I was beaten to third place in a running race by a trans woman

A friend and I noticed when watching a marathon that tall women with small boobs did better - but that's just how it is."

This is such a disingenuous and ridiculous argument.

This was neither disingenuous or an argument. Merely a simple observation. In that particular race one man came in significantly in front of the next batch of runners. The first female came in maybe 17 minutes after and was young, tall, and beat quite a lot of the middle aged men like my friend. Fortunately for this race there were male, female categories and age within them.

Absolutely agree @tabbycatstripy . Interesting to see that for some expecting people to run in their sexed group is being a big meanie and harsh. But females being made to compete with biological males is lovely and kind and demanded.

Not saying you haven't got a right to be disappointed, but I guess the counter argument would be when and how do sportspeople who have transitioned join in with these events?

There is no barrier for transitioned people to join in with these events. Unless, of course, at this level they still have an anti-doping policy - then transitioned females cannot compete with females.

It is hyperbolic to suggest that they are not able to 'join in with these events'.

Do we just say male to female trans people have to have their own races and events? that's not going to work is it, there won't be enough?

There have been different options suggested, including an 'open' category and a female category. Transitioned males should never be racing in female categories if they have experienced male puberty .

Some kind of handicap/penalty when they compete with CIS women?

And how does this get calculated? And why should any competitor then be put into a female category if they can get their performance to reflect some loss. How much of this loss is due to deliberate 'body sculpting' to lose muscle mass and create a 'female' profile? Why should ANY athlete be rewarded for this deliberate action that will lower performance?

I genuinely don't know the answer, but ' making' trans women compete with males, or banning them from competitive sporting activity at any level seems a bit harsh ( although no more harsh then a CIS women being denied a prize/medal /place on a national or local team due to a trans woman competing)

They are not being 'banned'. Again, this is relying on overly emotive and manipulative language. They are males.

This is a category breach. Do you:

think that a 25 year old should compete with the under 10 year olds?
think that a 25 year old should compete with the over 75 year olds?
think that someone is not visually impaired should compete in a visually impaired category?

Why should a transitioned male compete with a female?

Such a difficult situation.

I disagree that it is difficult. We are constantly told that trans people do not deny their 'sex'.

Difference in age and body type are all still within a sex class though.

I wasn't arguing that they weren't. I was answering the poster who seemed not to realise that age and length of stride and build matter in athletics.

I am with the people on this who say it is irrelevant as this is a low level /fun the competition

How far does this principle extend though? Is racism and homophobia acceptable at low-level/fun competitions, and only to be properly addressed at high level?

Why should sexism be taken less seriously at low level?

No one knows in a running event who’s entered in which sex/age categories - you all run together and they announce results and hand out prizes at the end.

Not always true. Larger races in particular can have sex printed on the race bib (TBH to put a brake on people illicitly passing on numbers, I suspect!) and I have even run an overseas race where age cat was printed on them too.

@Athleticpotential I am with the people on this who say it is irrelevant as this is a low level /fun the competition but you do seem unsure as to whether this person is male or female or have I got that wrong? I would in your case just ask "for the future" a clarification on their policies re this unless you will not be running with this group again. This does not involve shaming the person as some have suggested. I believe that we all need to question these things at even the smallest level eg changing rooms whatever otherwise we can end up with " well you didn't say anything before".

OK, this is kind of hilarious
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_men

the way lists are compiled on Wiki are very scattergun, and relate to lists of articles, but I was tickled to see that men seem to be represented by fictional detectives, gay porn actors, First Gentlemen (there haven't actually been any, but the actual male presidents don't appear in the list), sportsmen, and "Hasty Pudding Man of the Year"

It would gain you nothing but the label transphobe, the organisers would do nothing and the transwoman would be made to feel awful.

The point of a protest is not normally to gain something for oneself, but to help others. Denormalising this sort of thing - making it something that is seen as outrageous/offensive enough that the transwoman wouldn't even dream of doing it in the first place - is making society better.

If the transwoman is made to feel awful, it's the fault of having unreasonable expectations about what behaviour is permissible.

We need to be fixing those expectations, making clear it is not permissible, not giving the bad behaviour a pass.

If we were in a situation where people competing in the wrong age class was normalised, we should be trying to stop that too, not letting it slide so as to not make people "feel awful".

Btw anyone can edit Wikipedia (apart from some entries on living people). It's the community consensus that forms the article, and obviously controversial subjects or those in fast-moving fields are often in a state of flux. But there isn't a Head Writer or publisher or anything that determines what is written - it is, in theory, transparent as to how and why an article is written as it is.

That said, it's long been known that Wikipedia is mainly edited by white, western males. More women should get involved imo - add your knowledge! (With all that spare time we have!)

As long as you can cite sources and write a reasonable argument (no 'it has long been known', for example!), are open to pedantic "corrections" to adhere to style, and not resort to pissing about, there's no reason why anyone can't add to it.

Anyway - too late, I looked at the 'talk' section for 'Woman' which contained someone's post that "Unfortunately the editor consensus and the reliable source consensus is that "adult human female" is the succinct and accurate description for a woman." and which took me to here
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Woman/Archive_14#Proposed_edits_to_lede

Perhaps worthy of a new thread if anyone's interested!?

It matters, but in this context I would let it go. It would gain you nothing but the label transphobe, the organisers would do nothing and the transwoman would be made to feel awful. Totally agree they shouldn't have entered but they do think of themselves as a woman so its up to their conscience.

Professional races a whole different matter

I genuinely don't know the answer, but ' making' trans women compete with males, or banning them from competitive sporting activity at any level seems a bit harsh

No-one's banning them.

I'm dying to know though - why is "making trans women compete with males" a bit harsh, but making actual women compete with males not?

"What if you were beaten by a younger woman? That's one reason why they have age categories - veterans, over 60s, whatever.

A friend and I noticed when watching a marathon that tall women with small boobs did better - but that's just how it is."

This is such a disingenuous and ridiculous argument. Women have signed up to race against all varieties of other women, those with longer legs, younger etc. A women in the top 5% in terms of luck/physical attributes will thrive and expects to race against the other women in the top 5%, not 5% of women and 50% of men who jump "gender" category who'd be a similar level.

Men in the top 5% will only ever have to worry about the other men in that category. Nobody is jumping into their competition. The fact a short man will never win high jump is reasonable and his expectations will have been managed his whole life - if sporty, a short man might gravitate towards other sports where it is less of a disadvantage.

We should be managing expectations similarly, no man can move into the female category, no matter what he does to his body. This is actually a kinder position than judging them case by case. This would remove an incentive as well, so transition would be decided on with realistic expectations and therefore more informed consent. Just because shady medical people and dodgy charities tell trans people they can have everything they want, does not mean the world needs to keep up the charade.

Were you out there shouting about how "very tall men exist" when they were deciding that Oscar Pistorius had to have shorter blades to compete against able bodied men, were you even half as concerned about allowing disabled men to compete, even with an unfair advantage, as you are about allowing TW to compete with a much bigger advantage?

Sorry that this happened to you OP. I totally get it - not running atm due to a birth injury, but hope to get back there at some point. I used to be "good" as a woman and occasionally won things in local races and I trained really hard and was proud of it. I wasn't ever competitive with men of the same age as me (and I only routinely beat my dad when he turned 50 - honours were pretty even up to then).

I have just turned 35, but I may never be competitive for my age group again. I reckon that I could possibly win stuff as a Vet Woman 70 once I get back to training. Perhaps I should ask the London marathon if I can have a place and try to win that category. I mean, I have two young kids and don't get enough sleep and I definitely "feel 70" in my body at the moment. I am even en route to making a slow but full transition to 70 at the moment.

A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth
And when you click on 'woman' in that link, it takes you to the entry for 'woman' which begins "A woman is an adult female human."

So yeah you'd think it was an XX person who had something ambiguous at birth.
I dare not click on the 'view history' page for the 'woman' entry.

Wtf has happened to Wikipedia?

Fully captured, of course, like so much of the world.

Male power and privilege go just as far even when the males concerned want everyone to think they’re female.

Of course it matters. What happens when it’s local woman’s rugby and you end up getting tackled by a “woman” who’s 6ft 3 and 15stone. Womens sport at grassroots level is just as important to protect as at a professional level otherwise half of the population will get squeezed out of sport from lack of motivation because they can not get placed are frightened of getting seriously hurt but significantly bigger and stronger competitors

Difference in age and body type are all still within a sex class though. Add in the (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing significant) difference of male puberty changes, though, and it's a different story.
If it were otherwise, sport would always have been mixed-sex.

PS I would add that even at her best, Paula Radcliffe's times were often paced by men that you would never have heard of - because, for men, their performances were unremarkable at that level.

Here we go, the end of women's sport. Sorry Op, totally unfair, you actually came 3rd.

Also worth mentioning that most runners are very scrupulous about fairness. I know a back-of-pack male ultra runner who accidentally skipped about 5km out of a 100km race route (it was up in the hills, not well signposted and back of pack runners are on their own so no other competitors to follow - easily done). When he realised, he contacted the race organisers to apologize and made a whole Facebook post about the error, overlaying his Strava route with the race route to acknowledge what had happened.

Sounds like overkill, but in amateur sport integrity and honesty matter hugely to participants.

I 100% get you OP. As someone who trained very hard to reach the middle of the pack, I too once did a small race, tried my level best, and won something, I treasure that memory to this day

People say, "oh it's just a fun run, it doesn't mean anything".

Here's a secret. Runners are not all that different. Some are fast, some less so, but on the inside it feels the same.

You have been put in an impossible position OP. I don't know what the solution is.

Btw I have at least male running friend whose cancer treatment strips all testosterone from his body. He is still faster than women ten years younger than him....

I looked at the Wikipedia link upthread for Lauren Jeska - eek. Anyway, it describes Jeska as a "trans woman" with a hotlink which says:

"A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and sometimes sex reassignment surgery, which can bring relief and resolve feelings of gender dysphoria."

If I read that and didn't already know, I wouldn't figure out that transwomen start life as physically normal baby boys. I'd think these were babies whose sex organs were physically very abnormal or ambiguous and were incorrectly "assigned" as male.

Wtf has happened to Wikipedia?

‘I genuinely don't know the answer, but ' making' trans women compete with males, or banning them from competitive sporting activity at any level seems a bit harsh’

But letting males compete with females doesn’t? Is that because fairness for female people doesn’t matter?

I wouldn’t want to see anyone banned from competitive sport (nobody is suggesting such a ban) but the demarcation needs to be biological sex, not gender identity.

It does matter, and you should take it further even at the risk of being thought a 'transphobe. And congratulate yourself on the fact that you were in fact the real third place winner, as the third woman, the biological male who was unfairly labelling himself does not count where it matters.