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

Inclusive means flexible in this case. I have a trans relative f-m who is fully accepted by his rugby team.

Fully accepted, but incredibly dangerous. It has been demonstrated that females have a significantly higher incidence of concussion - traumatic brain injury - and neck injuries while playing other females. Your relative is putting themselves, and being allowed to put themselves at greater risk of injury for the sake of inclusion and acceptance.

As Ross Tucker says, you cannot balance fairness/safety and inclusion. You have to pick a side, and that’s the same at any level of sport, even club and grassroots levels.

Who gets to decide when winning matters? As far as I'm concerned, if I'm taking part in a sport where points are scored then winning matters.
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. I would certainly feel more reserved in their presence and would ultimately probably choose a different team - although partly because I wouldn't want to be part of a team that has an unfair advantage.

But then we get the situation in the US where trans women can compete against women, except in mixed crews, where at least half of the crew must now be natal females.

That's a different question to whether a special group of males should be included as "female".

So everything mixed then?

@onyttig

I agree about middle aged men! But my exh played mixed 11 a side football abroad (min 5 women) and it worked really well. Still got injured though! I just think we shouldn't put barriers where they don't need to be, my dd was helped by being allowed to play football with boys until 14 (it was 11 previously) it wasn't a hindrance

If this is her statement it is not really very clear what she is saying because she doesn’t actually state that males should sometimes be allowed to compete in female sports categories.

She allows people to draw that conclusion though.

Yes, I thought that too. It's an attempt to please without actually spelling it out. She obviously feels like she has something to apologise for

"More important than winning" Shame on her

How many local amateur sports teams that play just for fun can you name ? I mean actual real ones, not just speculation.
Even a 5 a side kick about has 2 sides who, you know, compete against each other.

Inclusive means flexible in this case. I have a trans relative f-m who is fully accepted by his rugby team. Not as easy the other way around but where it's about winning, not a league mixed can work- my dd is fed up with not being able to play rugby at college because there's not enough female players

Mostly those kind of activities are though. Go to a spin class and it’ll be mixed sex. Same with the climbing wall. Or a surf group session down at the beach.

Personally I wouldn’t elect to play 5-a-side mixed sex because, frankly, the middle aged men my idiot husband plays with all seem to spend the time injuring each other. Maybe they’d be nicer if it were mixed sex. But I’m not going to investigate that.

This is from Queer Insider stating this is Dame Kelly’s statement.

“As a former international athlete, a gay women and now openly a member of the LGBTQIA community, I want to firstly say I totally support my Trans Siblings”, she says. Then admitting: “I have been ignorant in the past about the fight of the Trans community and I now want to see fair and conclusive outcome for those whose gender differs from that assigned at birth, in all walks of life, including sport.””

“Firstly I do not believe in a blanket approach. A more nuanced approach of looking at the individual person, sport and level is much better way of keeping sport fair.”

“For example, there are many sports in which skill, practice and experience pay much more than physical ability. Equally, the vast majority of sport is played on a local playing field where taking part and inclusion, as well as physical and mental health benefits are perhaps more important than winning.”

“There is definitely a discussion to be had as the matter is so complex, but saying that all Trans athletes shouldn’t compete in elite sport isn’t right.”

“It is important everyone in society is treated fairly and for sport, a scientific approach on this matter is taken, like in other countries were scientific reviews have already happened.”

So, she effectively throws non-elite sportswomen under the bus. With plenty of fence sitting otherwise.

note that currently sports do not ‘ban’ transitioned males from any sport. They still can play in the male sports divisions.

If this is her statement it is not really very clear what she is saying because she doesn’t actually state that males should sometimes be allowed to compete in female sports categories.

She allows people to draw that conclusion though.

Maybe they should be entirely mixed sex then. No? Then there's no justification for males to participate as "women."

Local amateur sports not part of a league are just for fun. Unless there's safety reason why not it should be inclusive

How pleasant that she can feel the need to crush all the hopes and dreams of future female sports stars. Top work Kelly.

I mean, she could have just said, you know, nothing?

She's so bloody sexist. Women are meant to be kind and inclusive and to play sports for healthiness and fun and sociability. It's mean for women to be competitive and want to win, especially if winning comes at the expense of men (the important people). She should deal with her internalised misogyny and stop pulling up the ladder on other women.

I suspect she'd feel differently if she was still competing.

The fastest time at 800m for a man is 1.54 for men it's 1.40, that's a huge difference.

She hasn't changed her mind. She has been 'educated' and sold out every girl and woman.

How very kind of her.

The thing is also that there are going to be a lot of female sports players who will be pro excluding women. It's daft to pretend all women agree on this. When I was competing I might well have bristled at the suggestion from others that there were physical limits to me, that women's bodies are different. Competitive sport requires you to remove mental barriers like that.

Unfortunately the reason I was able to remove those mental barriers was that I was competing in women's teams. On the occasions that changed - like practising starts against a men's crew- the mental barriers turned out to be real ones. But it didn't happen often.

I'd agree the detail of what she says is quite nuanced. Because Dame Kelly knows. She's an athlete, a veteran, she knows.

*If you really believe "taking part and inclusion, as well as physical and mental health benefits are perhaps more important than winning", then surely that taking part should be enough for the "trans" athletes - they just shouldn't win women's prizes?

Quite!

"A more nuanced way" to allow males into women's sports? It's not for her to decide whether amateur sportswomen should allow a male into their team and it's quite frankly disgusting that she's pressuring them to do so.

This looks to be the video - the quote is at the end. I guess she’s been subject to some intensive re-education sessions.

It's pretty hard to read, even trying to pause it frame by frame. It's a woolly nothing #bekind statement. She seems quite pissed off that the DM misquoted her new quote, and I don't blame her for that.

I saw this being reported gleefully by Pink News.

Trying to be objective and calm, I think maybe she's trying to please everyone. She's obviously quite new to being a public member of the LGB community and she comes across as wanting to make sure she's supporting that community.

There's quite a bit of nuance in her words. So the headlines are all that she supports trans athletes and that they shouldn't be prevented from participating blah blah. But she also says that it would depend on the sport as they don't all require strength/power etc and she goes on to say that it's important that a "scientific" approach is taken.

So while I eye-rolled hard at the "just be thankful you can take part" element - I do wonder if she still secretly believes that trans women should be barred from most sports because that's what the science would suggest? She's just having to speak in code to avoid pissing off the TRA brigade?

It is bloody disappointing though that she can't just acknowledge the clear and obvious issue with TW competing in female sports. Martina Navratilova is part of the LGB community and she has no issue speaking out for women's sports, and rights.

When Kelly talks about the importance of inclusion and the benefits to physical and mental health, I presume she's not taking account of women who are having the shit kicked of them playing rugby or other contact sports against male-bodied individuals.

She's entitled to change her mind, but let's be honest, she hasn't done so because of the physical evidence supporting the inclusion of this group of males in the female category, has she? I wonder who she's been listening to.

I played Volleyball from age 10 or maybe 11 and even at the lowest junior league level, when we could barely get the serve across the net, we wanted to win, not just participate. When I stopped playing competitively on a high level I played in a social mixed team and it is like a different sport, especially for female players. Still fun but I'd never would have played it with the same passion and dedication that I invested in playing in an all female team. Why are girls and women expected to sacrifice their ambitions and enjoyment for males?