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

Two fair options for the runner concerned.

1. Enter the men’s category. In this case it would only be the organisers that know this, assuming that the results are not published.

1. Enter the womens category and note they are “ assisted “.

I don't think transwomen are men pretending to be women. Its more that they are males who see women in a particular way, see us a social role, or a 'look', as a group that they wish to emulate and be included as part of for a variety of personal reasons.

Anyway, what I am sure about is that transwomen are not female. And we compete in sport with our sexed bodies, not our stereotypical social role or presentation.

So why on earth transwomen think competing in female sport is acceptable I can only ascribe to male privilege and entitlement.

It does matter. I don't know what I would do in your place though. It's tricky.

I run in a local running group and do local 10k races.

In the running group, the relatively unfit, low effort blokes run at about the same speed as the women who are putting in quite a bit of effort. If these men had the same level of fitness as the women in the group they would be significantly faster.

When we do 10k races, I and the other runners from my group are nowhere near the elite. Around the 50th "centile" of speeds for all entrants. But the race results portal lets you see your result from just among your own sex and age class - and for me, with my category I am 40th centile ie 40% of entrants in that category run faster than me and 60% run slower, and I feel proud of that. The unfit bloke who runs at the same speed as me, in his sex and age category, goes in the other direction - significantly below average speed. There's no prizes to be won in the mediocre range where we are but the idea that unfit bloke could pretend his minimal effort was basically a way better outcome just by self-IDing as a woman is insulting to the efforts of the women who train hard to get to that level. it is relevant and important to know how your speed ranking compares to others in the same category, and that is biological sex, not a feeling in the head. If the category was gender I don't even know what I would put because I certainly don't "identify" as female. I happen to have a female body, which I spent most of my life hating. Getting into running is helping with that a bit.

If women say to you they find it offensive would you stop using it?

So it's only trans people/TRA's that are able to dictate what is acceptable language?

In what way are trans women women though? (Sorry to derail but when people say this it’s always interesting to know what they actually mean!)

You do hear the word cis man. A lot actually. In fact I would say I hear it a lot more often than cis women. Just not on here because they specifically take issue with trans women so it’s never relevant.

Others on this site clearly take issue with everything trans people do, insist on calling them “men pretending to be women” etc

I'm tempted to say, "How odd," and recall discussions about helpful interventions or thoughtful work by Rose of Dawn, Debbie Hayden, Miranda Yardley, Fionne Orlander etc. and appreciation for the courage and work of Kiera Bell, Sinead Watson and so many others to whom we're indebted for so many reasons.

However, is this an example of, "Tell me that you're not familiar with the discussions on FWR without telling me that you're not familiar etc."?

I find cis offensive. Or does that not matter?
It is also something like compelled speech, which I think human rights bodies tend to take a dim view of. As a pp says, it also hampers women from describing and discussing the problems. And it is another stick to beat women with, along with what we do as mothers/if we're too tough/not tough enough at work/if we smile too much or not enough/what we wear, what we weigh, etc etc etc.

That is personal, you can’t know for other women

I find it very negative

Please do not use the term cis women. There are women, trans women, men, and trans men. Funny how you never hear the term ‘cis men ‘ (or would it be ‘bro man’?!)..

I think people should start recognizing second place female winners as first place winners if a trans woman "wins" first.
Most the general public is against trans women in women's sports and we can collectively give credit to the real FEMALE winners regardless of what media or those at the top of organizations say.

1. males should never be entered into races against females - unless its car racing!
2. why are masculine looking women ‘unfortunate’?

AmaryllisNightAndDay Referring to non trans women as “proper women” infers that trans women are what, improper women? Not women at all?
calling cis women, cis, isn’t anything other than a description there’s nothing derogatory or negative about it

cis isn’t offensive, and it’s useful when having a discussion about trans women

Oh, I'm all for sauce for the gander and sauce for the goose. Just cos you happen to think cis isn't offensive that doesn't make it inoffensive. And if you want to call women "cis" then I can call them "proper", though maybe I'd settle for "material".

I find it so

you can use it for you but I don’t accept the term for me

Congratulations on what should have rightly been third place, OP.
This definitely matters. Amateur sport is important to many people and allowing men to compete against women has consequences. For example qualification for the major marathons. There are only so many places. If there are more time qualifiers than places then the fastest runners in each age and sex category get in. To those saying it doesn't matter at an amateur level, you're wrong. It matters to tens of thousands of people. If I missed out on the Boston Marathon, or the London Marathon, or any of them, because a man cheated, it would really, really matter to me.
I would complain in this instance (making it clear it's the principle of it, not the bottle of wine, you're bothered about).

morescrummythanyummy- nothing would be wrong with that.

Are people really allowed to say things like “proper women that is” and “men pretending to be women” on this site and claim it’s NOT transphobia?

I dunno, but this constant policing of women's language plus the endless demand for self-policing is exhausting and silencing and it hampers women from even describing and discussing what the problems are, much less expressing our feelings about them (which are not always sweetness and light, any more than they are for any other contenious issue here)

You've only got to read the bewildering definiton I linked to on Wikipedia to see that there's a big problem. No-one who didn't already know could have used that definiton to figure out that transwomen are born physically male.

And I still have to work out patiently in my head what physical sex a "transwoman" is and then find some complicated way to express it which isn't simply "man" or "male". It's like that experiment where someone writes the word "blue" in red ink and "red" in blue ink. Most people naturally read the colour they see and not the word as written. Women are being tongue-tied.

Though I think that we are allowed to use the terms you quote above as long as it's general not individual. Callling it transphopbia doesn't make it transphobia.

cis isn’t offensive, and it’s useful when having a discussion about trans women (because yes I believe trans women ARE women, so I will refer to them as such so how else would you like me to distinguish for the purpose of discussion)
no one actually thinks it’s offensive it’s a pretence to infer that trans women aren’t women.
Some people have an issue with trans women competing in female sports- fair concern, plenty of room for discussion on that. Others on this site clearly take issue with everything trans people do, insist on calling them “men pretending to be women” etc

And @Ntsure what would be wrong with having separate TW/TM categories? Or having an open category?

Ach, I never bother reporting anything. Sunlight and all that.

🙄
some of you are so weird. You think a man’s hurt feelings matter more than women being discriminated against