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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Trans girl winning every race at primary sports day

235 replies

Minibea · 01/07/2025 21:47

My DD is 8 so in year 3 at primary school. There is a male child who self-identified as a girl from roughly age 6 and has socially transitioned at school. I’ve discussed this with DD along the lines of the importance of being inclusive, respecting someone right to be addressed in the way that they prefer etc but have also been clear with her that this child is biologically male and that you can’t change your sex. All fine.

Yesterday was school sports day. The child in question won every single race again the girls. DD is quite sporty and was up there with a chance of winning in all the races so is disappointed.

I don’t want to be “that” parent with school, nor rock the boat with the parents, but as the kids get older I’m concerned about the message this is sending and also the implications for bathroom arrangements, residential trips etc etc. So I want to ask school to provide/confirm their policy around all of this but what exactly do I need to see/hear? And what “should” the policy be so I can sense check it against what’s actually happening? An idiots guide would be most welcome!

OP posts:
Canijustsayonething · 02/07/2025 11:32

eqpi4t2hbsnktd · 02/07/2025 10:56

My daughter came in second in a gymnastic competition. 50 or so little girls. One boy. Guess who came first?

I would have been raging.

How did your DD feel about her 1st place being taken away from her by a boy?

Have you raised it with the appropriate Gymnastics regulatory body?

Ariela · 02/07/2025 11:17

At 8, any running race DD always won, she was 2nd tallest in the class (despite being 2nd or 3rd youngest) but was very fit - we walked a long way to school and being ruralish everything is a hike, and as her choice she ran everywhere it was hardly surprising she was good. She was also good at football to the extent when they had a local football club in to train they asked which junior club she played for (none, she didn't play other than at at school). In the 600m she lapped most of her class, and was placed last for any relay as she could often recoup the win even if they were last when she took the baton.
I'm not sure there is much difference in boys/girls at age 8, it's when they get older. Our primary always ran it mixed. And yes, we did hear 'it's not fair she always wins.', but you get that in any sport.

Helleofabore · 02/07/2025 11:13

I think there is also an issue where some people will dismiss a valid analysis of data that would be readily available to anyone if the analysis of readily available data has not been peer reviewed. It would be fine except that the knowledge has been understood for since children have competed against each other.

Just like this false perspective that the only reason for sports to be segregated by sex is that the men didn’t want to be beaten by women or because one truly exception woman athlete won a race once (but not the record and not won again) or whatever fallacious argument is put forward. No. There has not been a significant genetic change in female bodies. It is just that somehow some academics and campaigners have convinced people that there is no difference between male and female athletes so why do we either not allow some male people access or just abolish sex categories in sport.

Having seen the poor quality levels of some peer reviewed papers recently, I will take a not peer reviewed and relatively straight forward analysis that I can easily sense check myself over some peer reviewed data reviews that I have seen recently.

I think it is beginning to feel like wading through sludge with some people’s ideals prioritised above facts and knowledge that has been around for decades and decades, that now has had to be proven yet again to counter misinformation that has seeped deeply into our sports policies. It is like we are rediscovering the wheel. And it is the same wheel as two decades ago but people forgot about it.

eqpi4t2hbsnktd · 02/07/2025 10:56

My daughter came in second in a gymnastic competition. 50 or so little girls. One boy. Guess who came first?

Nana4 · 02/07/2025 10:54

Given that Lia Thomas is to be stripped of his titles, and the rightful winners have had an apology and the titles awarded to them, I think there will be some interesting discussions over the next few months.

Skissors · 02/07/2025 10:02

Sharron Davies the swimmer has campaigned a lot about this and was speaking very eloquently on the radio about the subject. Although she came from it wrt high level sport, said she has had letters from parents saying that their daughters are unable to have girl only races in school sports days.

Bonkers.

limescale · 02/07/2025 10:02

DuchessofReality · 02/07/2025 06:35

I definitely think it is worth raising. BUT in my experience, and you will know your school best, heads HATE it being suggested they are wrong. So I would wait. There won’t be any more Sports Days this year. Don’t make it too much about what just happened.

See what happens over the summer. The new EHRC guidance will be out. The government I think is due to finalise the schools guidance. It is possible this child may de-transition.

After the summer, backed by the new guidance, raise it as in issue with school in a forward looking manner ‘in light of all the changes in guidance, can I check what your policy is now on…..’

I'd want my daughter to see me take action NOW, to be her advocate and show I do not support this nonsense.
It's quite simple - a male (whatever they identify as) should not be competing along side females.

limescale · 02/07/2025 09:56

Sometimeswinning · 01/07/2025 22:31

At this age I think it’s all equal still. My dd is faster than some of the boys in her year and there’s a girl who often wins all the mixed races.

At my school the top 3 fastest in my class are 2 boys and one girl. It’s always close.

Incorrect. Your single observation is not the overall pattern.

Lovelyview · 02/07/2025 09:45

TheOtherRaven · 02/07/2025 07:46

I've helped for a few years at the local playgroup sports day - at 3 the boys mostly are en masse out running the girls with a speed and strength they don't have, and staff quietly 'fix' the mixed group races to put the fast boys in together with the occasional couple of very fast and athletic girls, and the slower boys in girl-heavy races so that the girls don't have the endless experience of mostly losing to boys. Otherwise they do get discouraged, and they do perceive unconsciously, even at this age that competitiveness 'isn't for them'.

We see in gender ideology all the time this belief that girls and women are just props in male lives; a part of the resources and set dressing for the male experience, and this is where it starts. We have to get more alert to the messages given to girls that mostly are happening through wholly unconscious sexism and just not valuing girls as we value boys.

Why should the feelings of one boy, and his need to not be confronted with the fact that he is a boy, be more important than the interests of every other girl in his year? What message does that send?

Yes, it's very hard and uncomfortable (and lets be honest, this is mostly about adults wanting to save themselves uncomfortable and upsetting conversations), to have to gently explain to a boy with gender confusion that he cannot be a girl in all ways as he wants to because he is not a girl, but frankly that conversation is going to have to happen eventually. To avoid such a conversation (and likely with shouty and legally threatening activist parents too) schools have enabled shared toilets, dressing rooms, showers, sleeping accommodations - there is no line of the girls that isn't crossed, to the point of active safeguarding risks that would never normally be considered.

The SC has taken away the ability to hide behind girls just not mattering very much compared to a boy. Schools will HAVE to now draw lines, and it is much easier to help a boy within clear expectations from day 1 that while additional and different resources might sometimes be provided for him, he cannot have the girls' resources and that there are limits to how far a transition can go, because of other people's rights mattering too.

It is a whole lot kinder to teach this from the start at primary than the situation we are now in where there are very angry men who have never encountered a 'no' before, have been strongly enabled to believe that they matter and no woman does and that 'no' is a word they have exemption from, and really don't know how to cope with it.

Great post. I hope all the 'it doesn't matter, it's meant to be fun' crowd read it and start sticking up for the girls.

EasternStandard · 02/07/2025 09:42

xWildFlowerx · 02/07/2025 09:18

Most activities at my boys' school are mixed sex, but the races are separated by sex because in general the boys are going to be faster. DD starts school next year and if there was a boy in the girls' race I would not be happy at all. If that boy won I'd be telling DD that he's not the real winner as he's not a girl and the winner is actually whichever girl came second.

Sports day being 'just for fun' makes no sense in this context. What is supposed to be 'fun' about deliberately segregating children by sex but then for some reason allowing only one child of the opposite sex into a race? The races would then have to all be mixed as they would no longer be boy/girl.

Yes we have mixed events, low key a bit haphazard at that age. Ball throwing, bean bags whatever

The fastest race matters to the dc and is girls and boys.

I really hope you get this changed op, it’s incredibly important girls don’t learn they have to take the unfairness.

SomeoneSomewhereOnThisWorld · 02/07/2025 09:37

@Glowingup

"They’re 8. My kids primary school has all mixed races and the boys don’t win them all and nobody whines and bitches about them being mixed either."

boys not winning ALL the races is not statistically relevant.

"... boy is small for his age and several girls are taller and bigger"

is statistically completely irrelevant

Questions, that you should ask:

  • what is the average size of all the boys in the class?
  • how many boys are above the boys average?
  • what is the average size of all the girls?
  • how many girls are above the girls average?
  • how does the boys average compare to the girls average?
  • how many girls are above the boys average and vice versa?
  • and how do girls and boys of the same height perform against each other?
  • how many races are run in your kids primary school?
  • how many boys/girls compete in these races?
  • how many races are won by girls and how many by boys? does it reflect the percentage of boys/girls participating?
  • do the 1st place, 2nd, 3rd place winner distribution reflect the percentage of girls/boys participating?
  • does the percentage of girls/boys winning a race change if you look at older years?
  • is the placement of boys/girls in a race evenly distributed? Or are the fastest 50% finishers pretty much all boys (or girls)? Does this change, if you look at older years?

Of course all this is a lot of work and effort, and you need to have large enough sample sizes, so just participating in your kids sports day isn't really giving you the data. The vage claim about whining and bitching comes across as trying to shut everyone up and ignore all statistics given for example by @Helleofabore . And comparing mixed competitions and single sex competitions where you let a member of the opposite sex enter is just muddying the water.

Having mixed competitions at primary age is not necessarily a problem. And the difference between boys and girls can even be motivating for girls. At a later age, top performing women often find it useful to train with men. But be honest and clear-sighted about it!

Mymanyellow · 02/07/2025 09:34

TheOtherRaven · 02/07/2025 07:46

I've helped for a few years at the local playgroup sports day - at 3 the boys mostly are en masse out running the girls with a speed and strength they don't have, and staff quietly 'fix' the mixed group races to put the fast boys in together with the occasional couple of very fast and athletic girls, and the slower boys in girl-heavy races so that the girls don't have the endless experience of mostly losing to boys. Otherwise they do get discouraged, and they do perceive unconsciously, even at this age that competitiveness 'isn't for them'.

We see in gender ideology all the time this belief that girls and women are just props in male lives; a part of the resources and set dressing for the male experience, and this is where it starts. We have to get more alert to the messages given to girls that mostly are happening through wholly unconscious sexism and just not valuing girls as we value boys.

Why should the feelings of one boy, and his need to not be confronted with the fact that he is a boy, be more important than the interests of every other girl in his year? What message does that send?

Yes, it's very hard and uncomfortable (and lets be honest, this is mostly about adults wanting to save themselves uncomfortable and upsetting conversations), to have to gently explain to a boy with gender confusion that he cannot be a girl in all ways as he wants to because he is not a girl, but frankly that conversation is going to have to happen eventually. To avoid such a conversation (and likely with shouty and legally threatening activist parents too) schools have enabled shared toilets, dressing rooms, showers, sleeping accommodations - there is no line of the girls that isn't crossed, to the point of active safeguarding risks that would never normally be considered.

The SC has taken away the ability to hide behind girls just not mattering very much compared to a boy. Schools will HAVE to now draw lines, and it is much easier to help a boy within clear expectations from day 1 that while additional and different resources might sometimes be provided for him, he cannot have the girls' resources and that there are limits to how far a transition can go, because of other people's rights mattering too.

It is a whole lot kinder to teach this from the start at primary than the situation we are now in where there are very angry men who have never encountered a 'no' before, have been strongly enabled to believe that they matter and no woman does and that 'no' is a word they have exemption from, and really don't know how to cope with it.

Great post.

1apenny2apenny · 02/07/2025 09:33

Ok everyone if there’s no or hardly any advantages why aren’t all sports mixed. It’s for many reasons but:
: because generally the stereotyping has already begun and boys are doing more sport than girls eg football rugby (although I know this is improving)
: many boys are already more pushy and don’t like to ‘loose to a girl’ (neither do many parents like to see this, yes I have experience)
: girls sport is not promoted as much as boys eg netball vs football
: girls stop sport earlier - bad because sport is good for health, confidence and body image

I would be annoyed too, yes it’s fun, but it’s still competitive and competition imo is good (when it’s fair). The young girls are already been shown a boys feelings are more important. Shocking.

Helleofabore · 02/07/2025 09:32

Penguinslove · 02/07/2025 09:25

And I don’t understand this “I always ignore anything that isn’t so i skipped past them’. Please can you clarify why you skipped past them?

So peer reviewed data has undergone a formal evaluation by experts in fields and it ensures quality, validity and reliability of data. It’s used for scientific articles and items published in journals etc. It ensures a high standard of research and supports the integrity of scientific findings.

So I rely on this data to make assumptions, there was one linked from Wiley which is the one I read.

I discounted another one posted as it’s not been peer reviewed and I don’t find it useful to base facts from these. It could just be someone writing what they want to write, without the correct facts to back it up. Which is how we end up with wrong data and extreme views in the public domain.

I understand the peer review process thank you. Most of the studies I linked were peer reviewed reviews. Hence I questioned why you skipped the studies the first time.

Is there a way that I can post them that will highlight that people should make the effort to read them?

StellaAndCrow · 02/07/2025 09:30

LadyQuackBeth · 02/07/2025 09:04

Tread carefully though. Our primary school has a running team that takes the best 10 girls and boys each year. In the year group with trans kids they just took the top 20 kids, to avoid the issue, so only 3 girls offered a spot. They didn't then have enough girls to have a team of four at any events, so it was crap for them - a boy who was 17th in the year got more celebrating and praise than the girl who'd have been 4th.

If the school have lazy or cowardly management, it's easier just to take things from the girls.

Our school also allowed them to share with whoever they wanted (always opposite sex) at residentials. It was terrible management and I wish we'd had the SC judgement when my DD was there.

Wow LadyQuack, what an awful approach by the school. Thanks for highlighting.

TrainedByCats · 02/07/2025 09:26

Not much fun for all those girls who had no chance of winning.

Setting the boy up to expect all the accolades and accommodations because he’s special. Not very good for him as he gets older. Do the school realise they are going against the Cass report by affirming?

ErrolTheDragon · 02/07/2025 09:26

Anyway….hopefully the OP has lots of ideas now how to approach this. I reckon the school needs to think about how to ensure this ‘trans child’ understands the difference between gender presentation and sex, and that the latter is important and they can’t change their sex. Support the child to be a beautiful longhaired boy with a feminine name rather than continue to push the lie that a boy can ever be a girl. If the child was under the delusion that he was really just like other girls, maybe his sports day performance may have made him wonder. Better, ultimately kinder, to gently steer him towards reality now rather than waiting for puberty, surely?

Penguinslove · 02/07/2025 09:25

Helleofabore · 02/07/2025 08:05

And I again disagree.

It is timely to address this now so the school has time to correct it and the relevant decision makers can consider it for next year rather than leaving it to the last minute.

‘Fun’. There also seems to be this term repeated as if to dismiss the competition, even mild competition, isn’t ‘fun’. Is that an adult perspective ? Or is that someone who either doesn’t like even fun competition or thinks that all competition is a negative?

And I don’t understand this “I always ignore anything that isn’t so i skipped past them’. Please can you clarify why you skipped past them?

Edited

And I don’t understand this “I always ignore anything that isn’t so i skipped past them’. Please can you clarify why you skipped past them?

So peer reviewed data has undergone a formal evaluation by experts in fields and it ensures quality, validity and reliability of data. It’s used for scientific articles and items published in journals etc. It ensures a high standard of research and supports the integrity of scientific findings.

So I rely on this data to make assumptions, there was one linked from Wiley which is the one I read.

I discounted another one posted as it’s not been peer reviewed and I don’t find it useful to base facts from these. It could just be someone writing what they want to write, without the correct facts to back it up. Which is how we end up with wrong data and extreme views in the public domain.

RufustheFactualReindeer · 02/07/2025 09:21

Yeah at my childrens school there were mixed sex throwing netballs, obstacle course balls in a bucket type stuff and thats what your ‘team’ won

and then races for those children who had done well in trials before hand

xWildFlowerx · 02/07/2025 09:18

Most activities at my boys' school are mixed sex, but the races are separated by sex because in general the boys are going to be faster. DD starts school next year and if there was a boy in the girls' race I would not be happy at all. If that boy won I'd be telling DD that he's not the real winner as he's not a girl and the winner is actually whichever girl came second.

Sports day being 'just for fun' makes no sense in this context. What is supposed to be 'fun' about deliberately segregating children by sex but then for some reason allowing only one child of the opposite sex into a race? The races would then have to all be mixed as they would no longer be boy/girl.

ErrolTheDragon · 02/07/2025 09:17

UpsideDownChairs · 02/07/2025 07:14

My kids have been to schools that have done it various ways.

Current school (and I'd say the most common way I've seen it) they split the whole school into 6 teams, and races are team races - so mixed sex and age - everyone in the team throwing a javelin (foam), or doing the obstacle course or whatever.

Then there's one 'proper' race at the end (which they tried to do away with this year, but the kids protested, so they made it voluntary instead) where the faster, older kids all race around, and there's a male and female winner (the only sex segregated race, and it's generally the top class kids that would win, although it's open to all)

That works, and neatly bypasses any issues (I don't live in the UK, the issues are still very much alive here)

edit: team sports - football/hockey/rugby etc. are sex segregated from about 6 I think. I know the very little ones all play together, but it splits into separate teams very early.

Edited

DDs primary did similar - 4 houses, most of the events were things like cumulative jumps and throws (even the weakest throw added to the total and all were enthusiastically cheered for their effort), sack relay. But they had single sex sprint races for years 5 and 6, which were for the more athletic kids. So everyone participated in fun events but the athletes could shine too.

eqpi4t2hbsnktd · 02/07/2025 09:09

We just need to ask "why do we have single sex sports competitions?"

Because boys are faster/stronger/bigger than girls.

Wearing a frock doesn't make him weaker/smaller/slower.

Hedjwitch · 02/07/2025 09:07

I would have withdrawn my daughter from the race .

LadyQuackBeth · 02/07/2025 09:04

Tread carefully though. Our primary school has a running team that takes the best 10 girls and boys each year. In the year group with trans kids they just took the top 20 kids, to avoid the issue, so only 3 girls offered a spot. They didn't then have enough girls to have a team of four at any events, so it was crap for them - a boy who was 17th in the year got more celebrating and praise than the girl who'd have been 4th.

If the school have lazy or cowardly management, it's easier just to take things from the girls.

Our school also allowed them to share with whoever they wanted (always opposite sex) at residentials. It was terrible management and I wish we'd had the SC judgement when my DD was there.

Lovelyview · 02/07/2025 08:57

drhf · 02/07/2025 06:22

It’s not ridiculous. It’s illegal.

Why is it up to OP to find a constructive solution? Why can’t the school be told to follow the law?

Why should OP suggest getting rid of girls’ races and replacing them with a mixed relay? What about the feelings of the girls - including OP’s daughter - who could have won a single-sex race? Why don’t they matter?

As the mother of two deeply unathletic children I very much preferred the team sports approach to school sports day in primary school. I agree that if you're going to say something is for girls then it should be for girls. The op said she didn't want to be 'that Mum' and I was suggesting a way to approach it that she might be more comfortable with.

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