, it is, but we control for it by having a sex class. So comparing within sex class differences to between class differences is false.

1. Lying about science: They actually believe the science says HRT removes the differences. Some cite that US army study which shows alignment in I believe press ups. They ignore every other study that shows advantages remain. They ignore actual evidence from Laurel Hubbard who despite never achieving anything as a male, being on HRT for years, becomes an Olympian aged 43 when most women peak in strength long, long before that.

1. The usual woke lies such as "well they are women" or "they face so much oppression that actually hinders their sporting ability" or "it is just a game"

I've seen various arguments for including TW in women's sport. Very few for including TM in men's sports. Arguments tend to follow one of more of the following:

TWAW. Anything other is transphobic. No debate.
Inclusion.
Their team mates/competitors don't complain
The stress and medical difficulty of transitioning means no unfair advantage.
Sport x is already inclusive of both sexes.
No evidence that TW have an advantage.
Bell curve of men and bell curve of women has a small area of overlap and therefore no competitive advantage.
DSD
Etc

Safety, fairness, science tend not to feature. Nor do TM.

Except when they get to playing basketball or hockey etc, it's pretty clear that there is a gap. And not all the boys are good at playing down to the lowest common denominator, and a lot of the girls are intimidated, or just don't find it fun, and they hate gym class.

And the second point there:

anything at all will be appropriated at any time, without the faintest conscience or regard for truth if there is the slightest hope of it working as a lever to strip sex based rights from females.

According to some TRAs, it’s just like including women with VSDs

While excluding women with disabilities, faiths, beliefs, cultures and traumas from any resources at all, so that male people can have them.

No it's got nothing to do with any care for 'inclusion'. Or women.

According to some TRAs, it’s just like including women with VSDs (though they almost always use the term “Intersex”). Then they reference Caster Semenya - as a “cis woman”. Want to guess what the next step is? If you guessed [along the lines of] “Trying to exclude trans women from [women’s] sport is the same as racism!!!!!!!”

That last - Olympic-standard, surely - leap is brought to you by the well-publicised cases of black athletes with VSDs who[se supporters] are manufacturing outrage over their having to reduce their testosterone levels to continue to be allowed to compete as woman despite being male. Lots of White Saviouring over how these poor women couldn’t possibly have ever suspected they have a VSD because they’re from Africa & thus until they got to the Olympics had never seen things like electricity, properly surfaced roads, doctors of Western medicine etc. That “all Africans live in mud huts” trope is so WILDLY blatantly breathtakingly overtly racist you might miss some of the heinous bonus racism around “Are you saying Caster Semenya looks like a man you ignorant racist? Do ALL these women look like men to you?!” [with either accompanying photo or list of assorted famous black women]. Photoset or list generally featuring Michelle Obama, just to compound the problematic, presumably 🤦🏻‍♀️ Returning, however, to the utter nonsense of “ZOMG stop bullying these poor BIPOC cis-women who had no idea about any of this”: a 2-second Google shows that certainly Caster, who wore the boys’ uniform at school, uses male pronouns, & is legally married in a country where homosexuality is illegal was NOT suddenly shocked by the news he is genetically male; nor does he identify otherwise. It’s also known that there are some unscrupulous coaches who specifically seek out athletic children whose VSD diagnoses would be an advantage, with a view to their competing nationally & internationally.

Endlessly asked not to bring VSDs into it, but still TRAs use them as a way to prop up their “arguments”. Equally, the requests to stop comparing black women to men who “identify as” women because it is sickeningly racist are ignored. I’m not sure what’s so complex about the idea you can’t just throw up #BLM in your social bios & make The Right Noises about “supporting queer BIPOC creators/businesses” & educating yourself & you’ll then be covered in a magical shield that proves you are One Of The Good Ones & not at all never-ever even a little bit racist. Ever at all. Because you’re “woke”. And naturally there’s nothing at all problematic in SJWs having just waltzed off with that word, same as it’s not inappropriate &/or appropriative for them to do the same with “rest in power”. SJWs aren’t truly “woke”, either, in the true sense: being alert to injustice =/= going looking for offence. Part of the reason you need to be woke is to be able to protect your community: as is often discussed, TRAs talk up all the dreadful threats to trans people, but have no interest in creating resources to combat them. All the claiming that words constitute “literal violence” & endlessly jumping up & down on the fingers of women just clinging to the ledge about being the most vulnerable-marginalised serves to preclude being woke: self-absorption to that degree is a serious soporific.

Sorry, I got a bit sidetracked from the central point: apparently my mind set up a domino while I started writing & then the post as a whole happened. It’s not like I’ve randomly put in my shopping list or thoughts on Harry Potter; so as it’s still just about relevant enough am going to leave it in.

• followed by some (beautifully curated) self-criticism, though I note people who self-ID as Communist don’t generally seem to have much grasp on how Communism has actually [not] worked in reality or indeed anything else about it frankly

I think people don’t realise that this issue isn’t just about elite sportswomen. I did some secondary school in a co-ed school and some in a girls’ only school. I am NOT a sportswoman and never will be. But PE was much more fun in the girls’ only school. The boys not being there to physically dominate the games meant all the girls could play and have their actions actually make a difference to the outcome of the game. I also played a little bit of football as a teen in an all girls inter-school competition. We were a terrible team. Seriously bad. But it was fun and good for us to play anyway. Only having the option of mixed-sex teams would have meant I never played at all.

One of my favourite critiques of "inclusion" is Coach Blade, here, saying that it seems like the people she was talking to were just saying it over and over like a religious mantra, and she couldn't get them to engage their brain enough to understand what they were effectively saying.

She was approaching it as a logical argument, but to them it was just a recital.

Link should take you to 46:28.

Yes I do think a lot of us were led to believe this.

I remember growing up being encouraged to think I was completely equal to males (by society) but a miss match then to the real world where I knew I could be assaulted and definitely wasn't as capable physically to male peers in sports. Which I sort of pushed to the back if my mind.

In terms of careers it's the same until you decide to have children and then lots of things are revealed to you.

A friend who's daughter is old enough to have lots of career talks pointed out they never include discussion of what might happen to your career when you have children, to both sexes.

If inclusion is a human right, why do we have separate para Olympics in sport?

I know the argument would be that 'women aren't disabled men,' except there's biological reasons why we have separate sexed categories.

People parroting "inclusion" really don't know what they're actually talking about.

Treating people equally does not mean treating them the same.

I think it's mostly other women supporting it.

From what I've noticed of these women, they tune into the "under dog" (probably due to being women and experiencing various types of sexism) and see these males as the under dog.

Experiencing a version of perceived sexism and "oppression." These women have so much empathy that they become blind to anything else.

There are few "normal" men who support this. Only the vehement TRAs eg OJ. (I've never seen him talk about sport though?)

Classes usually have strengths and weaknesses that balance, but what pro would you give a female to balance the con of less physical strength? While still being realistic? As you know, we struggle to identify physical activities that women could beat men at. (Not gymnastics, contrary to popular though. Endurance events?)

The ability to spawn?