Trans girl winning every race at primary sports day

The school haven’t thought this through to it’s inevitable conclusion where they are allowing an 11 year old boy into the girls toilets, changing rooms and dormitories. OP you really need to help them look beyond appeasing some mad parents with a 6 year old that’s taken on a politically charged identity.
The sports day fiasco is a good opener. You now have proof that here’s an issue and you need to get in a room and make them think.

No @Talkwhilstyouwalkit just teaches girls at a young age that they have to pretend / lie and swallow unfairness.

It’s really important that doesn’t happen. Other helping stuff is fine.

Yes, I agree it's more likely to be about the parents. I was just being a bit brief as that wasn't the point of my post. But I do think you're right.

@LittleBitofBread
I do think a child who is eight and is confused about their sex/gender identity needs support. But I don't think this should take the form of letting them compete against the opposite sex.

agree that the opposing sexes shouldn’t compete…

however, I am not sure that children of eight are confused about their sex / gender identity - I think the adults are confused about how to parent!

A child of that age does not have the emotional maturity to be working out and deciding that they are confused - that very lack of emotional maturity is why these things are seen as abuse - because at that age parents are the ones building their child’s future - they control the rhetoric / steer the feet / choose the path… a child at this age who is ‘confused’ has parents who are either deliberately choosing a trans direction for their child, or who are taking a child who is exploring how to be a boy / girl and mis-interpreting this against trendy societal pressure - either way the parents are to blame for enabling something which will I think be seen very clearly as child abuse…

"kindness to child who may well be struggling with their identity trumps competitiveness IMO."

Why is it kindness to affirm a child's philosophical belief about themselves when that belief is not based at all on reality?

Why is it kindness for all the female athletes in those events to just let this male athlete race because he wants to? Why doesn't your own kindness extend to the girls?

You can see it is 'unfair', but you dismiss it because to you, personally, you don't see any value in allowing female athletes to have fair competition when the school has created competitive events for the day.

You discuss 'elite sports' without the acknowledgment that interest and excitement in sport that leads to female elite athletes is not unusual to start in primary school. You wish to protect 'elite sports' while actively diminishing the opportunities for the interest that leads to that level with your personal view that even in a competition that a school has set up, we should make sure that our girls are kind and inclusive first and foremost.

Do you not see the rather stark disconnect in what you seek to protect while allowing harm to occur at the grassroots level?

This is so so different to the lovely example you cited.

this is allowing a male in to a female event, on the basis that if he’s trans, he is a girl. If you allow that, then you can have no argument for any single sex anything, because men can be women. That is then rapists in women’s prisons, flashers in women’s toilets, men in women’s races, men in women’s trauma centres.

this IS serious, because it’s where it all starts.

Sorry, I forgot one:

Sex Differences in Track and Field Elite Youth

Mira A. Atkinson, Jessica J.James, Meagan E.Quinn, Jonathon W. Senefeld andSandra K. Hunter

https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/server/preprint/view/324/version/419

RESULTS: Males ran faster than females at every age in the 100, 200, 400 and 800 m (P<0.001). When combining all running events, the sex difference (%) was 4.0 ± 1.7% between 7-12 years and increased to 6.3 ± 1.1% at 13 years, and 12.6 ± 1.8% at 18 years (P<0.001). Similarly, males jumped higher and further than females at every age (P<0.001). For long jump, the sex difference was 6.8 ± 2.8% between 7-12 years, increasing to 8.5 ± 1.7% at 13 years, and 22.7 ± 1.4% at 18 years (P<0.001). For high jump, the sex difference was 5.3 ± 5.2% between 7-12 years, increasing to 10.3 ± 2.4% at 14 years, and 18.4 ± 2.04% at 18 years (P<0.001).

CONCLUSION:Prior to puberty in elite youth track and field athletes, there is a small but consistent sex difference, such that males run faster and jump higher and further than females. The sex difference in performance was event dependent and increased significantly from ~12 years for running and 13-14 years in jumping events.

But, hey, it is preprint ...

Of course, if many papers found results that support the very same conclusions of acceptable papers, that also reflect the established knowledge for decades, and the established and published records of children from different countries and international records too, does that mean that maybe, just maybe, the findings are conclusive?

Yes, and there being exceptions is only possible because there's a pattern (for there to be exceptions to).

And no, there's not only one opinion you can comment with. Just expect to be challenged if your opinion is... challengeable.

Your experiences of two sports days are obviously a tiny sample size and anecdotal.

No pattern is. That's surely what pattern means in this context.

Yes.

The equivalent of conditioning girls to suck their hurt and discouragement up and still be kind.

Apparently so.

It is just a ‘little’ advantage that the boys have, not worth prioritising you girls

It is just ‘a few’ boys who won, at this age you are all the same level so don’t worry, you just are not that good.

But look, that girl beat all those boys, you are just not that good if you can’t beat the boys in your age group/class or event.

What do you mean you had to work harder to win than those boys? That is life, just accept it and move on! I don’t care what the studies say.

A girl can beat a boy in my school, so therefore that must be the norm!

It is all just a bit of fun! It doesn’t matter that the school ran races and rewarded winners! It is fun! You participated, just enjoy that experience. It doesn’t matter that boys beat you, at this age there is not ‘that’ much difference, or no difference at all! After all, that other girl won. It is just a fun event!

This is, precisely, what all the 'just' posts really mean.

'just about having fun' - which in effect means, little girls, learn now, the boys are here to compete and be ambitious and achieve. You're here for the smiling and participation awards, and making sure everyone else has a nice time.

Now lie to the nice man that there's no such thing as biological sex. He's a man, he has the power to make you do it.

Yes, elite female athletes famously spring from nowhere at age 18 with no background in competitive sport or interest sparked and sustained by finding they are really good at it, and able to win, from a young age.

So anything outside of elite sport doesn't matter.

A child with a learning disability is obviously at a disadvantage. A male child competing against female children is not. In fact, he very likely has a strong advantage.
I do think a child who is eight and is confused about their sex/gender identity needs support. But I don't think this should take the form of letting them compete against the opposite sex.

Yes exactly. Like poor boy, winning all the races and being resented by those horrible bullying girls with bitter feelings and resentful thoughts in their heads…how dare they not let him win everything in the girls’ race and even question his right to it. Girls must know their place and make sure boys have all the space and freedom to express their true and real ‘girlyness’. Which is based purely on their own 6-year-old definition, but completely true and accurate in every sense.

🙄

More of that automatic sexism.

It's just like the one that goes:

Trans identified men might possibly be harassed or worse if they use men's single sex spaces - this is terrible! It should never happen!

Women have been repeatedly harassed, injured, assaulted and raped by trans identified men in women's single sex spaces - but how badly really? Prove it's badly raped, injured and assaulted enough to consider possibly permitting female people men-free spaces.

Isn't that setting a precedent though? It's one thing losing a shoe and being allowed to enter another race, but being encouraged to believe you are something you aren't is a very different matter. What happens when the trans kid gets older and firmly believes he has every right to race against girls?

…and this is the thin end of the wedge.

The idea that you “…don’t care that she wants to use a girls name, wears the girls uniform etc.” well you should care. This child is not a girl and never will be. But by formally pandering to an impossible delusion and being ‘respectful’ of it, we are creating a - totally unnecessary - situation where girls and women are shafted in almost every scenario where trans ideology is concerned.

As I said on another thread (which now has over 80 likes) any parent attaching a trans label to a child that young, ought to be subject to a social services intervention. And as far as a primary school is concerned, it publicly unravelled all of its ‘fairness’ and ‘kindness’ values in one fell swoop, not to mention the application of critical thinking. Would we pander to a child who thought it was a saucepan? No we not. This surreal bullshit needs to stop.

So glad to see someone highlighting the additional social disadvantages girls face even in primary school. Thank you.

Why would you read studies? I suppose if you were interested in the truth then you’d read them.

And if you’re happy to navigate the world based on your own anecdotes rather than carefully gathered data, that’s your choice. But it puts you in a weak position defending your opinion in a debate.

‘The main thing for the school will be making sure everyone has a good time and participates....so if the trans kid wants to race against the girls then let him....’

yeah, and if the trans kid wants to shower with the girls when he is ten, then let him

and if he wants to shower with the girls when he is sixteen, then let him, because he always has.

🤡

Haven't RTFT yet, but I wanted to say yyy to team races/events. Not only is it fun but it strikes the right balance between pure competition and co-operating with your friends/classmates. You can mix long jump with egg and spoon, sack race. Such good messages to give kids.
And the final race with first boy and first girl is brilliant. In the concern for less athletic kids it's easy to forget that athletic girls (and boys) need encouragement, too.

OP - another vote from me to encourage you to be that parent. Your daughter will thank you for it.

Be " that parent" . Ask for the policies. It's a legal requirement for them to have one. Good luck !

This is actually one of the arguments against the non-binary categories that we are seeing popping up in sports competitions. Well, including allowing male athletes into the female category too.

Because the non-binary categories are almost reliably won by male athletes. Therefore, it rewards poorer performing male athletes where they could be entering a choice of all three categories if they wanted to due to some event's policies. And they could potentially win any category they enter.

Whereas the female athletes by comparison will not be likely to win any event except their own sex class.

This does mean that it is discriminatory directly to female people and it is also discriminatory to other male athletes. Because unless the other male athletes declare a gender identity, they will not be able to have those same opportunities to win.

I'd put in a formal compliant. One child's delusion belief could end up putting off a whole year groups of girls from sport with long term consequences. School should not be pandering to this nonsense.