Help end medical misogyny. Sign our petition.

Help end medical misogyny.
Sign our petition.

Sign the petition

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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
Maryz · 07/02/2016 23:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsTerryPratchett · 07/02/2016 23:34

I have vast excesses of ring finger. I also have double Ds which fed a baby, produced by my body, for more than a year. Pretty clearly a woman. Possibly the excess fingeradge contributes to my excellent parallel parking and sweariness. Or possibly not. It certainly didn't make me any good at sports.

IceBeing · 07/02/2016 23:41

I am very grateful for all this trans discussion...because I finally worked out how I can play badminton without going insane at the embedded sexism. I can rejoin my club as a man. I will ask them to refer to me in a male gendered version of my name and insist on being treated as male. No more stupid half assed ladies games for me...no more being randomly restricted to only playing net shots while the real menz work goes on behind me.

I was all tied up in knots trying to work out how to make my club understand that I didn't want to be forced into a gendered way of playing...when there is a whole category of people who don't ever even get asked! I shall join them. And the best thing is that the IOC has zero criteria whatsoever for someone to compete as a man. Nothing at all. So simple declaration it is!

Except I will have to work out the toilet thing...or hold it for 3 hours...

0phelia · 07/02/2016 23:42

My fingers are long and graceful.
Am I am man Shock ?!

TheNewStatesman · 08/02/2016 00:08

Some actual science on the finger length thing:

sillyolme.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/step-right-up-let-madame-sciencia-read-your-fortune-etched-on-your-hand/

sillyolme.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/a-show-of-hands/

There appears to be no reliable data at present.

The relationship between finger length and gender presentation is, in any case, highly ambiguous. Gay men are, on average, considered to be more feminine-presenting by observers, yet their digit ratios are on average slightly hypermasculinized. We need better data on this and other physiological markers.

As a general rule, wherever physiological differences between transwomen and regular men HAVE been found, they seem to be found only in the early-transitioners (the ones who presented as feminine from very early on and fancy men, not women).

Late-transitioners don't seem to be feminized in any particular way (indeed, there is some evidence they may even be slightly hypermasculinized--the rate of ASD among late transitioning, heterosexual-guy transwomen is significantly higher than the male average, for example).

Bambambini · 08/02/2016 00:54

Ice - I feel your pain on the badminton front!

PosieReturningParker · 08/02/2016 07:15

I have the hands of a child.

fascicle · 08/02/2016 08:47

Rather entitled to assume you'll just be accepted as a man, IceBeing. You may have to play in a category by yourself. But yes, more women are needed to make this choice and redress the balance. (Watch out for the UTIs.)

Seriouslyffs · 08/02/2016 08:54

fascicle it's not entitled- it's the ioc official rulez dontchaknow!
Us Wimmim can be beaten up compete against whoever we want it's only the special snowflakes trans women who get the attention. Hmm
Claudia I hope you stuck around. This is one of the only issues I can remember where many of us have changed stance. I certainly swallowed the LGBT line believing we were all in it together and that it was my duty to stand up for my sisters.

IceBeing · 08/02/2016 10:15

fas oh don't worry I am already playing in my own world let alone category.

But I am ready to yell TRANSPHOBIC the moment anyone questions my assertion of being a man. It will be like invasion of the body snatchers.

I will point and scream and scream and scream...

ClaudiaApfelstrudel · 08/02/2016 10:46

the thing is I've heard a lot of wailing and whining but the 2d:4d ratio although it's obviously a bell curve can't just be discounted because it contradicts peoples world view. There is a reason for such a ratio and as far as I know it is related to levels of oestrogen and/or testosterone in the womb.

CoteDAzur · 08/02/2016 10:53

"2d:4d ratio although it's obviously a bell curve can't just be discounted because it contradicts peoples world view. "

It is being laughed at because it is unreliable and silly, not because it contradicts anyone's worldview.

Meanwhile, you are disregarding the simplest way of assessing sex (external genitalia) because of your worldview that men who think they are women are women. Now who is letting their worldview cloud their judgement?

ArcheryAnnie · 08/02/2016 11:14

IceBeing I think you will have to go with "genderfluid" which means that you can be a man ("boymode") when it accrues you privilege, and be a woman when you need a pee. But if most of the examples I have been shown are true, you will need to speak in a twee, breathy mode when you are in "girlmode", because this is how women speak. Apparently.

There's a growing number of people who describe themselves as transwomen who nonetheless use whichever gender suits them at the time, and get away with it, including Caitlyn Jenner (who is apparently registered as Bruce at the golf course), and a well-known trans spokesperson, who parades the "I will literally be killed if you don't allow me to pee in the women's loos!" argument, but apparently navigates their professional life entirely as a man, with a man's body, clothing coded as male, and a male name. Because privilege.

(Naturally, because you were born female, if you tried this you would be deluges under cries of "appropriation!".)

ClaudiaApfelstrudel · 08/02/2016 11:50

Cote I'm not convinced you've followed what I've been saying because I'm not of the opinion that somebody with male genitalia should be competing in women's disciplines because they decided one day they were a woman. I'm not disregarding that obvious marker at all..I'm trying to be pragmatic given the situation in the IOC at present.

I mentioned the 2d:4d ratio purely because although it's not a great marker, it might be a better one than the one they are proposing. The lesser of the two evils shall we say. I don't particularly think it should be used as a stand alone marker either but in conjunction with a range of markers.

ShortcutButton · 08/02/2016 12:38

'Wailing and whining' Claudia? Really?

I didn't want to say so, because it is rude. But as you are being so rude, I'll go ahead. You actually seem to lack basic comprehension skills?

Is this actually, what the problem is maybe?

ShortcutButton · 08/02/2016 12:40

I mean widespread lack of comprehension skills? Inability to follow logic? How do you tackle that then?

I suppose naming the problem is a start...

MaidOfStars · 08/02/2016 12:44

If digit ratio is linked to testosterone, how can it be a better marker than a direct measurement of testosterone? Or a better proxy than a rather more obvious physical consequence of testosterone/estrogen balance?

IceBeing · 08/02/2016 12:51

gender fluid it is!

TBH the realisation I needed was that it wasn't unreasonable to ask not to be put on for certain games (which it felt like it was when I was thinking in girlmode) because men don't even have to ask!

I will probably just say 'Hey can I rejoin...only this time I don't want to play mixed unless I am playing the male role, or ladies at all.'

It was permission to take this stance I needed...and now I have it!

ShortcutButton · 08/02/2016 12:51

Its just tomfoolery. Why are we even discussing it? Makes us look like a bunch of muppets

TheNewStatesman · 08/02/2016 12:54

The idea is that digit length is linked with prenatal levels of testosterone not present levels.

It's still pretty silly, though.

I think we need to go back to first principles and think about why we have women's sports categories in the first place. We do so because otherwise no woman will ever win anything at the top level ever again (except in things like dressage which are already mixed sex), and this lack of potential for ever reaching the top will have a chilling effect on women's sport, all the way down to the bottom. And women constitute half the human race.

If a bunch of late-transitioning guys sweep in and start winning all or most of the medals, it will pretty much have the same effect, because fewer people will bother to invest in girls' sports.

TheNewStatesman · 08/02/2016 12:55

"(Naturally, because you were born female, if you tried this you would be deluges under cries of "appropriation!".)"

To be honest, I think there is a fair chance she would be assaulted :(.

ShortcutButton · 08/02/2016 12:57

(Holds newstatemens hand)

BeyondBootcampsAgain · 08/02/2016 13:06

My 2d:4d are the same. This is literally the same as intersex.

DawnOfTheDoggers · 08/02/2016 13:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ClaudiaApfelstrudel · 08/02/2016 13:10

BBA a 2d:4d ratio that is equal to one is the modal group for natal-women, it's not intersex. I'm not sure they've even done tests for intersex groups