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Continuation thread re IOC/trans policy and related trans issues

955 replies

fidel1ne · 27/01/2016 12:26

Also a plug for the FB group Grin

www.facebook.com/groups/ATWIWS/

OP posts:
Thread gallery
11
mathanxiety · 05/02/2016 23:42

Claudia, it is impossible to understand because it is completely irrational and unreasonable.

Diana, you have not got that wrong.

mathanxiety · 05/02/2016 23:50

Hairy -- I hope so too.

I think the Olympics may well be that moment for transwomen because while the matter is very obviously well under the radar at the moment to the point where gormless twits are calling transwomen 'poor diddums' and getting all het up about their 'predicament' it will be very obvious to many billions of hitherto unexposed TV viewers that transwomen are actually a crowd of shameless narcissists competing and even winning unfairly against real women.

Wait until the women's boxing comes up and Katie Taylor finds herself knocked out in the first three seconds of the first round of the competition by some man, and I suspect many right on Irish people will be looking at the Irish pro T legislation and saying 'hey wait a minute...'

GernotMinke · 06/02/2016 08:04

That article is another step into unbelievable

How very dare he piggy back Shanthi Soundarajan. Liken his situation to rape and cancer treatment

I can't believe people are taking him seriously

What was he like as an athlete before transition?

LurcioAgain · 06/02/2016 08:20

Exit - I'm actually having a pretty shit time of it myself (or was till I went on HRT). But I object to my female experience of menopause being co-opted into the transactivist cause, and pathologised (there was a "look how nasty it is for poor little me to have to be like a washed up post-menopausal old crone" vibe to it, the way I read that article), and turned into yet another piece of ammunition to give transwomen an unfair advantage in sport. Just as I object to transactivists co-opting my PCOS (back when my ovaries actually did anything useful) to incorrectly inflate the percentage of intersex people within the population so they can falsify statistics for their political ends. (I'm pretty sure a lot of intersex people will be similarly pissed off at their medical history being co-opted for political ends0.

iPost · 06/02/2016 08:42

Gernot

It's hard to tell what he was like as a male athlete because there was not just a first name change, but a surname change too. Which makes it extra difficult to find any previous references.

Reading this it would seem he is claiming he was very good although I am not sure to what extent a broken pelvis would finish off (or not) even a startlingly good male competitor's career dreams.

Certainly competing at a high level only seems to have happened post transition.

FloraFox · 06/02/2016 09:35

This person is 46 and still competing. Hmm

GernotMinke · 06/02/2016 10:37

From iPost link

I'm just like any other woman who has had a hysterectomy

Fuck off, no youre not

slugseatlettuce · 06/02/2016 11:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Seriouslyffs · 06/02/2016 15:14

For those not in the fbook group- I've posted it on the other trans active thread.
www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been-terf

fascicle · 06/02/2016 15:18

DianaTrent
That's an unbelievable case. They seem to be advocating not only for giving androgens to post op transwomen but for giving them enough to put them outside the range that would be allowable for born women to compete? Please tell me I have read that wrong!

My interpretation is that the position on testosterone for post operative transwomen seems to be very different to the below 10 nmol/L criteria for women, and for transwomen who have not had a gonadectomy.

A post operative transwoman produces lower amounts of testosterone than a born woman, and, certainly in Worley's case, there wasn't an automatic ruling that allowed her to take synthetic testosterone (which without permission, would be considered doping). Sporting wise, very low levels of testosterone would affect all sorts of things including energy levels, endurance, the ability to recover etc.

Worley applied for a Therapeutic Use Exemption to allow her to take synthetic testosterone. This took a few years and she was granted a level of 0.5 nmol/L, which is slightly below the bottom end of the range for women (and well below the IOC's threshold for women).

slugseatlettuce · 06/02/2016 15:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TalkingintheDark · 06/02/2016 15:30

Great link Seriously. I was just thinking today how like McCarthyism the whole situation is, how like any totalitarian regime where you are not allowed to even think "wrong" things.

DianaTrent · 06/02/2016 17:27

fascicle I had interpreted the current situation in the way you were describing, yes, but it was this paragraph that I was reading as Worley pushing to be allowed to have a testosterone level in the male range on health grounds.

"For women with an XY history, for them to match the same normal levels as XX women – i.e. to ensure normal cell synthesis and to take the body out of a post-menopausal state – a range of total testosterone somewhere between the higher female atypical range and lower male atypical range is needed. This is somewhere between 9nmol/L and 12nmol/L for non-athletes, but is understood to be higher in athletes. So XY athletes need to maintain a testosterone level that is higher than the IAAF’s ‘normal’ male range, i.e. the limit under which women must fall in order to compete, just to maintain normal health. ‘There is no competitive advantage for Kristen in maintaining this androgen level and her doctors have shown that this level simply maintains Kristen’s health at the same level as any other female competitor’, reads Worley’s filing."

MaidOfStars · 06/02/2016 19:21

I've read about Worley. She is asking to have a therapeutic use exemption for her T levels to be higher than the max female threshold, because lower makes her sick. Therefore, human rights abuse.

Hmm
Maryz · 06/02/2016 19:27

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Maryz · 06/02/2016 19:30

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MaidOfStars · 06/02/2016 20:10

IIRC (haven't read the links here), she argues that her case would pave the way for the Caster Semanyas of the world to run as a female with no intrusive medical testing etc. That T doesn't matter, as long as you're female.

Except the IOC is using T levels to determine if you're 'female enough' Hmm

TalkingintheDark · 06/02/2016 21:15

Somebody said upthread about how Jan Morris has been a woman for longer than she herself has been one, or something like that.

Bollocks. Jan Morris isn't and never has been and never will be a woman. This is the myth that we have to challenge at every level. Jan Morris is a man who has had surgery and hormones and all the rest of it to mimic the state of being a woman, but that is not the same thing as being a woman. Not at all.

The wholesale acceptance of this blatant lie leads directly onto the whole Olympic trans issue. Worley is an inevitable conclusion. Someone needs to be saying you can't bend reality to fit whatever idea you have in your head and expect everyone else to join in the reality bending to make you feel better about yourself.

If your male physiology is so repugnant to you that you have to surgically alter it, fine, but don't then demand to compete at a professional sporting level against people who actually are women. Because you're not one and never will be.

Another alternative would be to invest in years of psychotherapy to try and understand why you feel the way you do and maybe even come to some self acceptance and self love for the person you actually are instead of who you think you should be, and then you can compete as a man against other men on a level playing field.

But no. Where would be the fun in that, when you can throw the most almighty narcissistic strop in the history of man[sic] and have the whole world and its dog dancing attendance on you and agreeing that you are indeed what you're not and everyone else has to contort themselves into impossible and wholly indefensible positions to accommodate you.

Fuckit.

mathanxiety · 06/02/2016 21:28

You are completely, absolutely and 100% right, Talking.

And wtf does 'women with an XY history' refer to?

Maryz · 06/02/2016 21:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TalkingintheDark · 06/02/2016 22:21

Thank you, math. I am, aren't I! Grin

Women with an XY history, my arse.

ExitPursuedByABear · 07/02/2016 08:56

Thank you Talking. I was beginning to think I was going mad and had misunderstood the main premis of this thread.

FloraFox · 07/02/2016 09:41

Worley is arguing there should be no sex testing at all. Worley is also saying that Worley's male body requires higher levels of T to reach top performance than female athletes therefore Worley needs to have a higher level of T for fairness. HmmConfused

ShortcutButton · 07/02/2016 10:13

It is totally TOTAL self-absorption isn't it. They don't attempt to put trans-people in context of other people/the real world at all

I've always found the term 'special snowflake' really repugnant, but its actually very accurate isn't it?

ClaudiaApfelstrudel · 07/02/2016 11:10

I haven't read much about 'Worley' but I suspect I need to the picture I'm getting from here is they are completely self absorbed