In Connecticut, two teenage boys who identify as girls have come 1st and 2nd in the girls' 100m sprint

[OrchidInTheSun]

twitter.com/GameTimeCT/status/1003739370736816129

Reposted from Feminism Chat as more people need to see this.

Neither Miller nor Yearwood have got times that would be remotely remarkable for boys (200th and 443rd respectively) but they are smashing the girls' records out of the park as now they identify as girls, they're allowed to race them instead.

Watch the face of the girl who comes third. That's pretty much her best ever 100m race. But she didn't win.

Self identification means this kind of thing will keep on happening. If you value women's sport and think that women and girls deserve to compete on a level playing field, please sign the petition: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214118

In before the cries of transphobia start, but you are so NBU. This really is completely shitty.

Hmm I find it hard to worry about this tbh. I’ve never won a race myself! Maybe we should stop putting so much emphasis on tests of physical strength/speed etc. Seems to me that these things are inherently patriarchal.

As a runner then I think that's shitty!

Women had to struggle to be allowed to run marathons and had to fight for it. For this shit?

It's just so bloody unfair

All that training for nothing, poor girls.

You can just tell by the looks on the girls faces how they're feeling about it but they probably won't be able to say anything about it for fear of being labelled transphobes.

That's probably because you're not a very good runner longlostpal (and neither am I). Don't you care about the girls who have trained really hard and suddenly a boy who is completely mediocre decides he's a girl one day and boom! he beats all the girls?

Don't you think that's shit for women's sport?

longlostpal
Hmm I find it hard to worry about this tbh. I’ve never won a race myself!

What a huge amount of empathy you show for those that have trained hard to excel at a sport only to be beaten by someone that shouldn't be there.

I think that is absolutely ridiculous. What if Usain Bolt self identifies as a woman and comes out of retirement?

It seems to be creeping up....

To be honest, I don’t see why a male bodied person beating a female bodied person is more unfair than an able bodied person beating a disabled person. Sports will always be as much about genetic luck as training. My point is that putting emphasis on winning in tests of physical prowess will always unfairly prejudice against certain people.

Sports should be a joyful celebration of oneself, not about winning and losing!

On a more mundane note, I don’t think it’s very nice to use videos of children to make a political point. Whatever your views on this issue, you can make your point without using some poor teen’s face.

I’d also express a slight bit of scepticism about how we know this video shows what it purports to show. The gender of the winner is not clear to me.

It’s such bullshit. Petition signed.

What absolute bullshit, those poor girls ran their hearts out and never stood a chance.

There needs to a separate category for transgender athletes. It's the only fair way.

Alternatively I'd have massive respect for a transgender athlete who transitioned but actually opted to run as their correct sex category.

In the USA, being good at sport is a way for children to get to university, who would not otherwise have been able to afford it.

The stakes with this, for USA girls, is way higher than just the race, is my understanding from what I've read ( I'm not American so not super familiar with it all but know uni there costs an absolute fortune).

Yanbu. The looks on the girls faces says it all.

I just read the other thread on this and agree it is an absolute disgrace. A good way for boys to insure a scholarship and then decide to live as male again.

Longlostpal what are you talking about?

This is fucking appalling

I don’t think it’s very nice to use videos of children to make a political point

It's on Twitter, therefore it's in the public domain. If they or their parents didn't want their faces seen, maybe that should have been stopped before it was splashed to the whole world. All the OP is doing is pointing towards already-available information.

As a mum of 2 girls who are competitive at their sport, this sucks.
I am seriously looking at changing them to a sport where males wouldn't have an advantage if (when) they can compete against females.

The level of testosterone a male can compete as a women at is massively more than an actual female has, she'd have to dope massively to get that high. Totally unfair.

If this is going to become a thing, we need to have competitions where the categories are xx and xy.

Females have xx chromosomes and males have xy. Who cares what gender you identify as, or even if you have one at all. Biology is indisputable.

Longlostpal since you brought up able bodied v disabled how would you feel about able bodied athletes self identifying as disabled and competing in the Paralympics? No big deal?