To be fucking furious this is happening to women's sports

[Bambambini]

For all those who think trans politics doesn't affect you or your daughters - please read this article of a male forcing women out of their sport and the authorities are letting this happen. If you don't give a shiney shit about this incident - what exactly will it take for you to sit up and take notice and start saying enough.

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

You can either segregate by age, sex etc. or you could just segregate by actual ability.

I would prefer to compete with people near my own ability. I don't want to be limited by my age or sex.

I might be shit for my age, does that mean I shouldn't get to play on a team?

I might be shit for my sex, does that mean I shouldn't get on a team?

If there is a league system in place then everyone ought to be able to find a team/game that matches their ability.

"I got displaced by men from the first team in my club...so I played for the seconds. When I got knocked out of that by injury then there was the 3rds....you see where I am going with this."

Are you bitter about this? Is this affecting your view on this and that women and girls should just have to suck it up becuase you had to?

Yes, I can see exactly where you're going to and up - women who want to compete in a sport automatically having to see themselves as second rate, Morphene. You may be OK with that, but I'm not.

Human beings are sexually dimorphic. There are two distinct physicalities. Having two distinct groups for sport is hardly a compicated concept.

So you aren't bothered by the wider cultural aspects that only men will have access to the success and prestige that comes with elite sport?

Plus, what does happen about sports like rugby and boxing under this system?

So elite women can compete in boxing, rugby, footbsll judo etc with mediocre men? (Who could still do some serious physical damage to them). I don't see this being popular with men and boys either.

Morphene

If there is a league system in place then everyone ought to be able to find a team/game that matches their ability.

So, no age groups, weight classes, nothing like the paralympics etc?

Bambambini - There would be no elite woman, as they would not get funding to train all day if they are only going to be 54th.

bte, morphene

what sport are you talking about? just out of interest...

There isn't always a league system though.

One of the things my DD is looking forward to when she starts uni this year is that, because there are men's and women's teams there's a good chance of trying out and participating in new sports. If there were just two mixed teams per college, she would probably just stick to what she knows.

Segregating by sex is a form of segregating by ability. It is done in all sports (such as weightlifting!) where men have an advantage over women because of their physiology.

Case in point - the only individual Olympic sport where men and women compete equally (so, not counting mixed pairs figure skating or mixed doubles tennis etc.) is equestrian because in this cluster of competitions it's the horse's physiology that is effectively "doing" the sport rather than the person.

I'm not a sportsperson. I have a disability which means I'm fairly useless at sports - but that this issue doesn't directly affect me doesn't mean that I can't see how unfair it is.

I wonder why the people who say they think this is okay aren't actually campaigning for mixed-sex sports at all levels, or the abolition of weight classes. Not important? Only important when a man might have his feelings hurt by the world not validating that he really is literally a woman just because he says so?

The MtT cricketer taking titles in the post above had not played cricket for 30 years. He had subjected himself to both alcohol and drug abuse during that time. He is 60 years old.

Her Canberra coach Matt McGann said McGregor, a strong batter and left spin bowler who gave up the game for 30 years until recently, “could easily handle” WBBL level competition.

A 60 old man who has a history of drug and alcohol abuse and hasn't played for 30 years is succeeding on a women's team.

Whether you agree with sport in general or not, very many people do and it's not going to change any time soon. Whether you think men will deliberately transition to beat women is irrelevant. Some will, definitely. Particularly at the elite level. You'd have had East German athletes swarming all over this.

Many girl gymnasts were given puberty blockers purposely.

People are already exploiting the system, but at least we have some rules in place.

This just sweeps those rules off the table. It completely legitimises cheating. In favour of men.

If you don't care about that, fine. But it is part of a bigger picture that redefines the meaning of biology. Again, in favour of men.

I will never understand how some people don't care.

I can understand people not caring about anything to do with sport. It baffles me why they'd bother posting on a thread about it.

Morphene - it depends whether you class lack of ability as fair. Some people are good at maths, some are good at drama, some are good at sport. Once you find your talent you can aspire to be the best in that field - that means that you are automatically going to be better than some people. That doesn't mean we should expect people to accept it becoming less fair by people who are not necessarily as talented but simply have a basic biological difference that makes them stronger? That isn't sport.

Personally - I am a short arse. I played rugby against women much taller. But much taller women are still on the whole within the normal parameters for women meaning the advantage is not so much to make a difference. Now a much taller man could be 1.5 feet taller than me. Before he starts an advantage. That isn't the cut and thrust world of survival of the fittest in sport.

Hi all,

While we are always happy for posters to debate robustly, we ask that everyone sticks well within our Talk Guidelines – which don't allow personal attacks. We've had to remove several posts now and we don't want to have to remove the entire thread so please do bear this in mind when posting.

Personally I think having Hollywood actors in films is unfair. All roles should be chosen by putting numbers in a hat, so Bob from Brighton would be just as likely to play Spartacus (topical...) as Kirk Douglas was.

Here we have a football goal. Average height is 8 foot and width is 8 yards.

Average male height and armspam is 5'9"
Average female height and armspan is 5'4"

A male person has greater reach and thus can save more goals with less movement - they can cover more of the goal

Now I'm gonna stick all this in metric so I can work out the area difference...

Maybe the Dutch women's team have an advantage in football against women from say women from Guatamala

www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_25-7-2016-18-41-53

It's a list of average heights of women by country.

The height difference between the world's tallest and shortest countries for women has remained the same across the century, at about 20cm.

Doesn't seem fair to me.
Nor does having transwomen on a team.

Possible dodgy maths, but standing still I have a female covering 14.7% of the goal area, in comparison to a male covering 17.2% of it.

Based on goal of 7.3m x 2.43m, female 1.62m, male 1.75m

*The height difference between the world's tallest and shortest countries for women has remained the same across the century, at about 20cm.

Doesn't seem fair to me.*

Possibly, but at least the women in each of those countries has a fair chance of being the best within it and representing their country. Women in other countries will be disadvantaged relative to others by restrictions on their training, or even their clothing. But the existence of unfairness doesn't mean it's ok to add more...as you recognise:

Nor does having transwomen on a team.

• it's really good to have you state that.

Has anyone mentioned the Iranian women's football team yet?
Eight out of the 11 players were transwomen at one stage. So not only were eight Iranian women cheated out of a rare and precious opportunity to play international sports, women on opposing teams were also forced to compete a team that was composed of mainly biological males.
An absolute travesty, IMO.
I don't compete in sports and neither does my daughter, but this does piss me off. And what pisses me off most of all is not the transactivists but the women who support them. Women who happily throw other girls and women under the bus without a second thought.
Not to mention it seems a lot of people post on these threads without even a basic knowledge of anatomy and physiology and how that is intrinsic to sporting performance. Why even bother if you don't gave a fucking clue what you're talking about?
Rant over.

What's wrong in women's sport is not the odd transwoman competing (because having male DNA doesn't automatically make a man a world-beating athlete). What's wrong is lack of visibility, support, training, investment in women's sport.

But who's going to start investing more in women's and girls' sport now? Why put the money in when there is less chance of a natal girl growing up to get the glittering prizes? If I had a niece or daughter who was looking like a seriously promising runner or basketball player, I'd be quietly wondering if it was worth it at all. Why put all that money into training her? Maybe it makes more sense to encourage her to go in for synchronized swimming if she's eager to compete and win medals for something.

You know what is annoying me about all this? The bait-and-switch way this has been done.

We were all assured repeatedly, for years, that transwomen had absolutely no advantage over natal women--that the hormone therapy just erased everything.

Once everyone was softened up, the rules started getting changed.

Now it's becoming clear that transwomen almost certainly will start packing the ranks of medal-winners for at least some sports, and suddenly the argument becomes "Well, yes, transwomen probably are better at most sports involving strength and speed, but how is it any different to the fact that women with narrow pelvises make better runners, and tall women are better basketball players than short ones? Sport is about being exceptional and nobody is OWED a career in sport."

So... okay, right, it is now becoming apparent that this was the agenda all along, and transwomen were always going to start taking more and more medals. It would have been nice to have been allowed to have the debate before the bloody rules got changed.