British Rowing consultation on trans and NB policy

Yup, I liked it too. Although - on a second reading, isn't this analogy also making the case that if you wanted to watch cars race round a track all the F1 cars should race against each other? That would be like having an Open Category, which is what was proposed in the article by Jon Pike cited earlier. The one in which he states, in his conclusion, that "It is possible to argue, coherently, for the abolition of female sport."

Then, if you wanted to compare the performance of flying cars you should do so based on their flight characteristics, rather than their ability to race round a track. I mean, who wants to watch car/planes taxying around the airport, right? Or alternatively you could just look at and admire flying cars whilst parked up somewhere on the ground and that's cool too? I'm not altogether sure this analogy works for all waves of feminists. It's still good, though.

Regarding your earlier post about wheelchair rugby - if you want fairness, you do need dozens of categories. Actually, more like hundreds and thousands. It soon gets impractical. But by not doing this, you must accept that fairness isn't what it's all about. And if you go back to what it was originally about, back in the days of first and second wave feminism, it was about men having leisure, while woman kept the hearth and home, and women not taking part in any sport in any significant numbers, and being excluded and segregated. In the olden days, the fight was against men keeping women out. Seems that the tables have turned.

Perfect

@JanesLittleGirl dont think we are, we're trying to have a conversation despite the noise.

Are you a rower yourself or another sport? I was hoping BR would follow the example of British Triathlon and I'll make that point in my response.

Why oh why is anybody trying to argue with Mark!

That is good. Very good indeed.

Interestingly, the responses to the male cheats winning women's awards in cycling etc have generated furious responses from thousands of men under sports articles in the Times, Telegraph etc. I am assuming that many of them will be what we call more "right wing" men, yet their instinctive sense of fairness, understanding of facts, science and sport generates furious responses. The majority comment on the threat to the integrity of women's sport.

The driver is just as good but the machine is less streamlined and less powerful

Can we change the comparison to an F1 car and a flying car?

I like the pp's point that the reason our bodies aren't so perfectly adapted to athletics as men's is to accommodate our superpower of being able to gestate new humans. I'm not sure we point that out enough. It isn't that our bodies are weaker or not as good as men's - far from it. Women's bodies are utterly incredible.

In our hypothetical car race, the flying car has extra weight and bulk in the wings, and won't have a chance around the track against an F1 car. But that doesn't make the flying car less good than the F1 car. It's a flying car! (and even if the flying car never does fly, either through choice or due to a mechanical issue - it's still super-cool that it's designed as a flying car. )

But there's really not much point or interest in racing the F1 car and the flying car round a track against each other. Not even if you draw a pair of wings on the F1 car...

Wheelchair rugby league allows able bodied participants as well so perhaps we should let all men into women's sports. I mean most para sports have dozens of categories to ensure fairness, but let's ignore them because they don't fit your warped agenda.

Yay! So Mark hasn't been totally useless, then.

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@PermanentTemporary
They do assume other men are just pretending to like women's sport and respect women athletes.
They're baffled as to what the appeal of women's sport could possibly be (apart from skimpy clothing). Why wouldn't you want to watch the fastest runners, or the best footballers, they ask. I see it as using a different machine. It's like Lewis Hamilton in a F1 car beating the lap times of Lewis Hamilton in a stock car. The driver is just as good but the machine is less streamlined and less powerful - because it's a stock car. They also underestimate the value of seeing yourself represented and IMO fundamentally do not grasp the appeal of sport for many - it's in the competition. Sounds like a bizarre thing to say about sports fans, but I think it's true of some.

Well that makes him the same height as me and I've just look and he is only a year younger than me so I reckon it would be a fair race. I mean his fastest time was 9.79 seconds and no woman has ever run under 10 seconds but I'm sure that was just because they haven't really tried because loads of women are 5'9" or taller.

On the sealioning… one of the side effects of seeing it in effect all over FWR regularly is that I’ve realised that my bloody STBXH sealions me in real life all the time. He’s relentless and belligerent as he calmly and quietly follows me around/won’t leave me alone ‘just asking questions’ and then plays the victim when I get upset or angry with him.

Now, at least, I have a word to describe and explain this particular form of abuse. Because it is abusive behaviour. And being able to recognise it as such is so helpful to me when I have to deal with the fucker.

There is definitely a strand of thought that we should be delighted these excellent athletes even want to join us in our weakened events. That their participation makes women's sport intrinsically more worthwhile. That is pure misogyny.

Maurice Green is 5'9" so should be allowed to run against women? seems legit.

cutewallpaper.org/21/maurice-greene/253493036323220323415330.jpg

It definitely is. If women’s sport is a joke… male humans are happy to just scoff at it. But if it’s a real thing - with prestige and money and such like - then it can’t just be left to female people.

Not when the advantages of male biology make it possible to rise to the top over those useless female people. Surely this could only improve things…

Misogyny is the turd-that-won’t-flush of society.

It's possible. Based on my personal experience... there are men who are genuinely solid allies to womens sport and I've met quite a few of them. There are some though who quietly resent that they have to pretend to take womens sport seriously - I think they assume most men feel like them and they could be right. I've met a lot of them too.

@PermanentTemporary
Do you think some of this new/old misogyny is a reaction to the fact that some women's sport is starting to gain traction? I know that some football fans (mostly male but some female, sadly) just hate the idea of the England Lionesses doing so well, England Women in the Six Nations, etc. They resent every column inch or second of TV exposure. Some people are very invested in the hierarchy - men's sport important, women's not so much - and if the world starts to take women's sport more seriously, the natural order is upended.

It’s fascinating how people unable to make their points concisely, and who rely on belligerence because they cannot frame a coherent argument, don’t seem to realise that are demonstrating their intellectual inadequacy. It’s the debating equivalent of chucking yourself to the floor and drumming your heels. The toddler may think he’s making his point powerfully, the grown ups know otherwise.

Back to the actual point of the thread.

Principle 5

A Junior rower under the age of 16 intending to compete as a Junior Woman may be considered and approved by the Expert Panel on application without supporting medical evidence. This will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and following determination that the trans or non-binary junior has not started puberty.

How exactly is the expert pane going to make the determination that the junior has not started puberty without supporting medical evidence?

It's odd to look back and remember the misogyny that pervaded sport in the old days. And here it is again. Guess it never really went away. There were always women who couldn't see it though.

I mean… I almost want to applaud the effort that’s gone into being quite so misogynistic while pretending to be so reasonable, inclusive and kind (unlike us ‘hysterical’ women).

Except I don’t. Because I’m utterly fed up with this misogynistic shite.

Being female is not a disability.

That is an incredibly offensive bit of sealioning.

Anyway, now that others have stopped typing ... I've circulated the link to my crewmates. We've touched on the issue before but I genuinely don't want to influence them. They should just know it's happening.

Have you ever looked into wheelchair rugby? Many of the issues being raised on this thread have been addressed, quite elegantly, by the bodies that make the rules in that sport. They have managed to find solutions that accommodate athletes with traumatic spinal cord injuries (i.e. ones that were born without any impairment) but also ones with degenerative conditions such as polio or muscular dystrophy, or neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy. I'm sure that the rule-making bodies have heated discussions about what is and isn't "fair" and there'll have been people arguing it's unfair on those born with disabilities to have people who only recently had amputations joining the team, as these would have acquired more muscle mass than someone with say, cerebral palsy could ever hope to build in a lifetime of training. But do you know what? They've managed to create a fast-moving, exciting sport that is great to watch. And one that accommodates people with all sorts of physical disadvantages - all playing on the same court. What's not to like about that? Wouldn't it be great if women's sport could do the same? Personally I'd prefer not to emphasise the "women are weaker" arguments quite so heavily - my suspicion is that this is playing right into the hands of the MRAs that many posters seem to think I align with, and I think it is a strategic mistake to do this, but it does seem to be the consensus on this board so let's run with it. Let's enable all the weaker people to participate in sport together - regardless of whether their weakness stems from congenital factors such as XX chromosomes or from feminising hormone therapies in later life. Why is that so hard?

Thanks for the link to the questionnaire. I was not filled with confidence by having to answer a question on whether my gender identity matches the sex I was assigned at birth! Hardly an unbiased question.

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