You might enjoy the replies to what I am sure Sport England thought was an innocuous tweet

Eh? I don’t have a ‘gender’ because it’s a made up load of nonsense. I am also a teacher. I know for a fact that one’s sex affects one’s involvement in sport. Trying to get 11 year old girls to play a team sport with boys is nigh on impossible!

Isn't this where it's confusing. Consider the frequent use of transgender women to mean transwomen.

And GP Christine Mimnagh who describes self as a transman and transgender woman, iirc previous discussions.

We've no idea how Sport England define boys or girls thanks to the capture of some posts by people guided by ideology in any data collection and a strong drive to update The Crucible.

You are only focusing on the "choices" women and girls make with regards or physical activity and sport, not the structural conditions that exclude them.

In the case of sport, gendered expectations are so intrinsically linked to sex that it's sex that matters.

The financial and other resources deployed to support female sport has historically been low/lower; women have been excluded from sports and activities.

I worked for Sport England and in sports development for decades and can testify that the quality of leadership and thinking in this area is deeply lacking.

What about them? Girls who conform to female gender roles don’t do so out of the blue because they happen to innately identify with those roles. They will have had those roles pushed on them, because of their sex, since they were babies

@NumberTheory thank you. What about the girls excluding themselves based on gender roles they're conforming to.

This is sex discrimination at work, gender is the mechanism.
Yes, that's it.

What you’re describing in the way boys exclude girls from football in the playground is the mechanism of gender as a form of oppression of women and girls. This is what gender used to be understood as in second wave feminism. Gender is the socially constructed set of expectations and values applied to someone because of their sex. Boy’s don’t exclude girls because the girls think of themselves as girls, the exclude girls because the girls are female.

This is sex discrimination at work, gender is the mechanism.

Beyond puberty, it's sex and gender. Apart from periods,some girls stop being active because of their breasts - they don't all have good sports bras. Running becomes bloody uncomfortable!

This! Although really it would be better worded as "sexism", "racism", and "ageism" all....

The idea that girls are biologically less sporty, active due to their sex is sexist nonsense. Gender, as in stereotypes based on sex, is what means girls and women less likely to be active/involved in sports.

Some of that is doubtless gender stereotypes. 'Girls can't play football' rot.

Which isn't the same thing as 'gender identity'.

@Manxexile I'm saying that this survey talks about lower physical activity in girls than boys. I believe girls are less likely to be physically active because of the gender roles foisted on them. I'm talking about the girls who don't participate. And I don't think it's their biological sex that's stopping them. I think it's their gender.

I think transgender boys are more likely to be sporty- because they're boys aren't they.

I wonder if there are any stats... and no, they're not boys.

Do you think fewer girls are physically active because of debilitating periods?

I remember vividly sitting out PE and cross country at school, not because of stigma - I was genuinely afraid of flooding when on my period, because it had happened once before. Also swimming was completely off limits because I had once sneezed while in the ocean and had flooded a bit too. Back then there were only pads and tampons - had I had a mooncup maybe it would have been different, I don't know. But it certainly wasn't just socialisation that stopped me from doing more physical activity than I could have.

I also had 34E breasts from the age of 13, and sports bras were hard to get on and off - which didn't help much either.

I'll accept this. But in my mind there's a difference between sex and gender, they're not interchangeable and to suggest in this instance they should be changed is doing a disservice to girls.

@ErrolTheDragon ok and how do you explain the differences in prepubescent girls? How is their sex preventing them or making them decide not to do sports? Why are our daughters less physically active than our sons?

In the case of girls participation in sports tbh it's both sex and gender stereotypes.

I'm sorry but I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make?

I've known and know a lot of women ( = biological sex) who participate in sport and all other types of physical activity and so far as I know they'd all identify their gender as female.

Are you saying that's unusual?

@ErrolTheDragon I think transgender boys are more likely to be sporty- because they're boys aren't they. I mean come on, the narrative is if you're sporty and not into nails and make up you're a boy. If you're a boy not into sports and like pink you're a girl. That's gender lead bullshit. And that's the same reason I think girls are less likely to be in sports. I don't think boys look at girls and say let's exclude her from playground football because based on her sex I think she's probably shite. It's because she's a girl. It's her gender that's getting her left out. I also think that anyone who thinks girls are likely to be less physically active than boys is because of their sex are dreaming. It's society that's made girls less likely to be physically active- not their sex.

That's irrelevant... whether it's stigma or pain or the risk of bleeding, periods are relevant only to females - girls and transboys - not transgirls.
Sex, not gender once again.

Really? So do you think transboys are as likely as boys to be sporty? I'd very much doubt it. Who is likely to encounter more problems being active, transgirls or transboys? The latter are likely to be hampered by binders and physically disadvantaged rather than advantaged relative to their wished-for 'gender'.

@DuesToTheDirt I'd imagine the physicality of periods doesn't no. I don't have the stats but I imagine the amount of girls who avoid sports because of social stigma around periods as opposed to actual physiological impacts is bigger. Do you think fewer girls are physically active because of debilitating periods? Do you really think that when it comes to physical activity girls have less activity because of their physiology?

I don't get how X works. Why is there someone called Billy Bragg, with a blue tick, who is obviously not Billy Bragg?

Really? You mean periods, for example, don't affect your likelihood to do sports?

@Boombatty do you think the sex of children is what results in lower physical participation of girls? Or socialization of girls? I am deadly serious in my belief that lower participation in girls is as a result of their gender and not their sex. There's a difference between sex and gender and I'm fairly certain the reasons for lower physical activity in girls is nothing to do with their sex.

Gosh. Every reply so far is sex not gender. Good stuff!