Kelly Holmes changes her mind on trans inclusion in women's sports?

Yep. Depriving women at all levels of the joy and sense of achievement at winning.

Kelly Holmes fastest 800m :1 .56

mens fastest 800m : 1.40

Kelly Holmes fastest 1500m :3.57

mens fastest 1500m : 3.26

I don’t think you would have got much public recognition for those times Kelly if you were competing against biological men.

Be thankful you managed to squeeze in an amazing career doing what you love before this madness hit. So sorry you feel it’s now time for denying future female athletes the same opportunity.

Didn't see this before I posted. This is my husband's argument - we don't need to worry, money will fix it. Clubs will be told by insurance providers that if they field a trans player, they won't be insured. Club can't risk it. Trans player quietly asked to step aside.

I think this is the wrong approach - it's discrimination by stealth. Trans players need to understand the issues and agree to compete in birth sex categories.

Sportswomen need to start litigating. Sue the trans person, sue the coaches, sue the league, sue the governing body for putting biological women in harms way on ideological grounds. Failure to protect women from physical harm and injury by enrolling them in mixed-sex sports by stealth.

Once these people find themselves in court, they might not want to be so kind.

This is only going to get worse. As more trans people appear openly in society, more people will want to play on opposite sex teams and the potential for injuries increases massively.

rugby is a strange example because of the safety implications. eg a couple of weekends ago my son's junior football team wouldn't let their best player take the field until someone could rustle up a pair of shinpads for him, the reason being that the club's insurance (paid for out of fairly modest team subs), which in extremis will cover a parent's lost wages if they have to stay at home looking after a kid with a newly broken leg, wouldn't pay out if they knew a player had got injured whilst not wearing skin shin pads. would insurance really pay out if a female player had been knocked into next week by a male player?

@gogohmm your relative would do well to read up on the research by Dr Elisabeth Williams at Swansea University on concussion in female rugby players.

Her work is based on females playing against other females. The effects noted and studied will be greater in a biological female playing against males.

I read that report from the ice hockey match and found the account from the injured player so odd. The video evidence clearly showed the opponent causing the clash. Why is she a) down playing the injury and b) blaming it on the way she fell? Anyone would think she'd been given an incentive of some kind??

Kelly’s just been on holiday with Linda Riley, editor of Diva. She’s also got a younger girlfriend, she’s been re-educated. If she truly cared about non elite sport she’d acknowledge her time at park run when she completes one when she doesn’t go fast to prove that it’s the taking part which counts.

Trans athletes can compete with their own sex - it’s not hard! If men aren’t accommodating TW in sort that is not women’s problem to solve

deeply disappointed in dame Kelly but then she no longer competes and she’s got her medals so no skin off her nose to chuck women & girls sorting aspirations under the bus as unimportant.

It is very easy to say ‘those female players’ are making an informed decision. But are they really? Do they fully understand the risks? Or just ignore the risks and their friends and family just tell themselves it is their decision to reduce the concern.

It's clear that's what happens. That recent "trans" ice hockey event has an example, with the female player who was knocked out trying to downplay it.

I’ll end with some good news: That Team Black player knocked into the boards has recovered. In a recent social media post, #91 reported, “I am okay, [though] I was diagnosed with a concussion and muscle strains in my left neck, shoulder, and back.”

Strangely, though, the player then went on to provide an apparently fictionalized account of the accident. While the video plainly shows #91 being struck by a Team Pink player, the victim reports that, “I was playing the puck, and I took a very odd fall into the boards.” There’s no mention of any opposition player—though the post also notes, cryptically, that this part of the story is “sensitive.” Reading this self-blaming narrative reminded me of those stories about women in troubled relationships who tell friends they got their black eye from walking into a door.

saying that all Trans athletes shouldn’t compete in elite sport isn’t right.

It also isn't something anybody is saying. All trans athletes are free to compete in any level of sport they can qualify for. In the correct categories.

Its funny - nobody is arguing for making age categories more inclusive, are they? If they are, I may take up the 100m sprint. I'm pretty sure I could beat the current world record holder in the over-80 category, and some days my knees do feel really old.

I suppose the thing is that Dame Kelly Holmes was a (middle distance) runner. She was always training to improve her own personal times. It would be easy enough for her to TRAIN alongside males on a track as they are each working towards their own goals, just as my teen daughter can train in a swim lane alongside younger or slower males. Kelly isn't/wasn't hitting/kicking/heading balls in a team.

At about the age of 11 or 12, boys start to develop a noticeable physical advantage over girls as they grow bigger and stronger. That is why the "mixed teams" drop away.

Anyway, she is entitled to her view. I and the vast majority of parents of sporty teens are just likely to disagree with it.

She is entitled to her views and to change her mind. The scepticism and disappointment on here is because we're so familiar with countess hostage videos from woman who have literally been subject to a form of "re education" It's made clear that they will be expelled / thrown out of work[places, social groups, communities and friendship groups if they don't submit, suspend all critical thinking and meekly obey TWAW and associated mantras.
Faced with rejection, they obey orders.

Well said.

Yes and people are allowed to disagree with them.

Which many people have said. And we in turn are entitled to ours.

So she isn't allowed an opinion or a rethink ? Jesus. Everyone is entitled to their views

But the point is, there is no nuance. Either you support the protection of single sex sports for women and girls for fairness and safety or you don’t, because you prioritise inclusion. There’s no nuance for elite sports. There’s no nuance for grassroots sport. There’s no nuance for the vast majority of sports that are currently segregated by sex for well-established reasons.

So nuance can get to fuck.

Yes. This was the first thing that crossed my mind when reading a female is playing on a male rugby team - with no issues.

The ‘issues’ may become apparent in a decade to come with dementia from tackles and collisions.

It has been proven that all levels of contact rugby carry risk. But that females are especially prone to injury.

It is very easy to say ‘those female players’ are making an informed decision. But are they really? Do they fully understand the risks? Or just ignore the risks and their friends and family just tell themselves it is their decision to reduce the concern.

Remember many of these people are very vulnerable. Indeed we are told they are the, or among the, most vulnerable in society. And people saying ‘there is no issue, how wonderfully accepting’ are certainly not acknowledging that ignoring those risks contribute to harm.

She has completely betrayed women and girls.

I agree that what she says is quite nuanced.

And she kind of has a point about the benefits of 'taking part'.

Fixture cancellation due to insufficient player numbers is fairly endemic in very low level amateur sport [in all age/sex/etc classes]. One can imagine a very benign hypothetical scenario where a women's football club has a middle aged TW coach or something who will as required offer to turn out for the opposition in a situation where they otherwise wouldn't have enough players to fulfil a fixture.

This business about, "looking at the individual person" I like a lot less. In so far as there is a 'point' to elite sports [i.e. not grass roots], it's about the opportunity for participants to achieve something that's really remarkable, really special, often so much so that spectators, sponsors, etc will be prepared to put hand in pocket to witness it. Sex and what is remarkable/special are, of course, inextricably linked. Globally, a really really small proportion of of men can run the marathon as quickly as Paula Radcliffe did, or the 100m as quickly as Dina Asher-Smith does... but elite men can do it fairly easily, and I hate the argument that there's no problem in letting in a man who's only about as fast as, or a little slower than, PR or DA-S because it's not as if they're going to breeze to every championship, South Park style... the point is that if you let men in you completely blitz the remarkable/special element.

Feel so let down reading this. Kelly knows more than most how both amateur and professional competition requires, fairness and safety. Again there is no thought to women and girls in her statement. It's all about the enjoyment for trans people.

Yes, but at least it would corall them all in one place, and the rest of us could just go on normally.

I'd also argue that in team sports there is an ethos and camaraderie among women's teams that would be altered when a transwoman is included

Plus the obvious changing room issues.