"I don't give a shit about the scientific explanations. If they identify as a women, they get to compete in sports"

You could identify as having size 4s? Though all the cheating men will do so too.

As a woman with size 7 feet, I am not quite convinced about this.

That's not very inclusive towards people with larger or smaller feet than 4 and 13. Anyway, it's what you identify your foot size as which matters, not the facts.

This is a tremendous idea, but I would like to suggest a subtle adjustment.

Lets organise competition categories according to shoe size.

I actually think this would be more far more fair than pretty much any other category parameter we could choose. All the size fours could race each other, the size fives, size sixes ... all the way through to sizes 13s.

I don't know, I think non binary could be the key to it all unravelling.

There was a real facepalm moment a while back when the mother of a female non binary person who competed in a new non binary category in a sporting competition in the US complained that it wasn't fair for AMAB non binary people to compete against AFAB non binary people and they should have separate categories.

Arguably, female athletes should all identify as non binary and then demand new categories for AMAB non binary and AFAB non binary.

Non binary men rarely do much to themselves. Gender nullification is rare.

The women get mastectomies and micro dose with testosterone

It's when you consider sport that the issues with the whole idea around non binary are revealed.

Some think it's the more reasonable version of trans. I think it's a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Non binary women compete in the women's teams.

Non binary men all shuffle over to the women's teams too.

It's just as harmful a category as transwoman and transman in terms of health, well being, fairness and safety for females.

We should be able to discuss this without the hyperbole and drama

twitter.com/timesradio/status/1663509236150861825?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Sorry haven't read full thread, but just saw trans woman Katy Went being very rational about women's only sports, having U turned (and open about saying so) as well as slamming Bridges' drama about British cycling's policy on times radio.

Ah, well compared to the US, sure. But there's still a long way to row back from this insanity.

Can we start by not referring to these people as progressives, when they are anything but?

@MargotBamborough I'm highly cynical about it too! I guess what I'm saying is at a very broad level - and in comparison with the States - there is at least some public airing of a diverse range of views and opinions on this issue on the Left in the U.K. (Not for a minute minimising the cost to individuals who don't tow the TWAW line though). Whereas in the States that space doesn't even exist to begin with - there's no middle way between the extremes. So progressives will minimise, deflect and ultimately throw women under the bus rather than question TWAW.

Non-binary people should all compete in the female category, regardless of natal sex, or they might not win. Duh!

Emma may not care about sports, but competing athletes assuredly do, and mostly want to win.

I'm very dubious about these mutterings from Labour. Nothing short of an unequivocal "we got it wrong" and "we will not introduce self ID" is going to cut it for me.

If sports aren't the most important thing in life then surely trans women can stay out of them, or compete in the correct sex category.

I agree. I was just thinking that in the U.K. we do at least have some political figures on the left (such as Rosie Duffield and Joanna Cherry) who have consistently and publicly opposed this ideology. Albeit they suffer terribly for it. Plus Labour seem to be signalling a possible shift away from the TWAW group think ...

As far as I'm aware, this just isn't the case in the States, so even as the evidence mounts against trans ideology, it's harder for progressives to make that ideological u-turn on the issue and so they end up doubling down. Not that I'm making excuses for this idiot, but I can see how it happens.

^same with Megan Rapinoe, who responded to the trans sports debate with 'Sports aren't the most important thing in life.' I guess, meaning that women should be ok with losing out, then.

The thing is, this woman is actually a male sports commentator. She is very much involved in sports. Just feels that it's acceptable to exclude women from them, apparently.

The thing I find so enraging is when they say we are on the same side as the people who want to take away women's right to have an abortion.

Firstly, we are not in America and no one in the UK is seriously trying to take away women's right to have an abortion. There is no mainstream political movement trying to do that here which must be opposed at all costs.

Secondly, the fact that the political right in America has been so successful in trying to take away women's right to have an abortion, and the fact that the political left in America doesn't believe female people need a word for themselves or should be allowed to define themselves in a way that some men are unhappy with ARE NOT UNCONNECTED.

Feminism is failing in America precisely because American "feminists" are more concerned with gender theory than they are with the real lives of real women.

Well that's just a classic case of playing the ball, not the man, isn't it?

I judge people based on what they say and do, not what label they use about themselves.

I'd have replied saying, "If you're on the side of the people who think women can have penises, you need to give your head a wobble."

Emma - hallo world - meet Violet Elizabeth Bott.

Seriously, there is no room for compromise on this. It's like you can't be a little bit pregnant. Either you are, or you're not. It really isn't complex. TRAs and their supporters are trying to make it complex because they know that, for the majority of people, it is simple and everything else is a word salad by TRAs attempting to prove the impossible.

Worth linking too to well known dysfunctional thinking patterns. The whole 'something is either all good, or all bad, and if they do one disliked thing then the whole person and everything they've ever done or will do is bad' is a typical one in someone with difficulties. It is worrying how much this political movement has attempted to normalise and push the thinking patterns tending to be symptomatic of someone who is not very well. And so often centres those with these kind of difficulties at the front of the movement.

I guess it's a bit like that over here too? I've seen friends of mine make the arguments about the recent Scottish Parliament debates about Self-ID to the effect 'if you are on the side of the tories you need to give your head a wobble'.
They were also very put out by Kate Forbes being in the running (too socially conservative) and thinking of going to the Scottish Greens(!) if she won.
To be fair there's not been too many remarks on thosee topics since the Mr Bryson court case.

She's American I think? Males competing in women's sport is so obviously unequal and unfair, but over there admitting that puts you on the right-wing-evangelical-Trump-supporting side of the culture wars. So 'progressive' women will throw women under the bus rather than concede that, despite all evidence, water is indeed wet.

This is what it comes down to over there if you're not a Republican and why the Democrats desperately need to get real on this issue and move away from the narrative that's trans rights is the new civil rights issue.

Very well explained, Literal

As soon as you make the category of 'female only' into something else, you exclude females.

And lets be honest, the sole reason you are doing it is to give men more freedom of self expression, choice and happiness.

So you are excluding women from anything, to make men as a sex class happier by providing them with the full choice of everything.

How is this not male supremacism? How is this not pandering to men at the expense of women because you see the sadness of men as a much more serious thing than the actual loss of equality and access for women?

And this is incidentally, sex based and binary thinking which makes a complete nonsense out of continuing to pretend this is because of any belief those men have changed from the male sex. It's purely because men want it and are laying on the guilt and coercion to try and make women enable them.

Add additional categories. Have a ball, add as many as are wanted and needed, I'll hold your coat. But men being sad that women have some things that men cannot own and control is something that those men are just going to have to get over. It's plain bad behaviour and it's not acceptable.

And again: you'd think someone who identified as a woman would actually care about women.