Trans athlete wins in female swimming race

Greasy is right that women's sport exists to promote the women's participation.

Because if there was just 'open to all sport' women wouldn't be competitive so wouldn't see any point in taking part.

Just a general sport category for everyone would mean total domination by men. Except in a very few categories. (Some gymnastics?)

Everyone knows this.

So if you want women to take part in sport you need specific categories for adult females.

He could, apart from the fact he's not good enough to make the cut in the men's team

Yup.

Lia chose to be noted for all the wrong reasons. When it could have been an utter celebration of who they are.

And that is why I refuse to believe this is no more to do with how they feel but what they want.

"Lia Thomas could have been a trans swimmer on the male team, breaking down stereotypes. He could have been celebrated for being 'gender non conforming', and his male teammates applauded for being accepting and encouraging. It would have been progressive."

He could, apart from the fact he's not good enough to make the cut in the men's team

Lia Thomas could have been a trans swimmer on the male team, breaking down stereotypes. He could have been celebrated for being 'gender non conforming', and his male teammates applauded for being accepting and encouraging. It would have been progressive.

When you see a male forcong their way into a place where they are not wanted, dominating females and taking their opportunities, then no stereotype is broken. It's not progressive, it's regressive.

Yes, explaining that greasy focusses on part of the whole story and then thrashed around thinking they are either making a clever point or obscuring one isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I responded to @greasyshoes because what they said has truth. It's just partial truth (as are all posts). This is just words on a screen but MN has reach, people read it.

It made me speak to the trans people in my life and realise just how patronising that was. How much agency I had robbed them of. Which is much how I see most TRAs, many of whom are not themselves trans.

Actually, on Lia Thomas in particular, I can think of more trans people who have denounced his behaviour than who support him.

(But maybe that does just reflect who I pay attention to)

You have to be a particularly reality-detached evangelist to support this travesty, and in most trans people aren't that reality-detached. And they really don't fancy the backlash.

It is said that the woman Fallon fought didn’t know in advance that Fallon was born male.

It made me speak to the trans people in my life and realise just how patronising that was. How much agency I had robbed them of. Which is much how I see most TRAs, many of whom are not themselves trans.

Basically I post for anyone doing as I did for a while, lurking, reading, leaping in and having specious arguments.

Girls in general are less likely to participate in sports and that is a social issue that needs addressing. But I wonder if Greasy thinks that women can socialize their way out of their hip angle, waist and breast shape, heart size and menstrual cycle, too?

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but there was a really interesting section on the bbc radio show More or Less a few weeks ago about exactly what advantage biological make atheletes have over biological female athletes. The resulting analysis was quite conclusive. Even those who are born male and transition to female (and have accordingly reduced testosterone levels) have a significant physical advantage over their fellow women competitors.

Oh my god why are people even engaging with @greasyshoes. Greasy, take your ignorant sexist attitude elsewhere, perhaps to Google, where you will find much evidence which demonstrates the profound biological differences between men and women. I can only imagine Greasy is a troll winding people up for laughs, no one can surely be that stupid.

Also true that the best way to combat that socialisation isn't to say 'hand over everything that's currently yours'.

I'm a rower. Used to be quite high level. I've rowed in infinite numbers of women's crews, set mixed crews (ie a known number of men and women) and scratch crews where it's anyone who turns up. All have their place. But I know the difference in every single stroke, and rowing is ironically one of the sports with the smallest difference between men and women - ie it's just large rather than enormous. Males competing as women will no doubt happen but I am sure it's wrong for women.

And it is important to note that there are many social aspects that did lead to women's sport being created the way it has. And there is a massive social aspect to women's disadvantages at sport.

But I gather from reading those posts that grease is also arguing that males suffer social disadvantage too. And that if all was lovely and equal and utopian there would be no need for female sport.

I've noticed lots of posts on Twitter gleefully spouting along the lines of 'women wanted equality, so suck it up' as some kind of ultimate gotcha. Fucking infuriating.

Btw that's not to say that socialisation doesn't contribute to girls and women dropping out of sport or not being supported - just that given the same advantages and treatment, or even if women were systematically advantaged rather than disadvantaged, male people as a class will still beat women. Their advantage is in the way their bodies are built.

😂 can't believe someone is trying to suggest the difference between male and female sporting performance is down to socialisation ffs. Wondering if they have ever actually done any sport in their life. Both me and my husband are competitive in a sport, we both train hard, I come from a more sporty background than he does and have taken part in sport my whole life. I tend to win more prizes than he does. Even so he could thrash me without much effort. His body is just different.

The really annoying thing is that we're all right. @greasyshoes is right to say that women's sport has been separate from men's due to sexism in that it's been patronised, less visible, less funded, and women have been raised and told not to be sweaty, not to be active, not to be competitive. A woman once won an Olympic shooting competition and it was immediately made single sex so that couldn't happen again. There are women in some religious groups who get death threats if they run in public in allegedly immodest clothing. All true. And it would be naive to think none of that affects women's lifelong strength and performance.

As that sexism has been counteracted to some extent, and frankly as there is finally some money and prestige in women's sport, we have had a counter argument that the physical development of the sexes is so identical and difficult to tease apart that males can compete as women without disadvantaging women at all. That isn't true in most sports. There may be more sport events than currently exist that could be completely open and still fair. But not many.

Actually I would really like greasy to make a very clear effort to explain just what he means.

Use at least two examples, just so we are absolutely clear.

What would it take greasy ?

You won't look at a simple poster, my word isn't enough, named studies won't cut it, apparently. What would be enough information for you to accept what is, after all, the lived experience if just about all of us?

Male or female we are all fully aware that, absent illness, injury or other unusual element, from a very young age boys are faster and stronger than girls; girls are more flexible, have better balance than boys. We all know this. We all live this.

As young adults we know this. Young women have to be very aware of this at all times.

Ás we age those differences remain.

We all know this.

It is a universal lived experience.

We’re a hairs breadth from the ‘Michael phelps’ arebt we

I’m trying to find that missy Franklin/Ryan lochte comparison. Same height, same wingspan and yet lochte is half a lap quicker than Franklin. Now I wonder why that would be….

Well boxing is categorised by weight, so two people fighting each other are going to be a similar weight to begin with.

Go and read the fucking studies!

Seriously.

A male boxing a female boxer of the same weight has an enormous % of power in their punch compared to a female boxer. And it is again, sorry to repeat it, widely now acknowledged that reducing testosterone does not reduce it enough to even be safe.

Go look up Joanne Harper, go look up the USAF study, go and look up Dr Emma Hilton and Tommy Lundberg, go and look through the World Rugby review.

You are seriously spreading dangerous misinformation .

There are also lots of men who are taller and broader than me. Should I have my own category in sports so I don't have to compete against tall men? What about basketball

No you compete in the category of your sex. And if you're not good enough to compete against your own sex, then you don't compete. I have no interest in watching mediocre males, who can't cut it in their own sex category, participating in women's sport in order to win. It's not brave. It's not fabulous. It's cheating, narcissistic and a total dick move.