Aibu to not understand all the trans stuff...?

[cansomeoneexplain]

I've NC for this.

Apologies first off if this thread sounds dumb, ignorant or goady. I genuinely don't mean to come across that way.

I read a lot of 'trans' topics on here mainly in the feminism boards. I do feel like I've missed something entirely.

On MN there appears to be a growing number of concern for trans women 'taking' the rights of women as their own.

I don't use Twitter but a lot of links get referenced to that regards transgender people trying to 'erase' females etc. I have clicked on the links referenced on MN to Twitter and even google and the guardian and find that it appears on the surface to be true.

However I feel like I've missed something fundamental. A few years ago I hardly ever saw six topics on MN - maybe I wasn't reading the right threads at the time? I don't really socialise much outside of work but when I do, none of my social circle ever mentions such things regarding trans issues. I watch the news but I don't really see anything there pertaining to trans people taking away women's rights.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm only made aware of it via mumsnet (apart from the male transgender weightlifter who competed in a women's event).

So can I ask the more enlightened of you, has this always been an issue or has it only recently just come about?

Why does it seem to be such a strong theme on MN but hardly anywhere else I look? Like I said I don't use Twitter at all unless someone post a link to something specific.

How can trans people possibly 'take away the rights of women'? How can that even be legal? Have new laws been passed that I'm not aware of?

I hope I don't come across as goady but I really would appreciate someone taking the time to fill me in especially as I can't seem to log on to MN these days without seeing similar threads re trans issues over and over. Also I don't understand how all these abbreviations have come about like TERF, TRA, etc. I'd genuinely never heard of them til a month or so ago. No one talks about this stuff irl.

Is it something kids are being taught in schools, the whole trans/non binary thing? I don't know what half of it means. I feel like I'm in some parallel universe reading some of the threads on here. I go to work and these issues aren't mentioned at all. I take care of my kids outside of work. What have I missed?

Sorry that was long. I'd appreciate genuine replies to this post, I'm not looking for a bun fight, just honest answers.

Thanks all in advance

The only place I see it mentioned is on here. If the people on Mumsnet stopped talking about It, the extreme trans folk would not be heard!

Yeah, really? You're obviously not on Twitter then.
It's all over.

Datun
Which they seem to have bought. Because their determinant is testosterone. Lower the testosterone, and eliminate the advantage.
Except they lowered it down to a still male level, and higher than almost any woman could achieve.
I have no idea how they did that.

the testosterone levels in sport is here

but the long and short of it is that the level for testosterone in women is still below the level that is produced in men and it is designed to take in to account most outliers.

although intersex athletes are currently taking the rule through court.

BoneyBackJefferson

Thanks for that link. I think I've read it before, but was useful going through it again.

And I know it was from a professional publication. The Journal of law and biosciences.

And the author was musing about the various different ways of categorisations in sport.

But I got to the end feeling frustrated.

I realise it's complicated, and because of the importance of sport, both financial and social it's a conversation that's inevitable.

To even include opinions like:

But even those who believe that higher testosterone levels lead to better athletic capacity might still support a gender rule, even at the price of ‘sacrificing fairness’, on the grounds of respecting individual liberty to identify as one sees fit. Alice Dreger suggested that this could be a solution, even if it isn’t ‘fair’: ‘If we are going to say that people get to be divided by gender, and we take gender seriously, then we let people play according to their gender, not according to biological haves or have-nots’.

And

What if we were to match the 10 categories of impairment to 10 categories of advantages, where we list all known biological elements that provide a competitive edge, such as LBM, height, vision, muscle strength, oxygen carrying red blood cells, lung size, etc.? We could then assign each athlete a numerical grade in relation to the sport they wish to compete in.

Seem to me to reducing the entire conversation to elements that don't seem to be sporting at all.

It's really interesting how they categorise people in the para Olympics for instance. Assigning an algorithm to assess various ways their condition limits their performance. And basing categories on the results.

But I can't help feeling that the suggestion to do that for everyone in sport, is daft.

And Alice's Dreger's suggestion is just sexist.

I'm trying to analyse why that article has left me feeling frustrated and irritated. But I'm struggling to articulate it, to be honest.

It feels that there is a lot of gleeful, intellectual overcomplication going on.

But, I realise, that's probably naivete on my part, in a way. Because the stakes are so high in sport.

But the fact that they can't even decide what bearing on performance testosterone has, makes me think they are as much in the dark as I am!

Datun I found this page which lists policies for lots of different sports organisations including IOC. They all have different rules. I don't know how IOC rules would interact with different countries' legislation. There are some countries which don't recognise trans at all and others where surgery is required.

I don't think we'll ever get a handle on this, I don't think anyone really has a clue what gender is (in TRA terms) or what trans is. That's why so many orgs just unquestioningly follow the guidance they're spoonfed by the trans orgs.

@Datun "I'm trying to analyse why that article has left me feeling frustrated and irritated. But I'm struggling to articulate it, to be honest"

Which article? Could you link to it again, please?

Because sports are sex segregated I don't understand how we have got to a situation where gender is even considered!

I know that at one time there were situations/rumours that so.e unscrupulous countries have 'sex changes' to make athletes so they could win.was that really a thing?

italian

It's here.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5570685/

boney linked to it in the body of the text, so you may have missed it.

Sorry @Datun I gave up on the article!

The first bit is all about testing females for testosterone. But what has that to with males? Males should not be competing against females.

"Results showed that contrary to what researchers had expected, there was a substantial overlap in testosterone levels between the sexes, as 16.5 per cent of males demonstrated low testosterone levels (under 8.4 nmol/L, the lower limit of the normal reference range for males), whereas 13.7 per cent of females demonstrated high testosterone levels (above 2.7 nmol/L, the upper limit of the normal reference range for females).34 However, the most distinctive criterion in differentiating between male and female athletes was their LBM,35 as the research established that females have 85 per cent of the LBM of males.36 Researchers believe that these findings are sufficient to account for ‘observed differences in strength and aerobic performance’ between male and female athletes, ‘without the need to hypothesize that performance is in any way determined by the differences in testosterone levels’."

Does that all mean men and women perform differently? If so, no surprise, that is why sports at this competitive level are sex segregated!