What if this happened at your kids school?

[Bambambini]

Would it bother you - if this happened at your kids school? A 15 yr old boy (ok Trans) who used to race on the boys team - now races on the girls team and is beating the other girls. I don't see why it won't happen here - if it already hasn't happened.

I have kids at high school and i'd find this hard tovsccrpt, especially if i had girls who liked sport.

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/04/08/trans-middle-schooler-added-to-female-track-team/amp/

Animals- just a thought about your question on definition of 'trans'. I have a trans sibling (born intersex, genetically male but now lives as a woman) so know some older trans people pretty well. None of them talk about being born in the wrong body, or about being women now they've transitioned. What they say is that they didn't feel right presenting as male and wanted to transition in order to pass as women. They accept that they don't really know what it's like to be a biological woman, but feel they should be female.

I find it's more recently that discussions about trans have had the 'wrong body' rhetoric which feels like something being used to justify a position rather than reality.

@Chrysanthemum5

I don't really have a 'feeling' about trans people. I've never knowingly met one let alone felt sidelined by a "bepenised woman" (as another poster said). I think I'm more on trifle's side of "who cares who wins sports day" rather angst and outrage at 'rolling over to let men invade our spaces'.

Aren't intersex people a tiny, tiny minority who are basically sidelined during the anti-trans rhetoric on MN. Without wanting to cause offence, they are an anomaly. Not more or less worthy as people, but certainly not typical.

Of course trans people aren't typical either, but I'd guess there are more of them that people born intersex.

"What they say is that they didn't feel right presenting as male and wanted to transition in order to pass as women."

How is this any different?

I agree with the 'don't know what it's like to be a woman' part, but how is 'feeling like they should be female' different to feeling they are in the wrong body?

Hope my post comes across as nothing but interested and open to learning

Some trans thinking now basically says that the body/biology doesn't make you a man or a woman. It's purely down to how you feel or identify - not biology or body parts. That's why a penis is no longer a male part - if the person identifies as female then they always were female, their body IS female. So people arent born into the wrong body.

What I don't get is that some folk think it's nice, the right thing to be kind and let transgirls/men compete against women and girls, that it doesn't matter who wins - whilst winning does matter hugely to the trans competitor who is celebrating their win and proudly taking their medal.

It's strange how we can all feel so differently about this.

"whilst winning does matter hugely to the trans competitor"

How do you know this? Because they're happy to win? Does it make any difference to your DD is she loses to a man or trans or woman? I suspect it would to your DD because of what you'd be telling her, but I meant, would it matter had she not been brought up to believe she's an oppressed underclass?

I would guess that they're (the winner) simply happy to be accepted as I suspect anyone who was born a man but feels like they should have been a woman has emotional hardship most of us can't imagine.

Lets pretend for a second that rather than the 'them and us' (man and woman) scenario you like to live in, we are all humans and all perceived as equals. I had the privilege of seeing a boy in a wheelchair 'winning' cross country at our sports day. No one pointed out that his father had been pushing him or that the first third of the field slowed down to watch him win. Is this any different? If so, why?

The same way you're an arse, with a capital 'w'

Sorry. English is not my first language. Sometimes i don't know what is a polite/acceptable way to call certain things.

I am still reading but to be honest have given up on commenting on reply to specific posters on this issue. To me it is self-evident that a teenager with what I see as a mental health difficulty is not someone to be feared or hated, but with whom we ought to sympathise. Too much venom here for me so I am out.

It isn't venomous to stand up for girls.

I wouldn't be happy with this, for the reasons numerous other people have posted. It's so wrong on so many levels but it doesn't matter what we say at this point the agenda for this is so strong for reasons I won't bother to state on here

To me it is self-evident that a teenager with what I see as a mental health difficulty is not someone to be feared or hated, but with whom we ought to sympathise.
Exactly. A mental health difficulty. Thats why there are Paralympics, special olympics -- things with people with different disabilities.

I am trying so hard to come to a place where i am happy with my opinions and understanding on the various trans issues but keep getting caught up in one question - what does feeling female (or male) mean?

I am a woman but if i identify myself as that in any way it is always in terms of my physical experience (periods, childbirth etc). The rest of my life i see as human, i don't feel my gender iyswim? So how do trans people know they feel female / male and not just like themselves? I mean I've only ever been me and I'm a woman, therefore what i feel like is a woman (I'm a woman, they are my feelings).

Ah yes, feeling like a woman. No idea either and I've been one for 45 years.

It isn't venomous to stand up for girls.

It is if you do so in a venomous manner.

Stating facts is not venomous.

One thing I haven't seen detailed here is the pelvis, specifically the female pelvis, which is a distinctly different shape to the male one and designed to incorporate the uterus. Because of this difference in design between males and females, even if a woman was exactly the same height, with exactly the same leg length as a man, she would still have a shorter stride.

As a result a woman has to work harder to cover the same distance, add this to the difference in muscle mass and lung capacity and it's easy to see how (especially in the short distances) even the mediocre men can still go faster than the fastest women on the planet.

Women already have to deal with the fact that the vast majority of sports were invented to explicitly show what the male body could do, they shouldn't have to deal with men (or women) cheating on top of that.

Simply put, if you feel uncomfortable competing in your sex category (within the rules - so FTT would have to stop testosterone) then you don't compete. It sucks, but that's life.

Hubris I agree.

If you want to compete like as woman then wear shoes that slightly turn your knees in to mimic our gynaecoid pelvis. Wear a gas mask to mimic our slightly reduced lung capacity. And carry extra weight on your shoulders to mimic the fat from our breasts.

"I had the privilege of seeing a boy in a wheelchair 'winning' cross country at our sports day. No one pointed out that his father had been pushing him or that the first third of the field slowed down to watch him win. Is this any different? If so, why?"

This is genuinely beautiful, animals, but it really isn't the same. The boy in the wheelchair was allowed to win because it makes a point about inclusivity and acceptance of disability. Nobody is suggesting that this becomes part of the status quo in children's sport. It was a one-off gesture, and a very meaningful one.

What is being suggested is that biological girls stand aside whenever the need arises so that biological boys can compete alongside them, with all of the advantages male biology construes.

Women already have to deal with the fact that the vast majority of sports were invented to explicitly show what the male body could do

Are they? Running or swimming quickly? Jumping highly?

Sorry, I feel the need to call bullshit where I see it although I'd love you to tell me why I'm wrong...

I can only think of one sport in which males are at a disadvantage physiologically, with the demands of the sport being better suited to female physique. Interestingly, it's also more or less entirely women only (except I think in Japan) and often criticised for being too 'girly.' Coincidence much?

What is being suggested is that biological girls stand aside whenever the need arises so that biological boys can compete alongside them, with all of the advantages male biology construes.

I bet that never will a group of boys intentionally slow down to let their transboy classmate win.

Who wants to bet against me?

Who really, genuinely believes that males will put her daughter first the way she teaches her daughter to put males first?

I can only think of one sport in which males are at a disadvantage physiologically, with the demands of the sport being better suited to female physique. Interestingly, it's also more or less entirely women only (except I think in Japan) and often criticised for being too 'girly.' Coincidence much?

Haha, no. Not coincidence at all. Everything women can do must be devalued to uphold patriarchy.

Which sport do you mean?

" Does it make any difference to your DD is she loses to a man or trans or woman? I suspect it would to your DD because of what you'd be telling her, but I meant, would it matter had she not been brought up to believe she's an oppressed underclass?

I would guess that they're (the winner) simply happy to be accepted as I suspect anyone who was born a man but feels like they should have been a woman has emotional hardship most of us can't imagine."

I really don't know what to make of your reasoning. Of course it makes a difference who she loses to - unless you think there should be absolutely no categories at all in sport - no for sex, age, weight, disability etc. And I doub this transgirl (and Fox, Ludwig, Bearden, Hubble etc), is really accepted and not seen as delusional or a cheat or someone with absolutely no empathy or regard for the girls they are competing against.