"How to be fair to transgender athletes"

There are all sorts of medical (and psychological) conditions and treatments which disadvantage an individual vs the rest of their sex.

Jenner gives the lie to the idea that transwomen can't compete fairly at the very highest level.

Apologies for not reading your post properly!

Edited because I realised I hadn't read your reply properly, either! 😄

It’s literal violence if a man doesn’t get a medal in a women’s sports event.

Well known fact. I am sure someone somewhere has done a peer reviewed study and had it published in a well regarded periodical.

Oh apologies, I mistakenly included the word period, I hope I didn’t offend anyone.

“How to be fair to transgender athletes”?

Simple - stop being complicit in their delusions, and lying that humans can change sex.

@BellaAmorosa

i am not advocating categories as there are no Deaf categories at the Para Olympics. it would have to be separate events . As for funding, Deaf sports manage to fund and I would imagine all manner of “Inclusive “ companies would be queuing up to sponsor Trans events before Deaf sports who are below para sports.

We are in agreement that I also believe this is about men wanting to be in a woman’s category. I believe this solution would if nothing help the mask slip further.

Thanks for your opinion I will reflect on it more.

That's the point I went from reading it to just glancing at the rest of it.

I don't have the headspace for the amount of crap in that article today.

This would be unjustified, because unlike being deaf or hearing-impaired, claiming a special identity does not affect athletic performance, so no need for a special category. Identity is also a nonsensical basis for classification - why is it only masculine and feminine gender identities are considered? No-one ever thinks of the cats, faes or astros etc. Where is their category?

It also ignores the fact that these men want to be in the category labelled "women".

Creating additional special categories based on identities would be unfair to women because the cost of setting up and running such categories would be in practice taken out of the budget for women's events - the mindset in most sports is that the men's version is the sport, and the rest, including women's events, is diversity and box-ticking.

So that's hard no from me.

@Cattenberg

You are the first I’ve ever seen mention deaf sports and Para sports in the GC context.

I have experience of deaf sports and for a long time have help an unspoken view that the way in which the solution to the Trans sports issue is solved already exists. Having Deaf sports works to include Deaf people whilst remaining fair to Para athletes.

To me this modal would solve the Trans sports issue yet rarely if ever gets mentioned. To me just copy the modal and have Trans sports . if the issue is i indeed about inclusion and the ability to compete then how could anyone object and if they do they need to also include an argument for Deaf people to be included in Para sports.

World Aquatics tried that.

Swimming World Cup’s new ‘open’ category for transgender athletes scrapped as it received no entries

World Aquatics became the first major Olympic governing body to ban transgender women from the elite female category but, as part of last year’s announcement, had promised to stage events in a third ‘open’ category that would be separate from the usual men’s and women’s races.

The first opportunity for transgender swimmers to compete in this category was due this weekend, when the World Cup in Berlin was ready to host 50 metres and 100m races in each stroke, but not a single entry was received.

It suggests either that there is a minimal number of transgender swimmers who are willing or capable of competing at an elite level or that there is little desire to compete in races outside of the usual categories.

Or trans athletes want the validation of competing in sex category that they think matches their ‘acquired gender’.

https://archive.ph/ZwRLt

He seems to think that if you can show that there's still a reasonable possibility of any female bearing a trans woman then that means fairness has been achieved. It hasn't.

Yes, exactly. A variation of the "meaningful competition" trope. No, we want fair competition - degrees of unfairness are not to be tolerated purely to allow men into our sports.

And there is no doubt about Caster Semenya's sex. He is a man. His DSD proves it.

Being fair to them, to my mind, means having their own specific categories for trans men and trans women, so they compete against one another. No way should women have to make room on the bench and have their changing spaces invaded.

He lost me at Caster Semenya the paragraph before. Pretending Semenya is anything other than a male with all male advantage is clearly a disingenuous argument from someone who identifies as a scientist.

I don’t give a fuck what he says or thinks

Andy Harvey suggests developing benchmarks for tolerable unfairness and baselines for acceptable safety risks

Why should women have to accept ‘tolerable unfairness’ or any additional safety risks?

Also, he’s not a sports scientist in the sense of the science of biology / physiology - his postgrad degrees are in business management, then gender, sexuality, politics and culture, and then a PhD in Psychosocial Studies (cultural and social history of sports literature and gender).

He lost me at.
According to esteemed feminist biologist, Anne Fausto-Sterling, there are over 40 medical categories for the way that differences in sex anatomy may develop and it is estimated that between 0.5 and 1.9 per cent of the population are born or develop so-called ‘intersex’ characteristics.

As soon as someone conflates people with DSDs of various types with transwomen (healthy males), I start to wonder about their agenda.

I notice he also uses the upper estimate for prevalence of DSDs which includes conditions such as hypospadias. Silly man.

People thought the same about women only sport.
Trans women are at a disadvantage to cis men, and an advantage to cis women so they don't fit in either group.

We have divisions for just disabled people.

Tommy Lundbergh has already responded, calling it the top of a long list of poor analyses of the transgender debate in sport.

https://twitter.com/TLexercise/status/1772556689138475117

Dr Harvey has history - it seems he’s conflating inclusion and acceptance for gay men in sport which seems to be his area of expertise with TW (I couldn’t possibly comment on how deliberate that misunderstanding’ is

https://venudhupa.com/equality-associates/andy-harvey/

fortunately we also have the wonderful sports scientists Jon pike and Ross tucker who won’t have a bar off this nonsense

Oops type wasn’t should be was.

I noted the section on rugby and how the 2021 review by World Rugby focused on safety as a reason for maintaining a women only sport category. He denied there wasn’t any real evidence that a man playing with women made it less safe for women. However, the only real basis for that given is that Rugby currently has a number of law suits over head injuries and shouldn’t they get safety the men’s game in order first. He not only hasn’t provided any evidence that contradicts the 2021 review but is ignoring all the work currently underway on tackling heights and in game assessments. Epic logic fail in one paragraph alone. Can’t wait for Ross Tucker’s response.

Medical transitioning makes normal participation in sport impossible. Puberty blockers wreck the body(and should banned). A body that's been through puberty can only fairly compete in its own sex class. A man who's androgen-blocked will struggle to compete with men, as will a woman who's testosterone-enhanced (and she can't fairly compete with other women either). So the only solution is trans-only classes, which is unlikely to be viable on numbers. (Obviously, people who have only socially transitioned can compete in their own sex class.)

Maybe trans people just have to accept that the price is having to give up competitive sport?

A few issues I noticed in his argument:

He states a known prevelance of trans people in the population of 'at least 0.5%' o. The basis of the UK 2021 census - in which 0.5% of people answered the voluntary question re. Gender and identified as trans. He's suggesting the rate is likely higher but there's no evidence for this.

He also seems to assume the only relevant studies are ones directly relating to statistical sporting competitive performance. There's will be lots of other fairly standard scientific knowledge regarding the affect of these hormones on the body. That's before we even get to the point of assuming all transgender people take the hormones.

He also fails to acknowledge the complexity of the issue as regards mediocre male transitioning and outperforming top female competitors. He seems to think that if you can show that there's still a reasonable possibility of any female bearing a trans woman then that means fairness has been achieved. It hasn't.