How can a male win 2 silver medals in a women’s World Championship event

[bambambini]

Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand has just won 2 silver medals in the women's events in the Weightlifting World Championships in the US. Laurel at 39yrs old is much older than the other female competitors and has only really excelled in the sport to this level in the past few years for some reason.

www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11954269

Two more issues with the "vote with your feet" idea.

• Men's and women's competitions often take place at the same time, so not everyone buying tickets is doing so to watch the women.
• Even if it were a women only event, people would want to watch the actual female competitors.

It's not like voting with your feet against something like a comedian tour, where one person is performing.

This Hubbarb person, is a massive cheat. In much the same way as I would be a massive cheat if I insisted I was 10 years old and joined the local under 11s football team. Or pitched up at a primary school and insisted on taking part in sports day. Then patted myself on the back and crowed about what a pioneer I was.

Instead of Laurel, this individual should be calling themselves Cheaty McCheaterperson Hubbarb.

As has been pointed out this is massively unfair to biological women but it is also unfair to men.
These transgender athletes get two chances of success - as a man, then once they are past their best can 'transition' and try again. In future years are these transgender athletes going to scoop up the lifetime achievement awards - maybe not for success as they are possibly not that good as a male - but for commitment and services to sport.
Steve Redgrave was honoured because he won 5 golds at 5 consecutive olympics - surely that will be easier to achieve if you transition part way through.
It is unfair if you can only realistically compete in your sport for 5 years but someone else can do it for 10 years.

Cloud I don’t think that men’s rights here is an issue at all it is overwhelmingly about women, is it only valid if the poor mens also suffer a tiny bit...... or should we all be taking it more seriously as an issue if the poor men’s are suffering too?

Not PBP or B'd either.

I do understand how this is a way of shutting down opposing ideas so that you can trick yourself into thinking that all women do agree with you and you must be correct.

@Datun asked why debates don't get off the ground. I think you're giving a wonderful demonstration.

Why another almost identical name then?

I'd be beaten hollow by most 10-year-olds, Saskia...

I hadn't realised it was near identical as opposed to identical.

I made a mistake in the "Username" box. As I said yesterday, I am often quite outing on other boards so make sure to keep AIBU separate.

As I said though, it gets pretty boring but you have done a fine job of answering @Datun 's question.

Lancelottie - they can be quite tenacious, but I think I could best them. As long as the didn't come at me in a mob. But, I'd totally own that egg and spoon race.

meatloafy

As I said on another thread, using pronouns is not a matter of respect. It’s a matter of acknowledging where someone is leveraging their sex over their stated gender.

If they do not do that in real life, most people won’t have a problem with pronouns. It’s where you have to make the ludicrous accommodation over grammar, when you are quite clearly being taken advantage of by their sex.

I wasn’t talking about legal sex based protections. They are clearly not worth the paper they’re written on, given the number of women who are raped, assaulted, harassed and murdered.

Sex based protections are in place, culturally. In changing rooms, loos, etc. Women are confident they can challenge a man in those places. If self identification goes through, that would be considered a breach of the equalities act.

It’s not about pitting men against women for the fun of it.

Men commit 98 percent of sexually violent crime. It’s irrefutable.

Every single one of those 98% will now have a perfectly legitimised reason to access women and girls.

Part of the problem here is you seem to be struggling with the concept of the power dynamic between men and women.

Might I suggest you read the thread linked below. If you still can’t grasp what I’m talking about, there is little point in engaging further.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3104694-ever-had-a-close-call

I haven't quite read the whole thread yet but to me transition still means permanently changing sex.

I am quite happy to call a man who has been through surgery to become a woman and refer to her as she and vice versa.

I do not think that man can become a woman just because they say they have and I will not refer to him as she and vice versa.

Sorry to distract from the sports debate, but surely everyone reading this thread can see the problem with this?!

This article on the director of the Bridget Jones trilogy (Sharon Mcguire) was one of the things that really made me sit up. Originally it was written to congratulate McGuire for being the only woman to have directed a Trilogy- especially such a successful one. Then TAs jumped on it and complained- and it was changed to this

www.bustle.com/articles/183525-bridget-joness-baby-is-the-second-movie-trilogy-with-all-female-directors-but-thats-just-one

That was a huge achievement for McGuire, taken away from her by Bustle because a pair of brothers later decided to "identify" as a pair of sisters.

I'm just polite!

mirialis

The same brothers who gleefully boasted about wearing women’s knickers to the Oscars (not a fetish). Who bragged about frequenting BDSM clubs. Who, from memory, were both dating a dominatrix.

And, as everyone knows, getting a boner in women’s underwear is the definition of a woman.

Firstly, there are people like the one on this thread (with deleted posts) who simply pit men against women and take a very misandrist approach.

If this refers to me, I don’t have deleted posts. I have one (1) deleted post for calling you (the person who repeatedly namechanges for some inexplicable reason- yesterday you were drunk on a plane, not sure what today’s excuse is) a goady fucker. Your post I was referring to was also deleted. Presumably for goady fuckery.

Datun

as everyone knows, getting a boner in women’s underwear is the definition of a woman

Quite!

But even without that extra bit of information, and taking simply that a male-born director was responsible for a trilogy of highly successful movies and then subsequently identified as a woman (whether they went through hormone treatment and surgery or not), I would be really interested to see a single justification of the stance taken towards Mcguire's achievement by the management at Bustle (other than fear). Genuinely. Someone who thinks that was the right thing to do and is fair to Mcguire and women in general, please enlighten me..?

Saskia - you were (I think!) joking with your comment about identifying as a youngster and joining a sports team?

Gabriella Ludwig transitioned later in life and went back to college in her early 50s, where she joined the college basketball team. But obviously, it's completely fair for 19 year old women to play against a 52 year old transwoman because some women are 6'5" and transwomen lose some muscle strength when they start hormone therapy

mirialis - I don't understand it, other than to note that the TRA narrative is that a transwoman is a woman and was always a woman, even if they didn't realise it at the time that they were [winning an Oscar] [writing a bestseller] [qualifying as a doctor when women weren't allowed to be doctors] [insert other achievement here]

There are lots of examples of athletes who have won medals and titles competing as Nationality A, who subsequently change nationality and win more medals and titles competing as Nationality B. The records aren't retrospectively altered to say that Nationality B won more Olympic medals than was known at the time, for example. Or indeed athletes who change their name - the official records show that Deborah Smith won a silver medal in 1984 and in 1988 Deborah Smith-Jones won a gold medal, not Deborah Smith-Jones won a silver in 1984

I was just telling DH about this and he's hopping mad. He thinks it's so unjust and unfair....they should have e.g. A women's league, men's league and a trans league. I explained that this wouldn't be acceptable as they consider themselves to be women and he can't understand how it's allowed.

I'm so glad he's on the right side anyway.

Olenna, yes, definitely joking.

Olenna

Not only that but Ludwig already played college basketball (as far as I know) as a young man so didn’t qualify for another go. Essentially - the rules were broken to allow Ludwig to play again.

It's interesting that I've got little traction with the trans agenda with other liberal friends until the sports issue. Then they are justifiably angry. Men in particular seem very disquietened by this. My Dp is a huge supporter of women's football and cricket and supports grass roots teams and he is furious knowing how much effort has gone into ensuring women's sport has a place and now this.