To think that women don't just need to try a bit harder in order to beat men at sport?

[SportySpice18]

From this Woman's Hour clip:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06tmhr3

The first interviewee is arguing that initially transwomen (ie males who identify as being women) should compete in women's sport (which is already happening) but that ultimately single-sex sports should be abolished and sport should become gender neutral. This would mean all men competing against women (if any women qualify) and sports teams not just being mixed sex but not taking into account sex differences (e.g. at the moment a mixed-sex sports team normally has to have 50% women playing but in 'gender neutral' sports, the strongest players would be selected, irrespective of their sex.)

The argument put forward is that women only perform at a lower level than men in sport because we psychologically cap our performance and don't try as hard as men.

AIBU to think that this is a load of old b and will result in women missing out on the opportunity to play fair, competitive sport? Women in sports, particularly at the top level, work their a off and display incredible determination and skill - but they cannot outpower men.

Men have longer limbs, greater lung capacity, bigger muscles and a different shaped pelvis (shaped for efficient movement rather than childbirth) to name but a few differences. I play sports and, when I've played (socially) against men the sheer power can be overwhelming even when they are technically a less skilled player.

Surely, it is obvious that refusing to acknowledge physical sex differences, far from being open-minded and progressive, is massively detrimental to women?

Its one of the dumbest things i ever heard

Since being on mumsnet i have heard some doozies...but this has to be top 5

What about diving as a unisex sport?

@SerenDippitty - if you mean a form of free diving where you go as far down as possible I was trying to look that up. However other diving is like gymnastics where mens and womens general body shapes come on to play so they can't do somersaults, flips, etc the same.

Yes but these are in the minority and are more for the sake of safety than fairness. How often do white people get into the 100m finals? How often do black people win swimming medals? How often do you see short people win the high jump, or indeed any running races? How often do tall people win gymnastics competitions?

You have a point about gymnastics, being shorter is an advantage. I don't know enough about high jump to comment but I'd guess long legs are useful, however, sprinters are not exceptionally tall, if you see them next to runners of longer distances the height difference is noticeable. You need power to win the 100m, being taller is not necessarily an advantage.

And the reasons why white people tend to be swimmers while black people tend to be runners are often social not genetic. You see the same phenomenon if you compare rowers and premier league footballers.

sprinters are not exceptionally tall

Usain Bolt caused mush head scratching when he started to dominate the sport - he was so far removed physically from the perceived ideal sprinter.

if you see them next to runners of longer distances the height difference is noticeable

Long distance runners aren't usually tall - Mo Farah is listed as 1.75m (that's 5'.7") as is Seb Coe that is hardly tall for a man - it's bang on average.

Men could give birth to babies if they just tried harder too....

People from different races are genetically (and therefore physically) different.

Swimming's an incredibly bad example of that. That black Americans often can't swim is a topic for much debate, and there are a lot of reasons for it tied up with historic racism (access to pools), problems with hair relaxing/straightening interacting badly with chlorine and a range of other social pressures. It's hard to see why black athletes would be (by your argument) predisposed to be excellent sprinters but not excellent 50m freestyle swimmers, because the attributes required are quite similar (strength, anaerobic capacity).

theconversation.com/swimming-while-black-101354

A friend commented about this on Facebook, and said she agrees, and that instead of separating sports by sex, people should be grouped by height. Yes she actually believes sport would be fairer, if athletic people of a similar height were pitted against each other, regardless of sex!

I told her that I love her dearly - and I do - but this is utter bullshit.

I pointed out that I'm 6ft 3, yet have many physical and physiological differences (disadvantages?) to men who are the same height, or a similar height. This would also apply to some men shorter than me. I have a cousin who is 5ft 9, and is exceptionally fit (from kickboxing), and he would destroy me in anything from running, to throwing events, and certainly at kickboxing.

It's all nonsense. These people are speaking nonsense.

Oh, I've heard a few people say that we should separate by height. As if height were the only physical advantage between the sexes. As though physiology and muscle mass has no bearing.

I was surprised by those assertions on the R4 program. I don't see how these differences between the sexes can be denied, there are plenty of medical charts based on huge amounts of evidence (such as WHO baby weight charts, lung capacity data, muscle mass data) which demonstrate that the size differences in human sexes start from birth and are compounded by puberty. This is not anecdotal, cultural or specific, but is a demonstrable fact throughout the human species with some anomalies and ethnic/genetic variation.

On the subject of sports, there are disciplines like shooting which presumably could be done unisex.
Individual sports like luge and downhill skiing might work based on weight rather than sex I suppose.
It seems arrogant to ask for a reorganization of all sport based on the idea that a few trans athletes are being excluded from mainstream sport. It also seems like rank cheating to run or cycle or play rugby against natal women when you posses the clear acknowledgeable advantage of having male genetics/physicality.

I've never understood the purpose of segregating people by the subjective notion of 'gender'.

There's a logical purpose for separating sports etc. by sex. We should keep things that way.

If we are segregating by gender, we may as may segregate by favorite music type?

Also, I have zero idea what gender I am, or how I can find out.

He might be half right.

I think it would make sense to have a category of each sport that is 'open to all'. So any sex, gender, able or disabled etc etc could enter.

Naturally, this probably mean that able men won most if not all events.

Of course trans people would all be perfectly free to enter.

Then you should have protected categories for groups of people who are unable to compete in the open category with any reasonable chance of winning.

Protected categories might be

• being female sex
• being disabled
• being in certain age categories (youths, veterans etc)

Would that work?

Well, we are not equal in some of these sports. Isn't that what all the fuss is about?

Would that work?

Where does the additional funding come from?

I think there are lots of sports where women can beat men. Horse based sports, shooting, archery, bowling, etc etc

In these, usually anyone can compete or you can offer men's and women's events just to make sure both have the opportunity and encouragement.

But in others, like sprinting, I really don't think women have much chance against men, and I think women need a protected category to compete under.

Someone gave me a genetic ancestry test for a present. It informs me that I am in a minority that has a muscle composition that is extremely unlikely in elite athletes!

So, even with opportunity and hard work, I am extremely unlikely to be able to complete successfully against women, never mind men.

I had already realised that I would be rather hampered by lack of ability in the elite athletic field.😂

Maybe I could just try harder. Or maybe I could just insist that they should ignore my real age and allow me to compete against toddlers?

These limitations by age, sex and disability are there for a reason.

“Protected categories might be

• being female sex
• being disabled
• being in certain age categories (youths, veterans etc)

Would that work?”

So we’d have Sport and Woman’s Sport. Great.

I keep seeing archery brought up as a sport that could be unisex, probably by people who have never done the sport. Archery is not equal between the sexes men are stronger and therefore able to use a bow with a higher draw weight and achieve a flatter trajectory, they particularly have an advantage shooting on windy days. While some elite women do score higher than some elite men in Olympic recurve archery that is not true when you look at the field as a whole. If you made archery unisex you would end up with almost all men on each team. Although archery is very technique based the stronger archer still has an advantage particularly on windy days. I would imagine similar to be true with rifle shooting, rifles are heavy being physically stronger will allow you to hold the rifle more steadily and achieve a higher accuracy and better grouping. I can only give anecdotal evidence for rifle shooting but during my time in the reserves I scored well shooting from the prone position where the rifle weight is supported by your elbows on the ground, but scored far worse kneeling and standing where you have to support the full weight of the weapon with your arms and shoulders. Men would have the advantage here as they can typically bear the weight of the weapon more easily.

Why is this thread Swiss cheese? What the hell have people been saying?!