Democrats 'recalibrating' on trans and gender issues.

The interesting individual in question was Sophie Grace Chappell, he of the 50s dress sense with bouffant petticoats. 🙄 This DM article has the details: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-12711047/Transgender-activist-female-murders-ethics-rules-therapists.html

It is good to see some movement, and there is time for more before the next president is chosen. The world is changing and people, including politicians, are beginning to feel able to change with it.
I genuinely believe the twaw thing lost the democrats a huge quantity of votes from people who would otherwise have voted against Trump for his views and behaviour towards women. It is sad that sport is seen as more of a winner than e.g. locking women in cells with rapists, but that is not just an American problem.

I hope this is the thin end of the wedge. We could all do with a little less crazy.

I think the sports issue is one that a lot of people can relate to, once they understand it. You don't even have to be particularly keen on sports - most people of either sex just don't like cheats.

Quite.

If it's a man then even one being incommoded or invalidated is a catastrophe.

If it's women, then there is no amount of damage or number seen as important enough to matter. Who was that interesting individual who tried to explain their interesting and somewhat pathological perspective that it wouldn't matter upto about 100 additional women murdered per year if it meant men freely enjoying themselves using women and women's spaces?

This all reminds me of the new and grim advertising thing of 'rage baiting'. Which I suppose when the law is now shifting back to sanity, is all that is left.

It would be “proof” of the superiority of “trans women” and then it would be “unfair” to deny them that access since they are doing so well.

It is one of yet another of the inconsistencies / asymmetries of the arguments people use to support male people accessing female single sex provisions.

Yes, and the reverse argument that its only a miniscule number of transwomen who dont get to compete if excluded from women's sports would not be accepted by those spouting its "only a few women".

I always find the 'it's only one or two' argument really weak. What if one year it was fifty? Would TRAs say 'gosh, sorry, that's way too many men in women's sports' or would they shout 'yay, go transwomen'. I know what I think.

Tokyo Olympic competitors who are male people with transgender identities competing as female athletes

Laurel Hubbard (weightlifting)
Stephanie Barrett (archery)
Chelsea Wolfe (cyclist) was a reserve.

in the end Tiffany Abreu was not selected and Cece Tefler missed out too.

These were the competitors we knew about. There were potentially more that we will not know about.

Always a belief that there's an acceptable collateral damage to women and girls in the name of patting the egos of men.

How does posting like this on a women's rights forum meet your needs?

How many mid 40s women carrying a serious injury would you expect to see competing in an Olympic weightlifting event?

The correct answer should always be zero. No girl or woman should ever lose out because of male entitlement.

Sure, there is also a funding issue.

Why the fuck should that issue mean we shouldn’t be also preventing what funding is available to female athletes going to athletes who are not female?

Also, how much potential funding is now going into campaigning to reverse the policies that allowed male athletes to compete in the female category in the first place?

I just wanted to address the "innately better at sport" as (sorry if I missed it) I'm not sure anyone else has. It's revealing in so many ways.

What do you think sport is, M? All strength and no skill?! Assuming you agree skill plays a part, are you then saying that women are inherently less skillful - less capable of mastering the intricacies of their sport, the techniques and tactics - than men and transwomen? Do you really mean this?!

No one else here is arguing that - that TW are "innately better". It's a centuries-old prejudice resurfacing now as a strawman created to support the argument that no Olympian winners = no significance. It really just supports our argument that this movement relies on stereotypes and is detrimental to women's rights and progress.

All people here are saying is that TW have a disproportionate physical advantage which unfairly distorts women's competition.

Of course a skilled female athlete could win against a less skillful TW relying on a physical advantage which isn't enough to outweigh the winner's skill. And that, too, would be wrong, because it would still be a distortion of the competition - of who's bringing what to it, and why they're winning or losing.

As others point out, your question really is totally irrelevant in this sense. Even if there hadn't been any TW winner at all, anywhere, ever, it would still be wrong, because the competition would still have been distorted.

If you come back with, where's the proof of physical advantage though - just explain to me how taking female hormones shrinks and reshapes the male skeleton. As long as it doesn't? Advantage. That's it.

In any case, though, the number of winners other posters have shared speaks for itself.

The sexism and unfairness towards women are important parts of what makes the Sports issue key. There is a bigger factor though.

Men really care about sports. A bunch of guys have sports as their key interest. Sports are made to look absurd and ridiculous in general if people are going round saying look men are not stronger than women if they wear dresses it turns the whole thing into kind of a joke.

If the TAs stuck to raping women in prisons, and taking women's positions on boards or going in changing rooms or doing medical experiments on kids a bunch of men wouldn't care. When questions of sporting pride come in though they do care. It does matter to them that they are stronger than women, it does matter if women throwing balls around win games fairly etc. They don't think men and women should fight in sports.

Look at the huge amount of interest there was in the men going into the Olympics and fighting women. The massive drama about the WBNA recently.

Compare that to the lack of interest in something of more everyday importance like creepy guys in changing rooms.

Again the sports issue is something male TAs really care about deeply, while you notice many TIFs do not care that don't get to do sporting stuff with guys though in fact men are not that bothered if they do. Unless it comes to a point where your team is going to lose over it.

So if the Democrats go to the wire over this it is great. Sooner or later they will lose on the sports issue. Making a massive fuss over it brings everything else down.

I am sure this girls and other young women, like this young woman, are going to be very reassured that not making the teams that give them scholarship opportunities shouldn’t be considered in negative impact statements because they are not ‘medals’ or ‘trophies’ so shouldn’t be documented and recognised.

https://x.com/irenebritusa/status/2100953655122039089?s=46

Yes and it is a point that many of those who use the sound bites such as ‘trans people are banned’ ignore.

Female people with transgender identities who don’t supplement with testosterone are welcome to compete in the female sports category. Some sports have an open category for those athletes to compete in or for female athletes who take exogenous testosterone that is therapeutic and at quantities greater than the levels naturally found in healthy female people.

Of course, male athletes with transgender identities are free to enter the male category that they belong in.

What other male athletes who suppress testosterone for whatever reason, or have to take performance limiting drugs as part of their condition get the special privilege of entering the female sports category because they are want to still compete in sports? Why should one group of male athletes get this privilege no other male athletes get?

It's not even just about medals or placing. Having to share changing facilities with males is enough to put off a lot of women and girls and they don't necessarily speak up about it, they just quietly exclude. I have seen this happen myself.

Tracking the harm being caused to female people becomes important because it is so often dismissed as being ‘just a few’ or acknowledged while then being dismissed at the same time with the phrase ‘but the organisation prioritises ‘inclusion over fairness’.

Budgett from the IOC did this and the founder of Parkrun have used this sentiment to inform the world that female people should accept negative sex discrimination for the overall good, and they won’t be the only ones or the last.

“This means that one trans woman will have displaced seven women, despite only being one person. This is not a facially plausible conclusion and is more rhetorical than factual.”

It is factual. Not sure how you are twisting this to be not factual.

”Even worse it can be misrepresented as "seven medals/trophies"”

You seem to be missing ‘places’ off this list of negative impacts. The poster you were quoting included it. Hecheated mentions ‘awards’. It would be reasonable to consider any place in an access limited competition to be classed as an award, or a place.

‘places’ are very important to note. As are ‘awards’. Because across a sporting career, many representational events require placing in other events to gain entry. Like regional event qualifiers will be chosen to progress to the wider competition and it feeds up.

It is a valid and vital point to make. Because ‘places’ refer not just to event rankings, it also refers to inclusion on a team. Ie. securing a ‘place’ on a team. Including a male on any female event with limited access will displace a female athlete. Of course, even at grass roots level this can cause harm because a female athlete might simply stop participation because of that male inclusion and never then go on to achieve a sporting career.

“It also has to be pointed out that several of the events in the HeCheated findings were not sports and/or had medals (eg a Jeopardy competition)”

If this is the standard of the rebuttal of the collation of information under hecheated, then it shows there is a paucity of strong arguement against the information aggregated there. It then becomes rather hypocritical too. Any organisation or person arguing about ‘just a few’ negatively impacted females being non-sport related, while defending the inclusion of ‘just a few’ male people is the epitome of hypocrisy.

Either way, those numbers are easy to find in the NON ATHLETIC section.

hecheated.org/Non-athletic_awards.html

It is important to collect any representational opportunity that has been designated as being for a female person that has been taken by a male person. Any opportunity labelled as being for female people, even on a sex balanced panel, should be acknowledged as being given to a male
person when it happens.

There was a trans athlete, a trans men (biological woman) participating to the past winter Olympics, in the female category, obviously not taking testosterone. This demonstrates that participation of trans athletes in their sex category is possible, nobody is excluded.

The "trans women and girls" you mention are men and boys.

In your comments you are basically demanding to know why men and boys shouldn't be allowed to compete in women's and girls' sports.

The answer should be obvious.

Just one male person’s inclusion in a sport can have significant negative impact on female athletes.

The negative impact becomes significantly increased when scholarship offers are included. Because even those exceptional female athletes who come in after first place athletes can attract offers of scholarship.

This is the analysis from hecheated.

@hecheateddotorg
18th March 2025 on x.com

x.com/hecheateddotorg/status/1901812921681756628?s=46

To analyze performance differences between "trans"-identified male and actual female participants in girls' sport, we need look no further than girls' high school track and field.

Track and field provides the clearest data as it is an individual sport and has had the highest number of recorded male participants to date at the high school level.

There are a total of 37 male athletes on record who have participated in girls' high school track and field in the United States.

Of these 37, one athlete participated in only one race due to the cancellation of the season during the COVID 19 pandemic. Another athlete participated in a tech/private school league that did not participate in a state championship. These two athletes will be excluded from the data.

Out of 1,276 completed events, male athletes finished as follows:

1st place: 440 (34%)
2nd place: 188 (15%)
3rd place: 123 (10%)
Other: 485 (41%)

Male athletes came in 1st 34% of the time, only 7% less often than they did than any other place outside the top 3.
They finished in the top three in 59% of their events and outside the top eight in only 19% of their events.

24 of the 35 male athletes (68%) qualified for their respective State Championship meet in a total of 136 events.

When looking at athletes competing against same-sex peers, depending on the state and division of competition, anywhere from 5 to 15% of athletes are expected to qualify.

For example in states that use regional-sectional qualification, the top 4 finishers at a regional meet (often with 2 heats of 8 runners each) qualify for the sectional meet where the top 4 finishers at the sectional then advance to State. This means that out of 32 runners at regionals, only 4 (12.5%) will advance to State.

This number also does not take into account the fact that only the best runners on a team will be entered in a regional meet and often the same runner will qualify in multiple events. A runner may also have a higher chance of qualifying in a relay as 8 runners (top 2 teams) advance to state rather than 4 in this type of qualification.

In other types of qualification or less competitive, smaller regions, it may be easier to qualify.

At the State Championship meet, there are typically 24 entries in each event. 1 of the 24 will win, meaning 4% of the 15% of athletes who have qualified for state will be a state champion, or 0.6%.
Of the 24 male athletes who qualified for state against girls, 11 of them (46%) have won a state championship title, or 31% of the total.

4 of the 35 male athletes (11%) have also achieved a top 10 national ranking.
The percentage of male athletes who have been in the top 10 of all track and field athletes in the female division in the entire nation is higher than the percentage of female athletes who have won a state title.

To find the percentage of female athletes who are in the top 10, we can take the 57 indoor and outdoor events ranked on milesplit. com multiplied by 10 (10 athletes in each) then divide by the total number of female athletes in high school track and field - 506,015 (according to nfhs. org).

This number does not take into account the fact that many athletes in the top 10 appear there in multiple events and several of the 57 events are less commonly run. (All 4 male athletes in the top 10 achieved that placement in a main event).

This means less than 0.11 percent of female athletes achieve a top 10 ranking.

"But not all states require hormone therapy!"

It is true that some states do not require males to undergo any sort of testosterone suppression or medical intervention in order to compete against girls.

We can therefore, look to the athletes who have reportedly begun "identifying" as the opposite sex and undergone "medical interventions" prior to puberty or in early middle school as it has been proposed that males who do so are in line with "average female performance."

There are 3 athletes who have reportedly "transitioned" prior to puberty. Based on their feminized appearances and high voices, we can infer this included puberty blockers.

All 3 athletes qualified for the state championship meet, 2 of the athletes were conference champions, and one athletes was not only a state champion and New England champion, but he was ranked in the national top 10.
None of these performances are in line with an "average" athlete. In fact, the national ranking out of three athletes is statistically unlikely to the point of being impossible without an athletic advantage.

"But you just know about the athletes who are good. There could be more you don't hear about because they don't win anything."

When we look at the expected percentages, we can see that about 6 out of 1,000 athletes win state and 1 out of 1,000 are in the top 10 national ranking.

In order to see the 24 males as state champions and 4 males in the top 10, there should be around 4,000 males who have competed in the girls' division in track and field. (3,965 additional athletes, none of whom can have won a state title).

There have been 37 on record.
Numerous state senators and legislators have come forward testifying to the number of "trans"-identifying males participating in their states.
When these legislators testify that there have "only been 2" in the state, or in the case of Ohio, 17 athletes in 8 years, and these numbers include all sports, and when male athletes have been banned from participating in girls' sports in about half of the states in the nation, it is not likely that there are an additional 3,963 male athletes that not only does nobody know about, but who also have not won a single state title.

In regards to the prepubescent "transitioners," there should be an additional 1,000 of them who have not won a state title or achieved a top 10 ranking. This is also highly unlikely, as we've seen multiple prepubescent "transitioners" in other sports also winning national and state championship titles.

Male participation in the female division is not just unfair, it is blatantly so.
These percentages do not reflect the cost to the female athletes behind them.

Just 2 male athletes in cross country and track and field in Maine have negatively impacted over 2,000 female athletes.

If each male athlete negatively impacted 500 female on average, that means over 18,500 female high school track and field athletes in the United States have been forced to compete against and have been negatively impacted by these boys.

This includes loss of titles, loss of medals, loss of relay spots, loss of entries in large meets, loss of qualifications for championships, loss of records, loss of privacy, and loss of confidence.

*2 male athletes in Maine negatively impacted over 1,600 girls

3 boys in Washington, over 2,000.

end -

And this was just a snapshot of those male athlete’s sporting careers.

I cannot imagine the degree of harm that an athlete such as Caster Semenya caused in numbers of displaced female people in his sporting career.

It is a false perspective to limit harm to only podium places. It is correct to include the harm of female athletes who have had their ranking demoted by the inclusion of a male athlete who should not have been included because he is not female and accessed a protected sports category.

It is also correct to note the negative impact of causing female people to no longer participate. There are some female athletes even at elite level who stopped competing because male
people kept taking podium places (keeping in mind some events reward places outside the top 3).

But that doesn’t misrepresent places. If a man comes 4th and everyone moves down a place then they have lost out. A small number of men can have a massive effect - and that’s before you start looking at the increased risk of serious injury - and women have received life changing injuries from men in sports - and those men exposing themselves in the changing rooms.

As I say above, one is too many. Let’s have fair competition in sports. If you wouldn’t countenance an able bodied person in the paralympics or a heavyweight battering the featherweights then you shouldn’t advocate for men in women’s sports.

How is that a misrepresentation? It sounds like a reasonable conclusion to me. A man taking part in the women's category will have a knock on or down effect, it's robbed women all the way down.