Not again! - Government is proposing to allow trans-identifying boys into under 18s girls’ school sport - unless it is deemed unsafe

Which all translates to the following for the purposes of the schools' guidance:

• no school should have a policy where all PE lessons are mixed-sex. Instead, schools should either determine single-sex lesson provision on a case by case basis (per sport, not level of ability) or should have a policy with single-sex provision for all PE lessons. Where a PE lesson has been determined as single-sex, no member the opposite sex should be admitted.

Sportsmen can beat women (in many but not all cases) because of male physical/pubertal advantage - which compensates for lesser skill or prowess. Which is the fundamental unfairness of men in the female category.

If women dont have a sports category of their own then eventually there won’t be any female sport - as seen in pool/billiards where 2 males competed in a final to win women’s prize money. Over time that small example would ultimately become the norm due to the prestige and financial benefits available to “winners”. Why wouldn’t men take advantage of that when gender self ID requires little change but confers huge benefit?

Everything will be much clearer when sex testing means that Khelif reverts to competing against males. And presumably he won’t meet the skill standards for his sex class to be able to return to the Olympics…

On the point about not wanting to admit women are weaker - it comes to the historical problems that this difference was used to keep women out of public life. To get equality to this stage we had to emphasise no difference. Going forward a more nuanced argument is needed because the no difference line of reasoning has somewhat backfired?!

I think you're mixing up the timescales! they were both fighting at light-welter, 60-63.
Khelif fought at 66kg in Paris, Broadhurst wasn't able to succeed above her natural weight.

In those early defeats against two Irish boxers, it was noted that Khelif wasn't a very skilled boxer, and seemed to depend on his long reach and waiting for mistake to land a punch; he was a fighter rather than a boxer.

You know what they say: 'Box a fighter and fight a boxer' - both Broadhurst and Harrington had the skill and the experience to beat him at that weight.

But the extra weight he put on before Paris was muscle and bone density not flab, because he had been through male puberty.
Ultimately, his male advantages in strength, reach, lung capacity etc meant that even the best women boxers couldn't stand up to him.

Khelif was boxing in the right weight division, but the wrong sport: he should have brought his 66kg into the ring with a man of the same weight in the men's boxing competition, not the women's.

I’ll let these posts (and others on the thread) from Helle respond to the first part of your post (but note the finding that The Male-Female Performance Gap Is Evident before Puberty):

MALE CHILDREN HAVE GREATER GRIP STRENGTH FROM BIRTH:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5142027-save-female-sports-evidence-thread?reply=149883816&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

CHILDREN’s MUSCLE STRENGTH DIFFERENCES DUE TO SEX:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5142027-save-female-sports-evidence-thread?reply=148895275&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

The ontogeny of sex differences in exercise performance:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5142027-save-female-sports-evidence-thread?reply=151170024&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

However, to your other point: one of the single strongest predictors of girls discontinuing sports - even for girls who are really good at it and are encouraged by everyone around them - is having to play/compete against boys. Thus things like Judy Murray’s programme to teach tennis to girls separately from boys. Her programme isn’t just “tell the girls they can do it” whilst leaving them with the boys, it is “teach the girls completely away from the boys.”

So Imane lost yes? To a woman? A woman who only weighed 66kg! So by your eyes, a man lost to a woman of a comparable weight. Yes or no?

That was the year she tried to reach the weight for the Olympic weight division which is 66kg, and it backfired seriously on her personally and careerwise. She said at the time '
'I go from looking at myself in the mirror at 60kg being toned and having a six-pack to then going up to 66kg and not being in the shape that I was in.'
if I was to stay at this weight for another four years I don’t think I would because I’m getting hits to the head that I shouldn’t really be taking because I’m not naturally this size.'

Khelif didn't experience that.

Girls arent physically weaker than boys until puberty. There is no biological reason for separating boys and girls in sport until at least then. The reason why 7 year old boys are more athletic than girls as children is socialisation. Girls are told that they are slower, weaker and more fragile than boys from a very young age. Their parents don't encourage them to work on thise kids of physical attributes. Thats why you have really little girls already thinking they can't do what the boys can and feeling intimidated by their presence. Their parents have told them the boys will always win and will hurt them in the meantime.

I’m interested in the idea presented by a few PPs, namely that just saying that women and girls are physically weaker than men and boys is in some way insulting to women, and encourages them away from sports or other physical activities.

I’m interested, because I’m curious about how this idea came about. I am not a sociologist (related field but only slightly) and I am definitely not a historian of sociology, so I don’t have a good answer to how we got here.

And just to be clear, the “here” that I think we have got to is this idea that describing someone as “physically weaker” has a value judgement added to it. But the fact is, some people are stronger, some are weaker and that is just a description of the world in the same way that we can say bricks are harder to put your hand through than water. Just a fact.

The likelihood is that the value judgement comes at least in part from the fact that men have traditionally been seen as the default human, so being strong (men are indeed stronger) was seen as the important (or default or better or desired) thing, and being less strong (women are overall less strong) was less valued.

But the value judgement is something humans have assigned to the strength difference - it isn’t intrinsic to the strength difference itself. The strength difference just is.

If that idea seems too much, try thinking about whether you would criticise someone for saying that a newborn is less strong than a teenager. You wouldn’t, because of course they are, and you don’t place any value on that difference.

There should equally be no value judgement placed on the strength difference between men and women. And yet for some people it seems to be virtually heretical to say, no, actually, girls can’t physically do everything that boys can do, or at least not to the same level/at the same speed/etc.

Anyone with any coherent thoughts on why that is? (I have a few, but they’re not yet coherent enough in my head to share…)

"Irish fighter Broadhurst is one of those who got the better of Khelif, doing so in the 2022 Women’s World Championship 63kg Final."

I posted my boxing-nerd post before reading this one of yours, but the same points apply.

I happen to believe that Khelif was believed to be a girl, and that up to a point he thought so too, but as soon as he was taken up by the 'machine' which saw him as a good bet for an Algerian gold medal, his physique was maximised to a level made possible by the fact that he had gone through male puberty.

And as a result, this' person who isn't a woman', in other words this man, was stronger and better than all the women in the women's welterweight division at the 2024 Olympics.
That's where the unfairness arises, because he was fighting in the wrong branch of the sport, and why World Boxing and the IOC have reaffirmed that eligibility for women's boxing should be as carefully enforced as eligibility for weight divisions.

edited to ask: you don't think welterweights should fight heavyweights, do you? should they just whine less and train harder?

Great explanation!

Ah 'the Imane Khelif was beaten by women before' statement - great, I love this because I can exercise my inner boxing nerd [there's a bit of boxing in my family history].

Khelif competed in the Tokyo Olympics in the lightweight division, where he was trounced by the Irish boxer Kellie Harrington to win bronze on her way to win the gold. Unanimous decision.

However at the Paris Olympics, Khelif fought as a welterweight - meaning that in the intervening 3 years [the Tokyo Olympics was held over for a year because of Covid,] he had put on approx. 10kg.

If a woman tries to put on 10k in 3 years, it will probably go on as fat [in fact, another Irish boxer, Amy Broadhurst, tried to move up a weight division and failed dismally for that very reason].

Because Khelif had been through male puberty, the 10kg he put on was muscle, bone density etc.

I doubt if even Kellie Harrington would have beaten Khelif v.2024.

Rightsraptor · 06/04/2026 12:26

What are these sports that girls & boys can compete in equally and safely?

Erm, country dancing, quoits, pin the tail on the donkey, apple bobbing...

Serena Williams has said - ‘If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in 5 to 6 minutes, maybe 10 minutes. It’s a completely different sport.’

Navratilova says about her former (trans) coach, Renee Richards: ‘Renee was in her forties, not training particularly hard. I was number one in the world and I had my hands full to beat her. I think that says everything you need to know.’

It’s Lovely for you that you are strong and physically able. My daughters and DiL are all very intent on being as strong as they can possibly be, revelling in it.

However, let’s not pretend that little girls, and young women, are generally as physically adept and strong as men. That’s just setting girls up to fail, and is simply unfair.

it’s not about manning up. It’s about biological difference and fairness.

This.

Whilst it's frustrating to see it playing out on this thread, it's even more frustrating to see it on its way to being baked into the KCSIE guidance. I really hope that there is enough of a common sense awakening to stop that from happening.

There will be plenty of voices, like the one on this thread, arguing for everything to be mixed sex because it's (supposedly) more empowering for girls. That's pretty much what my daughters' school said when they moved all PE lessons to mixed sex. It's quite a compelling message until it butts up against reality.

Black girls absolutely do deserve the same safeguarding as white girls. The strong black woman stereotype is so incredibly racist and dehumanising, to the point that sometimes black children, especially black girls are adultified.

Now, as for the OP, from what I can glean from the policy (I will have a closer read when I have more time), whether an activity is mixed sex or single sex isn't the issue, schools already make arrangements for whether an activity should be one or the other. The issue is that if a pupil requests to access to an opposite sex activity in the context of "social transition" and everything that flows from that.

Noted, thanks. You could warn about the straw man arguments, also.

Its always the same.

Boys want to be in the girls spaces and opportunities. The rationale is that these boys aren't the same as other boys, then its that there isn't many of them. Then the idea of girls spaces and opportunities is questioned.

It reflects TRA position - if boys/men cant be included, the spaces and opportunities cannot exist.

It never jumps directly to 'why would these boys need to be separated from other boys, they aren't weaker, the idea that they are is cultural/old fashioned/sexist'.

This particular poster just plops all over the place being contrarian and patronising. No idea if they believe the mince they come out with, but they won't stop, ever concede a point or come out with anything resembling proof, so best to move on after a bit IMHO.

We have to remind girls … That they can be strong and fast, too, and that isnt always the way you win, anyway.

If the sport in question is about being fast, or strong, then yes, it really is the way you win. I’m not seeing a lot of logic being applied here.

I mean, they do break though. This is like pretending men killing 2-3 women a week never happens or it their fault somehow for not being strong enough.

Pretty vile to be honest. But totally expected from the sort of people who pretend this is about mixed sex sports when it is not but there you go.

Whether you want to believe it or not, whether it’s a comfortable thought for you or not, the truth is that if a scrawny short man my age in normal physical health decided he want to push me into a wall and assault me, my chances of physically fighting him off and winning are small.

I am a woman of average fitness, i regularly lug furniture around and will take on tasks I shouldn’t be able to physically do alone like building a massive shed with no help. I’m not weak and I am determined and stubborn but I am not physically as strong as a man. No amount of positive thinking or self-confidence will change that.

My father is not fat. He is old. In your culture are you taught that old people cannot compete? I will be raising my child not to whine about competition with younger people.

Khelif was assumed (incorrectly) to be a girl until puberty. This article covers this particular DSD sensitively and well:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34290981

But it still remains the case that humans are either male or female. School sports policies need to recognise this and keep PE and fair. No child should be treated as if they were the opposite sex for this.

This DSD is very rare but there may be schools in the UK that encounter children with it. If so, impacted children will need support (from outside school as well) to understand what's happening to them. But they will also need to follow any single-sex sports policies at school.

Edited to add:

It is disingenuous to say otherwise and it means that people won't even listen to the facts about their condition as it seems like you are lying for nefarious reasons.

I genuinely have no idea what you're referring to here. Nothing I've said is a lie. As for nefarious reasons...?!

I think it’s profoundly unhelpful hypothesizing about other cultures when the EA2010, FWS, and this guidance all exist in this culture. Other cultures truly can have less misogyny, or more misogyny, and it can appear in different guises.

I also don’t think that “complete isolation from boys” is offered, desired, or intended, so there’s an element of straw man about your point. In fact a school was rightly punished by Ofsted for doing that and their case forms a powerful part of equalities case law (Al Hijra). I’m not intending to be contentious, and I take your point about being careful not to give the impression that girls are always weak and always have to be “protected” from boys. The arguments apply both ways - boys deserve fair competition and their privacy and dignity too.