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.

I remember seeing Catlyn Jenner on TV and her mentioning she would now be able "to play golf off the women's tee" and again talking and giggling about her tits getting in the way playing tennis. Lolz, such japes.

Will male athletes who decide they are women after winning male only events - like Bruce Jenner - count as females having won those events, I wonder?

I was thinking about this earlier. Shortly after the Vanity Fair cover, I read an article which gave details of Bruce Jenner's sporting accolades, written as as 'she won event X', etc. But a woman did not compete in those all-male events and win. Rewriting the facts by saying that a woman achieved those sporting feats seems very misleading.

To all those going about that fallon fox beating the shit out of someone and saying it was unfair....what about all the men who get killed because a bigger man beat the shit out of them ? Was that not fair because he had bigger muscles ?

So your argument is women should get beaten up by men because men beat each other up, itllallbefine?

No, my argument is that to be a good MMA fighter you need to be able to beat the shit out of people. On the other hand, being a bad one means getting the shit beaten out of you. You're problem appears to be that the person doing the beating was born a man, presumably you have no issue had the other fighter been put on life support by a born woman ?

Yes, of course you are being unreasonable. Unless you genuinely think that in 50 years time every female sport will be dominated by a 6' 10" born man with a pair of fake breasts. Maybe I am naive or have a little more faith, but clearly this will not happen.

That really isn't 'clear' to me at all, TBH.

I don't think that's clear to anyone else on this thread either. Except Needs of course who is very intelligent and not a staunch feminist and therefore thinks we're all imbeciles.

Yes my issue is exactly that the person who kicked the shit out of the woman was a man! That's exactly the problem here isn't it.
The desire to kick the shit out of anyone is not really something I understand and it's horrible really, but when it's a man beating a woman and getting away with it because he identifies as a woman, the whole world has gone mad. If there's no longer a stigma against men beating women, then we need to be afraid, very afraid.

itllallbefine it would seem fair that women fight women and men fight men. Just because someone identifies as a woman doe snot make them so.

In sports(and fights) divided between males and females, there is a reason for the division, males fight/compete against males and females fight/compete against females... and it has nothing to do with how people identify.

To defend a man beating a woman seems very, very strange to me.

It feels like I skipped a few months and woke up on April 1st!! Absurd and rather scary to see women having to put up with this. Sadly if any female athletes speak out they will be seen as "anti-trans"

Maybe an extra competing category of "open to all" would eliminate the need for m-f competing alongside women?

No, I'm worried that in 5 years time , elite women's sport will be dominated by born men of various heights with or without breasts .

And I'm not sure how the possession of breasts, real or fake, gives advantage in any sport . Can you explain please ?

GinThief, that sounds reasonable, but is that what mtf sportspeople want? Because there are quite a few who seem to like competing against women and that has been advantageous for them. If it's open to all including other men, then they'd have much more competition.

Ah you've let yourself down now needs you can't even spell opinionated. Entitled? How exactly? Did you not learn basic literacy before you embarked on your scientific studies? Or are you too busy searching for your cure for cancer to use spell check?

I've never yet met a woman who referred to herself as female.

Ha, yes. 'I'm a female'

I see fidel just clicked on that link and it's all become clear.

Well i do not share your concern. Clearly the breast thing was to point out that a man with a pair would at least have made a token attempt at looking like a woman, not that they would have had an advantage owing to their possession of breasts.

IMO women's sport is generally thought of as lesser than mens precisely because of the "women just can't compete, it's not fair" mentality.

As for the accusation that i am on here to defend violence against women by men and I am strange, you can f*ck right off with that. I would have thought that when they did their homework on their opponent this would have been spotted by their coaches.

I'm so sodding angry about this. I do think, as someone mentioned upthread that women, REAL women, will have to boycott sporting events until there is a rethink. I think women spectators should boycott too.

I can't understand why anyone should think this was a good idea. It's so ridiculous!

Spectators probably have considerably more freedom to protest, boycott and generally make a fuss than athletes do. So we're all obliged to, almost.

Absolutely bake all of us; competitors, spectators, journalists, presenters, we need to be saying "this is just not fair".

Well I'll certainly be boycotting it as a spectator. Not that I think anyone will care as I only ever watched it on tv.

But maybe if enough of us boycotted it, it would eventually hurt them them as ultimately it could lead to a lack of interest?