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.

It's so ridiculous!

Do you ever wonder if you'll wake up and it will be 1999?

A noisy boycott might make a difference MrsG.Viral campaign, window stickers, letter-writing, social media noise, that kind of thing.

tllallbefine Re As for the accusation that i am on here to defend violence against women by men and I am strange, you can fck right off with that.*

That is not what I said. I said it was strange to defend this case, to assume it was OK for a man to fight a woman in this way, I was NOT implying you held views about violence towards women by men in other areas. Honestly that had not occurred to me.

But your comment I would have thought that when they did their homework on their opponent this would have been spotted by their coaches. And, what would then happen? The woman would have pulled out of the fight, because it was not fair for her to be fighting a male? Of course in light of what happened she may well wish she had. But I am not sure that that somehow excises the 'sport' allowing her to be put in that position, does it.

It's being implied by several posters that the MMA fighter in question is just an evil bastard looking for a way to get to beat up women, who are all obliged to get in the ring and take a pasting from him. I contend that this is a gross misrepresentation.

I find the prospect of a female boxer being in the ring with a M-t-F trans boxer genuinely concerning and to present the literal opposite of a 'sporting' scenario.

tllallbefine I do apologise if that is what you took from my post, I was not taking generally, only about this sport.

Women's rights and freedoms have come under attack from all directions recently (thinking of the German mass sex attacks too), and no one with any power seems to have any concerns. If I was a paranoid person I'd be finding it all a bit sinister.

italian She puts herself at great risk in every bout given the very nature of the sport, to say that she had no real choice or that it's the governing bodies fault for putting her in that position is stupid.

fidel I'd certainly be up for that. Maybe we should form a group?

I'll put something on my Facebook page. Some of my friends are quite political so maybe we could get something started.

It is all a bit much, sinister or not.

A group'a a good idea MrsG. Grassroots feels like the most hopeful option.

One poster made an interesting point about "open to all". For years there has been a feeling that it is not fair that top women's golfers got to play in mens events. I agree that it is not fair, but I can see why a woman at the very top of her game would want to compete with men, and should we stop her ? I don't know what the answer is either but I don't share the general concern that women's sport is not headed down the toilet bowl because of this ruling.

itllallbefine, I don't think that she is an evil bastard just looking for a way to beat up women. I think she's a pussy who knew she'd get her arse handed to her if she fought against her born sex. So she's fighting the women instead

should of course say women's sport is headed down the toilet bowl. Time for bed I think....

italian - thanks for the apology, i was being too defensive.

I was thinking about that too tinkly when I said we always came second to every other male minority group. I think it's time women became more vocal. As I said upthread it's my daughters (and future grand daughters) I worry about.

It just seems lately that all our hard won rights are being eroded, and instead of building upon those rights and gaining more equality, we're actually LETTING them be taken away from us.

I am afraid if it makes me stupid to think a person born a male should not be allowed to fight a woman in a woman's sport event then stupid be I! Or rather in this topsy turvey world where up is down and down is up, it's not fair and Fallon Fox is taking an unfair advantage, IMHO.

It seems very unfair to women.

I suspect there are a large number of men that watch women's sports because they enjoy watching the female form in motion. I imagine these men will stop watching. I won't support women being chucked under the bus.

Oh get over yourselves. Honestly.

itllallbefine Re italian - thanks for the apology, i was being too defensive. Thank you, I am also being quite defensive, these are hot topics!

Ironically, I am not much into fighting at all but I do Taekwan-do (not to Olympic level!) And when we star, just exercises we still try and split up male to male and female to female and people of equal size. We do still 'fight' non-contact with males and females and I am very aware how much stronger males can be! Luckily, we are all just doing a fun sport and not trying to hurt each other. It is frightening to think what could happen if we were trying to hurt each other!

Certainly events like swimming where the size of your hands and feet can make a huge difference to your speed this is just daft. To claim nobody will do this for medals is also silly. Look at the drug taking in sports in the last 5 decades. From the willing to the coerced. If this is allowed then it makes a mockery of the division of sports into men and women over the last 150 years. Snooker and horse racing suddenly become the only sports that have been fair.
It also means that medical alteration to your natural state is OK for some competitors but a Lemsip isn't for others. I don't get how that works.

spar not star.

MrsGradyOldLady if something gets started, please do say here.

I'm a UFC (MMA) fan, and the argument above - would you be okay if it was a woman who smashed another woman's orbital bone - is kind of irrelevant, because to my knowledge it's never happened.

Women's MMA is much less violent to watch in general than mens MMA. Cris Cyborg punches quite aggressively, and Ronda will break arms when she manoeuvers someone into the arm bar and they don't tap out, but I've never seen anything in UFC that shocked me like the Fox/Brents fight. It looked like a man viciously attacking a woman. She was overwhelmed from the start. Fox was gunning for Ronda too after she criticized the Brents fight. I noticed she was crowing after Ronda lost her last fight by KO.

In my opinion, even though Fallon Fox has had a loss to a cis-woman, she should really only be allowed to fight other transwomen. It's unfair because it's a common complaint from lower profile MMA fighters that it can be hard to get fights, the promoters always favour the popular fighters, so many of them would find it hard to turn a FF match down, knowing they might not get another shot in the octagon for the next six months. It's not a position the cis-fighters should have to be in.

Shall we all say now who would be up for if? So far me , fidel and italiangreyhound have said we would.

Would anyone else be interested?