to think there should be a strict ban on trans-identified men in women's sport

[pisacake]

We recently had a MAN winning silver medals at the World Weightlifting Championship, at the expense of women.
He could have had gold but appeared to throw the winning lift:

Now we have a journeyman male (194cm tall) volleyball player from Brazil (world's leading volleyball country), who had to go off to random places like Indonesia to find work, walking into the women's Superleague, and outscoring the best female player (and double Olympic champion) on his team 25 points to 9: www.facebook.com/voleibolfemininobauru/photos/a.578277125569830.1073741828.578250175572525/1601320639932135/?type=3&theater

The (male) national team coach says he wants him on the women's team, and he could compete at the 2020 Olympics.

<a class="break-all" href="https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=esportes.estadao.com.br/blogs/bruno-voloch/jose-roberto-guimaraes-admite-convocar-tiffany-para-a-selecao-brasileira/&prev=search" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=esportes.estadao.com.br/blogs/bruno-voloch/jose-roberto-guimaraes-admite-convocar-tiffany-para-a-selecao-brasileira/&prev=search

This is a man who couldn't even get a club place in Brazil (out of 10 teams) as a man, now he is one of the the best 'women' in the country, by reason of his male physique.

AIBU to think this is wrong and transitioning males should be
excluded from women's sport under all circumstances?

A transgender coach making their intention quite clear

I agree. But this thread is repeated about once a week now

This. And no-one has come up with any startlingly original contribution in this thread.

Entirely agree about trans-identified. But what about the trans woman who has gone through surgery and all the rest of it? Anyone who does that had serious problems as a man and has put herself through a hell of an ordeal; but of course still has the skeletal and muscular structure of a man.

I see a problem there and I honestly don't see the answer.

“This. And no-one has come up with any startlingly original contribution in this thread“

We’d better just shut down all of mumsnet then.

Many folk are unaware if what’s happening in sports regarding this - and what is being proposed for the future.

I agree. But this thread is repeated about once a week now

Because it's ongoing and continuing to escalate. I am glad we are still talking about it and not just accepting it.

The answer is for a female only category in sports. And either “Mens” can be open to all or a seperate “all gender” category

So women can only talk about women and girls rights if they offer startling and new content each time they discuss it?

k

What about athletes who were born intersex? There is to some extent a bit of a range with regards to biological sex, not just gender. It’s entirely possibly to be born with a small bit of Y chromosome for example but for all intents and purposes be female. Many young athletes who compete might not have menstruated anyway... if you body fat percentage is less than around 13%, you don’t create the estrogen necessary. Why does everything have to be so black and white? It’s not like all of a sudden the olympics is going to be full of men in skirts, pretending to be trans

No no no!

There isn’t a ‘range’ of bio sex.
Everyone has either only X chromosome or not. Black and white. Only x = female. Any y = male.

bambambini I love the idea of women's sports being strictly for biological women and everyone else competing in men's.

This would take at least some of the sting out of 'woman' being a sludge pot for everything not-man... And maybe offset the added mental advantage of being raised as a sports-playing boy for years.

This thread may be repeated once a week, but we should be celebrating not bemoaning that fact. Because every thread like this may only bring one person to peak-trans, but every person is another who will start looking at this critically, start seeing the massive disadvantages this trans-rights-trump-female-rights bollocks is doing to our daughters.

I was always very understanding and sympathetic to my view of transwomen as people with gender dysphoria who felt that complete surgical transition was the only option for them. But it's exactly those people who are being chucked under the bus by this "you are what you feel" definition of "sex" and the subsequent bulldozing of sex-specific spaces.

My mind was changed by a thread like this. I went off and did some reading, followed a few blogs, realised what was happening politically and in the news, and started to understand.

So if this thread has made one other person do the same it's worth having.

bambambini I love the idea of women's sports being strictly for biological women and everyone else competing in men's.

Isn't this the only common sense position? It's hardly a creative idea . I guess the only issue is sports that women are actually better at (so some parts of gymnastics).

Anyone who thinks that transwomen (with their male bodies, male muscles, male skeletons and male hearts) have any place in women's sports should be campaigning for a ban on sex segreation in sport, and demanding only one category (not male or female).

If they are doing that, great, at least it makes sense (even though it would mean no women would win at all, but at least there is a logic to it, not like "this man can compete because feelz, but this man can't"). Doing this would give biological women the option of starting again as they have had to over the last century or so, and making the definition jargon proof this time. It might take some time, but would be better than where we are going now.

I still ask: what about the post-operative trans woman who still has Y chromosomes?

It's necessary to repeat this until more people get it. I posted on social media a year or two ago about this and was torn to pieces by people who called me a bigot and how dare I suggest men would take advantage. Some of those people have since done a major u-turn. So you have to keep talking about it.

No Andrew. You know the answer to that; male body, male skeleton, male limbs, male hands and feet, male heart muscle, male lung capacity, male upbringing; shouldn't be allowed to compete as a female.

Bringing hormone levels down to the lower end of normal for a man (and way above normal for a woman) doesn't make everything else equal.

The advantage of the previous IOC guidelines (that people had to have complete surgery at least two years prior to competing) meant that the numbers were reduced, and the complete piss-takers excluded. But they still weren't fair.

Andrew plastic surgery to take away your penis and give you a hole to resemble part of a vagina doesn’t mean you’ve lost your male advantage in sport. Men don’t run faster or punch harder because of their penis - it’s their muscles and bigger bodies, hearts, lungs. Even the male hand is 90% stronger than the female hand.

fertwist - is it really 90% stronger. That's amazing. No wonder I can open a jar out the shop but not after DH has closed it.

bambambini I love the idea of women's sports being strictly for biological women

I agree but the fact we even need to make statements like this, that it actually makes sense tobis is just weird and so far fown the rabbit hole as to how meaning/language is being changed.

Maryz and Ferntwist Thank you both and I accept what you say. Always glad to learn.

Andrew - like this post operative TW? Do you see pist op TW as women then? Seriously curious to how men view this.

bambambini Most of us don't regard it because most of us go through life without identifying as women, still less having bits of our anatomy chopped off to "prove it" - so we never have to think about it.

Thank you for the photo which if I may say so makes the point better than a thousand words!

A post op transwoman still has had large doses of testosterone during their bone and muscle development stages andrew removing their external genitalia does not magically transform their skeleton and attached musculature into that of a biological female.

For that reason I would also say the example given upthread of a woman transitioning an her teens then changing her mind ten years later should, sadly for her, also be excluded from female sports, as the testosterone taken is likely to have had a non-reversible effect at that age.

Personally I think the only answer is genetic testing. XX, or not XX, that is the simple and easily testable difference between men and women. Why the fuck it is not the obvious solution boggles my brain, but then I am a biologist

sadly for her

That's the key. There isn't an answer which is "fair" to everyone and if may be sad for her but yes, she has to lose out.

I still ask: what about the post-operative trans woman who still has Y chromosomes?

Never. Does that help?

Thank you for the photo which if I may say so makes the point better than a thousand words!

Yes indeed. When I posted this on another thread a transfan argued that it was perfectly allowable and fine and yes identified the large man in the picture as a woman. Then posted data after doing research on the man, and told me their history...which kinda proved that they identified them as a man otherwise why go and research them in the first place?

Considering how much effort and cost is put into drug testing in sports to prevent competitors cheating by manipulating the levels of various hormones, you would think a simple blood test to determine whether the competitors sex hormones are within normal limits would already be included.

If someone competing as a woman has results outside the normal range for a biologically female human then they should be disqualified. The levels being normal for some other mammal wouldn't make an athlete exempt for any of the other hormones currently tested.