To think that this is the end of women's athletics?

[fidel1ne]

And women's international sport generally?

Transgender competitors will be allowed to compete as the gender of their choosing pre-operatively and after just one year of hormone treatment.

manic, please don't accuse women making valid arguments, 'hysterical'

Iseriously doubt there will be many high level male athletes who want to compete as women just because it would be easier for them to win. They'd be ashamed of a win like that and it wouldn't feel satisfying.

Absolute rubbish.

Firstly, I am a sports person. High level competitor. So is my daughter the lengths people will go to win are extraordinary. To many sports people winning is everything.

Other people who have experience in competitive sport have said the same on this thread.

People cheat in high level sort all the time. To win, they are still satisfied with the win even if it's not truly deserved.

Only this week there is evidence of tennis players throwing matches. They lose on purpose for money.

They feel satisfied because it's about the money.

If you think all people want to take part in sport on a fair basis and have a 'satisfying' win, you are deluded.

Manic, that is very naive

In the uk, perhaps there are not many willing to lower their testosterone for a year, and no sporting body or government will make them

However

This is a worldwide contest
Remember the bad old days of ussr/gdr? As just one example, these women were given so much testosterone some later had formal sex changes

gu.com/p/x89am?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

There are plenty of countries out there still willing to do this and now they have been given this opportunity

One of the few other victims to have spoken publicly about her plight is the swimmer Rica Reinisch, who at the age of 15 won three gold medals in the 1980 Olympics. "The worst thing was that I didn't know I was being doped," she told the Guardian. I was lied to and deceived. Whenever I asked my coach what the tablets were I was told they were vitamins and preparations."

'hysterical' is rather ironic in this context

The problem is that men who would never stand a chance of competing in the Olympics as a man could easily beat the best woman. You're probably not going to get men who stand a chance of getting a medal in the men's event wanting to compete as a woman but I can see men who aren't quite at men's Olympic standard wanting to.

i seriously doubt there will be many high level male athletes who want to compete as women just because it would be easier for them to win. They'd be ashamed of a win like that and it wouldn't feel satisfying

Ha ha ha ha

You clearly know nothing about high level competitive sport and what athletes go through to be international level . There already many examples of men who might only be very good as men but hey presto ! When they self declare as women they are very good or excellent .

How would you feel if your daughter has spent 15 years of her life ( and years of your life and tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds ) to get to an elite level in a sport , only to be pipped at the post by a 45 yo born man who after years in men's sport suddenly late transitioned to " feeling like a woman" ?

Mmm, given the prevalence of late transitioning, one could easily imagine that as well as the younger men transitioning for the peak of their career, there would be top level male athletes seeking to prolong their career through shifting down into women's sport.

Lots of sportspeople are apparently happy to cheat by taking drugs and blood doping and all that. I'm sure a percentage of those would be happy to cheat with the blessing of the IOC and the IAAF by taking oestrogen for a year.

I wonder if Jenner has a record of their T levels for the past six months.

Yy QueenStromba.

They don't even have to take oestrogen though - they just need to get their testosterone levels down to slightly lower than the normal range for men. There'll be men who qualify without even having to do anything.

Manic. Lance Armstrong knew he was a drug cheat. He knew everyone around him knew. He had a very self satisfied run of gold medals. Continually beat everyone around him AND was instrumental in changing the culture of road cycling so in the end ALL competing cyclists were drug cheats.

(Reforms now taking place since Armstrong).

So you are seriously naive to think sportsmen don't take pleasure in cheating to win.

Competing as a woman when you are not one is a form of cheating and should be banned like doping is banned.

Women won't be able to beat the new 'women's' world records. I always feel sad for the people competing against world records gained through doping, anyway. For a woman to be somewhat equivalent, she would have had to be doping. Even with that, the skeleton and muscles are still less of an advantage.

Should women be able to dope with testosterone if they lower to the acceptable level for MTT for the same amount of time as they will be at a disadvantage with other competitors taking part in their events? It should be the same for all in the event.

Is it worth contacting some high level female athletes? Fatima Whitbread etc?

So what should we be doing to raise awareness of the affect of the trans movement on born women?
I feel like I've woken up in a parallel universe reading this thread I assume lora of people know nothing about this or the implications.

Jess Ennis hill is a mum now, is she a mumsnetter though, I have seen her Sainsburys a few times must ask her!

So you think it's totally wrong, and you're afraid for the future of women's rights, but you think posters on this thread are creating "hysteria". Why?

I think the fact that it's allowed to happen is totally wrong.

I'm afraid for the future of women's rights because a small number of genuine MtF athletes will come to take unfair precedence in elite sport.

I think there is some hysteria in the idea that scores of mentally healthy, happy, high performing male athletes will go to length of identifying as female to do that bit better. Apart from anything else, an awful lot of male athletes are very stereotypically 'manly' men and I suspect most would be deeply embarrassed at being portrayed as transgender.

So I think the fact that it's happening is totally wrong but the predictions of how commonplace it's going to become are hysterical.

Yep, true about the drug cheats and Lance Armstrong etc - but, again, not that commonplace and I still believe that the majority have a sense of sportsmanship much higher than that. I completely disagree with the belief that so many would do anything to win and would disregard their integrity like that. Just don't buy it.

Is this a decision or a consultation document? Either way, it is pretty shocking. Many men will 'transition' if there is a chance of winning money. If this really happens, the thread title is apposite.

But manic it already happening, the Iranian women's football team ( these trans women maybe victims rather than cheats) being a case in point

I know it's already happening and it's awful.

I just disagree that it's going to explode on the scale that many here think it will. I think it will be limited to actual transgender individuals. Of whom there aren't that many (though clearly a rapidly growing number)

I'm in. This takes the fucking biscuit.

It looks like women are - as ever - being expected to accommodate men. To be welcoming and warm - to men. To accept and tolerate men. To put themselves second to men. To agree to be lesser than men. To move over, slide along, pipe down, shut up, and fuck off, so that men can have what they want, when they want it, simply because they are men.

I'm so angry and feel so threatened

Yy bucking

It's not the fact that there are 'only' a few athletes who would do this, and what might inhibit men from doing this is immaterial.

We have to look at the overall picture of women being utterly silenced and our spaces invaded left, right and centre. It would be a huge mistake to admit a Trans 'toe' in at any door because the principle of allowing gender to trump biology is at stake here, as the Trans movement understands. They don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to biology. (Hence the emphasis on 'feeling like a woman'.)

The language needs to be transformed if we are to win. We need to be as shrill and as loud as those claiming to be women are in insisting that gender is not what matters, and biology is. We need to keep on yelling 'biology'. And we need to educate people in general about gender and how the concept is now and always has been used as a means of oppression.