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To wonder how males are allowed to compete and win in female sports

389 replies

Bambambini · 06/03/2017 21:56

NZ weight lifter Tracey Lebrechts has had her nationsl records broken and her place in the National team taken by a male Laurel Hubbard - previously Gavin. How is this fair and just why is this allowed?

www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/sport/other/nz-weightlifting-body-stands-decision-let-first-transgender-weightlifter-compete

OP posts:
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DickToPhone · 08/03/2017 12:18

This is Gavin, with his father, ex-mayor of Auckland and wealthy business owner:

3.bp.blogspot.com/-mMBwrMU3MSA/UcAbEJUFe_I/AAAAAAAAWsI/fRgLVYBN788/s1600/hubbard+family+2093.jpg

Bambambini · 08/03/2017 13:57

Agree that Castor is a different discussion.

I don't know how we have got to here. Just been discussing it with my husband who has been shaking his head in disbelief.

OP posts:
rale124 · 08/03/2017 16:50

Beachcomber - First of all your misinterpreting who is arguing those points, I'm not telling middle age white feminists to STFU, I'm highlighting the arguments that are used by sister advocates of the social justice movement (LGBT, race advocates etc). Personally I find trying to silence someone based on their ethnicity or class to be crass, bigoted and authoritarian.

But I'd be lying if there wasn't some level of irony in the fact that the weapons of war that middle aged, middle class feminists used against men and anti feminists are been turned on them.

Secondly domestic and sexual violence is not a gendered topic. In the US men are more likely to be raped if you are including prison rape into the statistics (which you should since it would be horrible to consider prison rape as a 'less than' crime). I wouldn't be particularly surprised if the patten was similar in the UK.

With domestic violence research does indicate women are a significant majority of DV victims (although with each study the percentage of male victims does seem to be rising quite fast) the truth is we are unlikely to be getting 'true' results, no statistical study is perfect but with DV in particular cases of male victims are going to be underreported for the following reasons; men aren't aware of what constitutes female on male DV, even if they are they are voluntarily not going to recognise themselves as victims due to immense social stigma attached to it, and even if they do they aren't going to report it to the authorities as they (quite rightly in my opinion) perceive the current DV system to be anti men...for example there are a few cases of male victims been arrested due to the use of the Duluth feminist model and mandatory arrest policies in use with police forces and prosecutors across the world including the UK. This powerful social stigma prevent a lot of male victims of female violence from even self recognition of it nevermind admitting it to a researcher.

Ultimately these are issues which are far from exclusively suffered by both middle aged middle class women and women in general.

Also class as in economic class (as opposed to sociological class) refers to income. I'd classify class politics as more class warfare as opposed to identity politics which focuses around social as opposed to economic issues.

AssassinatedBeauty · 08/03/2017 16:58

You're saying that in the US overall men are more likely to be raped than women, if you include prison rape in the statistics? What are you basing that on? Why wouldn't prison rape be already included?

M0stlyBowlingHedgehog · 08/03/2017 17:07

Who's doing the raping, Rale? Men or women? (Trick question in the UK as rape involves a penis, but in the US where the legal definition is different, even taking that into account, I think you'll find it's men doing the vast majority - 99% or so - of the insertion of things into other people's orifices).

Anyway, moving on past the derail - that info about the NZ weightlifter's own weight is interesting, DickToPhone. I posted a graph yesterday, and at 105kg (weight of the person doing the lifting) there's approximately a 60kg difference between what men can lift and what women can lift - of the order of 20% of the total (so a bigger percentage gap than say, running, where the men's and women's records are typically about 10% different, across a range of distances).

rale124 · 08/03/2017 17:24

Beachcomber / Doyouwantabrew - I wouldn't say im mocking you so much as appreciating the irony of the situation, my criticism of identity politics however is very serious.

Also I don't think the transgender movement is a male rights movement at all. Both the transsexuals themselves and their supporters more often than not identify as left wing and while more men do change into women than vice versa these arguments in support of them are regardless of the type of transsexual (M2F or F2M).

The transacceptance movement is undoubtedly left wing and supported by people who also commonly identify as feminists until it conflicts with their white knighting of the 'more oppressed' classes.

rale124 · 08/03/2017 17:41

Assassinatedbeauty - US Dept of Justice figures which state 216k cases of rape compared to 90.5k outside the judicial system.

And I've seen plenty of feminist commentary which doesn't include it.

M0stlyBowlingHedgehog - Well yes according to the way the law is written in the UK a women cannot be charged with rape. But 'forcible penetration of the vagina or anus with a penis' is not the common definition of rape. I think that is just an indication of the ingrained societal double stands against male victims of sexual violence more than anything else.

And yes men make up the majority of sex offenders, but as I said previously there is sociological reasons such as ingrained social stigma for example for why a study may not reflect the true nature of sex offending. And even the current statistical studies do not indicate a number as high as 99%.

AssassinatedBeauty · 08/03/2017 17:46

216000 rapes within the prison system per year? What's the breakdown of sex of the victims and perpetrators? The 90500 outside the system, what is the breakdown of sex there as well? Is that an estimate or reported crimes? What information is there about reporting rates by sex of victim?

MrsTerryPratchett · 08/03/2017 18:23

Well the US penal system is an example of massive institutional racism and capitalism. It is a serious, but different, issue. 'Feminists' do take issue with institutional racist abuse in prisons. I'm a feminist and I worked with male offenders for years. But pretending sexual violence is not gendered is silly. The perpetrators are almost all male.

BevGoldbergsSister · 08/03/2017 18:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsTerryPratchett · 08/03/2017 18:52

Or considered who they are sexually assaulting when they are released.

AssassinatedBeauty · 08/03/2017 19:12

Having tried to find a source for those figures, I found the headline came from a Daily Mail article. I also found an interesting discussion about the facts here:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/guest-post-more-men-are-raped-in-us-than-women/amp/

The end conclusion is that the headline is wrong, men are not more likely than women to be raped in the US.

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 08/03/2017 19:12

rale

My understanding is that the figure of 216,000 males included sexual assault

The figure of approx 90k did not include sexual assault and was for civilians, they didnt look at women's prisons

If i can find the link i will post it, but i am going out soon so apologies if i don't get the chance

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 08/03/2017 19:13

Oooh maybe assasinated found it

RufusTheSpartacusReindeer · 08/03/2017 19:13

Yep

Thanks assasinated

QuentinSummers · 08/03/2017 20:01

It really interests me how some people perceive feminism to be somehow related to victim status, so they think as soon as you can argue "men suffer too" the problem goes away, no more feminism required.
Whereas my feminism is much more focused on the oppressor. Why do so many men feel the need to commit sexual violence (regardless of victims gender)? Why do men feel entitled to define women and what spaces we can and can't have? My feminism is to do with fairness in society rather than some odd victim complex.

Beachcomber · 08/03/2017 20:46

Rale123, what you call "appreciating the irony of the situation"

I call " hopelessly ignorant of sexual politics".

You strike me as a cynic so I'm surprised you don't see that transgenderism is a male rights movement. That is not to say that it is a movement that is profoundly good for males, because that is not what an MRA movement is. An MRA movement is anti women and anti feminist.

HTH

Unicorndreamer · 08/03/2017 20:57

It's a bloody joke. So unfair. Born a man compete with men. No amount of female hormones makes them female

Bambambini · 08/03/2017 21:49

I'd love to know who was on the IOC committee who came up with the rules. Wonder how many women were on it or consulted.

OP posts:
VestalVirgin · 13/03/2017 20:27

You strike me as a cynic so I'm surprised you don't see that transgenderism is a male rights movement. That is not to say that it is a movement that is profoundly good for males, because that is not what an MRA movement is. An MRA movement is anti women and anti feminist.

This, exactly.

QuentinSummers · 13/03/2017 21:05

bambambini here
<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2015-11_ioc_consensus_meeting_on_sex_reassignment_and_hyperandrogenism-en.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.co.uk/url?stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2015-11_ioc_consensus_meeting_on_sex_reassignment_and_hyperandrogenism-en.pdf

16 people referenced
Women are:
Maria Jose Martinez Patino - had Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome and failed a gender test so not allowed to compete in 1986
Joanna Harper - trans woman, medical physicist
Angelica Linden Hirschberg- appears to be a psychiatrist/psychologist with an interest in gender identity and the sexed body
Rania Elwani - member of Egyptian Olympic swimming team
Vidya Mohamed-Ali - Qatar anti doping lab

thelonelyhamster · 13/03/2017 22:32

I've been discussing this elsewhere on the internet recently... and really struggling to get people to understand why they shouldn't be competing in the female categories of my particular combat sport, or any other for that matter.
I'm getting abused for pointing out biological facts (complete with references from credible sources!) and pointing to the blatant double standard when it comes to testosterone levels. Allowing trans-women to compete with testosterone levels that would see every single natal-female banned from competition!

The counter to all my arguments is either that I'm a bigot, too stupid to understand, or 'the IOC rules say...'

Honestly, I have never felt so much despair for the future as I do right now. I'm not even angry, I'm too upset for that. :-(

ErrolTheDragon · 13/03/2017 22:36

Are you saying thats 11 men, 1 transwoman, 1 intersex and just 3 XX women? Fair enough that there should be an intersex person, and a transwoman but why no transman and why (other than because thats the way it always is) such low female:male ratio on an issue which is obviously going to negatively impact women and barely affect the vast majority of males?

AssassinatedBeauty · 19/03/2017 19:38

I saw this news item today and remembered this thread:

m.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11821399

Laurel Hubbard won their first major competition beating the women in the competition by a decent margin.

Fairyflaps · 20/03/2017 07:53

Some interesting quotes from this article in the New Zealand Herald
Marshall believed that Hubbard competed with "huge advantages".
"She competed for a long time as a man and her efforts were very strong.
"That strength has remained with her despite reduced testosterone. That point is not recognised by the science and some of our competitors would say that's not fair.
"But there is no concrete evidence that there are advantages to Laurel. If there was we would act on them."
I would have thought the massive difference between what Laurel could lift and her nearest female competitor would be adequate evidence, but what do I know...

There is this humdinger:
Marshall said he didn't believe New Zealand was the first country to have a weightlifter transition from male to female.
"I've spotted a few in the past," he said
Anyone know of any others? Certainly back in the appalling days of the Eastern Bloc's hormone doping, many women looked more like men, And due to the effect of the hormones, at least one ended up transitioning to male to try and reconcile her physical appearance to her gender.

And in case you wondered who got to watch Laurel pee.
"While we have yet to develop any firm policy or protocol on this, it is generally accepted that when testing transgender athletes, the witness to the sample collection would be the same gender as the gender in which that athlete has registered to compete.

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