Brave reporter undergoes inhumane sex test for sports. Brace yourselves.

I would hope that going forward and using this test anyone who finds out something about themself that may be a shock and has to be dealt with somehow will have the surroundings to support them and won't have been sent down the path into womens sports.
It could be awful for very young men and boys with 5ARD who may have been deliberately scouted for and inserted into womens sports to gain accolades for people who don't care that much about their well being. When it comes to talk of unkindness that's the worst sort.

There is a great comment from someone on Emma Hilton's substack:

Whenever there's a performance enhancing technology that affects fairness for male athletes, consensus is quickly reached so integrity in sport can be maintained. If there was such a thing as animal/human hybrids, like a Cheetah Man, whose performance advantage outstripped elite male athletes, sporting organisations would be quick to recognise that one of these things is not like the other. Either new categories would be created, or Cheetah Man would be barred from competing....

https://fondofbeetles.substack.com/p/the-case-for-sex-screening-in-sport/comments

How is finding out you have a genetic difference, different to finding out any other previously unknown medical condition which might limit your professional sporting career?

Plenty of actual women have such career ending discoveries. It's part of professional sport.

If an athlete finds out they have a previously unknown genetic condition through these tests, would their bigger concern be...

-What are the health and social concerns going forward
-will i have to stop playing netball/swimming/boxing etc in my current team.

I also suspect that exploring discussion points that someone deems as being hateful (when they are reasonable, legitimate and quite common) is not something allowed by those who have polarised tribal politics.

Well of course, women aren't gathering and examining evidence, they have to be obsessed because gathering and examining evidence is a transferable skill that can be applied to any number of subjects, whereas obsession conveniently makes us all a bunch of conspiracy theory, er, obsessed hysterical unkind harpies.

Oh… and apparently, if we aren’t currently competing in sport, we don’t actually care about the female sports category and the female athletes, we are just hateful and ignorant. And probably are the ones taken in by pseudo science….

Oh … and if we ask questions and point out issues with a view point, we are just upset and maybe we don’t like to be disagreed with.

Seriously, the list of trope we have not been accused of is kinda small at this point.

Women can never do the right thing. It's impossible.

We are damned if we do and we are damned if we don't.

Once you realise this, you stop giving a shit what some dumb activist says and just get the fuck on with it without needing the validation and approval. The 'Be kind' shit becomes worthless. If you feel strongly enough about the subject matter you just default to proving the point and not caring if the dickheads don't like it.

It's kinda liberating to cross the point of worrying whether you are going to be called names for demonstrating a perfectly reasonable and moderate position that's recognised by law as being so.

I don't need other people's approval to know what's fair and to understand biology.

That was a masterclass in #OperationLetThemSpeak 🏆

Playing into the hands of the far right too…

I see we are now obssesed.
There's another one on the bingo card.
If women aren't well armed with evidence they are ignorant bigots, when they spend time and effort gathering the evidence they are obssesed.

This is an act of genocide

Sad times

If not Deadlifter, I'm sure there will be some lurkers in that loop. Of course lots of us were that lurker once.

Heh. I know what you mean! I just think that if there's a teeny-tiny chance @Deadlifter might be stuck in the same "But logic! But values! But logic! But values!" loop as I was, then pointing it out might help her extricate herself from it. It's a big if, I know, but you never know :)

Waaahhh waaah if only you knew trans people and cared more you wouldn't want competitive sport for women that is taken seriously and isn't viewed as just about participation and inclusiveness.

You would put aside the desires of women to be professional athletes because you'd understand that a small number of transwomen and people with DSDs are more important than 50% of the population and women's sport is an after thought and should be for male who aren't good enough for 'real elite sport'.

After all males with DSDs and transwomen aren't proper men and the second class sport shouldn't be female only it should be second tier humans.

We don't want to talk about biology because this is inconvenient and reveals we don't give a shit about biological issues that affect women. If we did we'd have to change zillions of policies and society as a whole to accommodate this. We'd have to recognise that transwomen still have a fuck load of privilege over actual women and that pregnancy, menopause and other hormone and biological issues related to women are a big deal. That's not fair! That's cruel to remind us. That's female privilege to go through childbirth and get life changing injuries.

We'd have to recognise that women's bits are internal too and not just about attracting sexual partners. That wouldn't be cool. Itd ruin our credibility in saying that being a woman is all about passing or not passing. We totally get that yes biology is a bit more complicated cos human reproduction but we'd rather scream about persecution and genocide than admit how it's really complicated cos identifying this stops our narrative of being the most vulnerable and stops us getting free access to the most vulnerable. And this isn't good for our validation.

We couldn't give a shit that women might have ambitions and want to prove their hard work, stamina and training to the highest standards. We think it's totally legitimate for a male in his 50s to rock up and compete on the same playing field as the most elite women at their physical peak in their 20s and 30s and claim that this represents fairness.

Why? Cos we have a zillion and one reasons why we think women are second class and we should be able to get what we want as males. Cos biology doesn't matter - to me. Being female is irrelevant - to me.

Me, me, me. To hell with what women want. As long as the males think it's fair who gives a fuck about women's sport.

Except MN. The selfish bigots. So I'm going to rabbit on about conspiracy theories and MNetters being out of touch whilst ignoring polling by the most reputable pollsters in the world which show that MN very much is in touch with the general population. Cos that would be yet another factual inconvenience to my demands for 'equality'.

Helle has gone to a great deal of trouble to post detailed data supporting her argument. She simply asked you to return the courtesy by giving data supporting your argument. Instead you insult her.

Rude. And likely to lead us to the conclusion that you have no data.

Incidentally, I suspect you misunderstand the meaning of 'scientific consensus '. It does not mean 'all scientists agree'. It means there is an overwhelming body of data supporting one side of the argument. There will still be some scientints who disagree - partly because anyone can call themselves a scientist.

Seethlaw

That's a very generous interpretation, seethlaw and I'm not saying you're wrong, because you have an insight that I don't.

However, the first thing I would like deadlifter to consider is why they can't drag their eyes of the men in this situation, for even a nanosecond.

If they are a TRA, then it's clear why, of course.

He's a cheating bloke who ruined the careers of female athletes, along with his male counterparts Niyonsaba, Wambui, Petrillo, Khelif and Yu-Ting to name a few. The effects of male puberty are well-documented with the evidence crystal clear to prove that men, no matter how microscopic their penis, have a significant physiological advantage over women, but you carry on ignoring scientific fact to suit your twisted narrative.

Women and girls have had to put up with this bullshit for long enough and it can't be soon enough that every governing body adopts this practise. And there aren't enough fucks in the world for me to not give that DSD athletes and men in wigs will no longer be able to steal the medals, records, podium places, sponsorship deals, accolades and cherished memories from deserving women and girls.

@Deadlifter

I remember how painful it was when I used to lurk on here. I would never last long, because I would end up thoroughly confused, depressed or hurt. The main problem was that posters would use factual arguments that I could recognise made sense logically - but they didn't align with what I saw as my values: kindness for everyone, absolute tolerance, constant open-mindedness. I was torn between being a Good Person, and being a Logical/Factual Person, two things that were equally important in my eyes.

And then things happened, and I realised that my values were not things I had chosen for myself, but imperatives that had been imposed on me from the outside: by my family, by my church, by society, by other trans people, and so on. I had never chosen them; I'd been told I had to live by them or else I would be a Bad Person, and I didn't want to be a Bad Person, did I?

So I looked at them squarely, and I realised they made no sense. You can't be kind to everyone. You can't tolerate everything. You can't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. You have to have principles to live by, and in my case, I wanted those principles to be fact-based.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is: what matters to you most? Seeing yourself as a Good Person all the time, or having principles based on fact and science and logic? Remember though: in the end, you will end up hurting someone somewhere, no matter what you choose. So choose wisely.

@Deadlifter has simply enabled another useful example of how transactivism / male rights activism works in real time for anyone reading through this thread. Refusal and failure to engage with and understand women’s views, no real ability to provide proper evidence, and then resorting to patronising ad hominems. Helpful, actually.

I must admit that being told I disappointed them by continuing to point out the lack of consistency and coherency of the discussion was interesting. I have had this exact dynamic before though and it didn’t work then either.

I mean, I am always open to taking on new evidence and modifying my position as are you and many others here. That is why we read so widely.

I've just taken an example race:

2018 Commonwealth Games 800m

Caster Semenya won 1st place with a time of 1.56.68, which was a Games Record.

In that same year, in the men's category, there were 3 heats, with 26 athletes. Only 2 athletes (placing 9th in heats 1 and 2 respectively) ran slower than CS's Games Record winning time.

As far as I'm aware, the data shows that every single man who's cheated his way into women's sport would have performed as a mediocre sportsman in his own sex sport. Thinking of swimming, cycling, weight lifting, cricket .

Arguing that these men should be able to continue to cheat, destroys womens sport - which of course is the aim for certain people amd organisations.

And again, more emotional manipulation.

Do you really not see the emotional manipulation you are trying to use here?

And more falsity. It really is just ad hom attacks now.

“You still think ‘on here’ is the only place people have been discussing this for years.”

I don’t believe anyone has said this is ‘the only’ place any individual/s has or have been discussing it. This is just a false claim to frame arguments as being uninformed and isolated.

“Lots of people have spent equal time and energy learning about this issue, and still disagree with you.”

Indeed. I think I can say most posters on here know fact this very well.

However, if someone has spent as much time and energy learning about this issue, I don’t believe it is unreasonable to expect evidenced discussion and at least logically sound arguments.

”Lots of people have life experience you might not have - we work alongside respectful trans woman who we can see every day are not taking anything from us at all.”

And now we have the emotional plea, with some ‘I’m alright, Jack’ privilege, and a swerve to another group of male people. Was this your focus all along? Were you arguing about how male people with DSDs should compete in female sports so that you could wedge in this group of male people too?

The argument about male people with DSDs with bodies that have produced male levels of testosterone where that body has/had the capability to produce that testosterone is exactly the same for all people. They should not be accessing the single sex provision that is the protected female sports category.

”People with a wider lens can also see things you’re not seeing - eg. How your views interact with the rise of the far right etc.’

And more emotional manipulation by way of a ‘guilt by association’ argument that seems to be based from a person’s own tribal political views and not from a position of engaging in good faith.

This is a way that a person justifies not engaging with legitimate arguments because they can categorise doing so as ‘interacting with the far right’.

This is a version of ‘*hey you are all just bigots or bigot adjacent so I will just call all your scientifically established arguments ‘bigoted’ and they must be wrong or incorrect.

’I wish I’d been politer - I’ve said that. But you have lost it at a single person disagreeing with you”

This is a false lead into to victimhood. This is a partial admission from a person who resorted to ad hominem attacks and insults that they acknowledge that they did it. But then it is a ‘you made me do it’ swing.

Who ‘attacked’ you last night? People asked you questions and pointed out issues with your position. Then they pointed out where you started using ad hom attacks because you having your views challenged was not acceptable to you.

”I don’t think you should kid yourself that you’d have fared better with hordes of people disagreeing with you.”

Many of us have had ‘hordes’ disagree with us. It doesn’t change the science, the evidence and it doesn’t change the logic.

While you seem to have an issue with people disagreeing with you, I don’t think many of those on the thread last night have that issue. That is the strength of having confidence in the science, in the evidence and in the logic. If you have to rely on emotional reasoning and emotional manipulation to convince anyone, that is not a strong argument.

”I genuinely hope you manage to extricate yourself from this one day and look back like ‘woah, that was a weird time”

What a statement! I think that readers can probably work out the emotional manipulation on quite a few different levels with that one.

You know though, I have no shame in understanding the harms to female people that comes with male people accessing female sports categories. I actually think that that last statement was one of projection from you…

"which is why they are competing in the women's category, where their higher proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibres, lower baseline body fat, larger heart, higher haemoglobin, better oxygen delivery to muscles, greater lung volumes, lower diaphragm, stronger ligaments, denser bones, and longer limbs all give an advantage."

Yes, yes, @Lougle :) But APART from that, surely there's no reason why men who identify as women, aka "respectful trans woman", shouldn't compete in the women's category?