Breaking news - Emily won't compete

Ereshkigalangcleg they can’t comptete in female competition though if they are supplementing with testosterone though, or can they?

I am really glad that the great dames of sport have started to speak up about this in the UK. I am glad that the race will go ahead this weekend without any male bodied athletes and I hope that the governing bodies consult with women and allow them a safe space to discuss their concerns.

They tend to be competing against other female people, weirdly enough.

Does anyone know what the rules are for trans men? They are allowed to take testosterone I assume? And are then allowed to compete in the mens competitions? Only we never see any compete because their female bodies that have been through female puberty is a hindrance to them when competing against males. Which kind of proves that it’s not just about hormones.

Jeremy Vine is discussing this article on Radio 2 today if anyone fancies calling in.

It's quite a defiant statement, isn't it? I feel like they're already working on how to find a loophole.

Still, it's good news for now.

NecessaryScene and OvaHere - yes, if T-taking women can not enter then it feels SAMO that it is transmen (foot of the sex caste hierarchy in Sheila Jeffreys' terms) or some relevant groups of NB who are the only systemically excluded groups.

"I think on balance I'd rather this not happen to anymore women and girls."

The thought of this being inflicted on Laura Kenny - Laura Kenny! - literally brings on tears of rage. The disrespect and what I can only see as misogyny from British Cycling is hard to comprehend.

Are Emily's qualifications good enough for a spot on the male team? If so then Emily could still compete this weekend. A male teammate could give up his spot no problem, right?

The Guardian article says that Emily was "on the Great Britain Academy programme as a male rider until being dropped in 2020" so perhaps isn't good enough?

These photos remain on the internet forever and even if this is all resolved satisfactorily in the end MRAs will forever republish them with such witty captions as 'remember that time you were beaten by a man lol'

I think on balance I'd rather this not happen to anymore women and girls.

This is the link to the minutes of the BC meeting where the policy was discussed and approved. (For some reason, the governance section of the BC site is not well- signposted).
www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/bc_files/corporate/boardminutes/WEBSITE_BCF_Board_-Minutes-8.12.21-_v1.pdf

Haven’t RTFT but wouldn’t it be in a way beneficial for EB to be standing on a podium next to Laura Kenny - in terms of front page headlines and outrage and discussion?

There is also a lot of suggestion that BC are hiding behind this as the female athletes threatened to boycott the event if Emily were to take part.

I'm sure there are a few bricking themselves what with the Lia Thomas thing having hit just in the lead-up to it. I suspect there may be a few not-so-true-believers in BC desperately hoping for a way out where they can use the "well, it wasn't up to me" defence and not need to have the courage to say "no".

I agree that BC are fudging and hiding on the issue but at least this is shining a lot of sunlight on the issue and giving people like Sharron Davies more media space to talk about the fact that is not just fair to female athletes

My understanding is that the reason UCI have said Emily can't compete is because they are still officially registered with them as a male athlete and therefore cannot compete in the women's category as you can't hold two registrations simultaneously. The male registration is due to lapse in about 6 weeks time so at that point Emily can/will register as a woman,

There is also a lot of suggestion that BC are hiding behind this as the female athletes threatened to boycott the event if Emily were to take part.

I think they could run into issues with an open category and it might be where men start making noise about their rights.

Much of it could be around language used - if your category is 'Open' and you, a man, win a race or set a record is it called a men's record or an open record? Men may well want to be able to name their records and medals as men's.

So let's say the category is called Open but men who win are still allowed to call their wins mens or males what happens if a male person who has a female or NB identity wins (possible if that person has had no hormone treatment)?

What is that person's win recorded as? Can't call it a female/women's record because that still impacts the protected female category. So we are back to calling and recording everything as an 'open' record and an 'open' medal.

Thing is I don't think for a second any sporting bodies and not many male athletes are going to stand for men's sport being erased in name. If fact it's probably one of the reasons why all this stuff has been shoved onto women in the first place to avoid it impacting men's sport in any way.

I don't know what it was but Cathy Devine had an argument against that at the recent OU GCRN event

I'm a bit doubtful about it myself. On a couple of grounds.

1. It is basically a fudge to have male and female, that relies on the assumption that there is no effective overlap in male and female performance. If there was a woman close enough to male performance, she would be potentially faced with the choice of competing in the open, or in the female category. Assuming she had to choose - or maybe she gets to compete in both. That potentially devalues the female sport, in that it becomes "for female athletes not good enough to compete in the open category". Even if that problem doesn't arise in practice, because NO female athletes are good enough at top level, it still is a conceptual problem. Maybe if pay is equalised (by fiat?), there would then be no huge incentive for women to compete in open instead of female, but whereever pay discrepancies remain...

2. If that open category permits testosterone-doped females, then that effectively closes it off to undoped females. You might be able to argue say "doped females versus males" is fair, if the gap is big enough. But if the gap ever closes, it would be problematic, and if any undoped female ever wanted to compete in the open, asking them to compete against doped females would be unfair.

I guess just basically prefer the "different, but equal" view of unranked, male and female categories, with no option to choose, to the "restricted lower class" view of female events.

This is kind of bikesheddy though - debating what colour of "males out of female sports" we want...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4502585-Free-online-talk-Cathy-Devine-Sex-gender-identity-and-sport-Tuesday-29-March

Why can't TW delay taking hormone altering drugs much like women delay having a baby?

Few elite women would consider having a baby at 21 due to the effect it will have on their performance, they sacrifice what they want for what they need to do to be the best they can be.
A TW can still live as a TW and still want to take medication to make them look more like a TW, they just have to wait until they want to stop competing (in their sex category)