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?

I agree. It's not great having Sport and Women's sport.

Now we have Men's sport and Women's sport.

But maybe not much longer. Some men seem to think that if they aren't good enough to compete in Men's sport, then it is ok to compete in Women's sport. Because they claim they aren't Men.

I would like to still have Women's sport that is fair because it is only open to those of the female sex.

Rather than just Sport that women can never win.

But maybe not much longer. Some men seem to think that if they aren't good enough to compete in Men's sport, then it is ok to compete in Women's sport. Because they claim they aren't Men.

We can have this discussion without misgendering trans women, or suggesting they are pretending to be women in order to compete with women and win. It's this kind of talk which undermines the very strong arguments for sex-based segregation. We can assume that trans atheletes have good intentions and still present the case for sex segregation.

Any solution should allow trans atheletes to compete fairly, without hiving them off into a tiny separate space, but also acknowledge the physiological differences between male and female people.

but also acknowledge the physiological differences between male and female people.

It's complex, though, and making the bright line be biological sex is the result of a lot of history and culture, not a detailed scientific assessment.

Elite athletes are already biological outliers, partly by birth, partly by training. Paula Radcliffe's marathon record may put her only in the top thousand or so marathon runs of all time, but few athletics clubs, never mind pub saloon bars, will contain a man capable of running a 2:15 marathon. Ditto the "U15 England boys will beat the women's England football team": it's true, but your local pub side won't. The differences aren't about the average strength, endurance or VO2max of men and women, different though those are: it's about the ultimate capacity of well-trained biological outliers.

On the whole, men will do better by those measures. There are exceptions, but circumstances under which an elite male athlete will be beaten, on any sort of consistent or equal basis, by an elite female athlete are few and far between (it's possible it might be true for ultra-marathons, but the pool of competitors is small, with strange demographics, and they are mostly amateurs rather than professional athletes, so there may be all sorts of confounders).

At the moment, making the line be biological sex appears to work. There are edge cases (Semenya, for example) but they are small in number and can be managed by exception, although 800m women athletes might not agree. Transwomen chuck a massive problem into the historic division, and it's not clear what athletics is supposed to do. It's an arbitrary line drawn to ensure a rough equality of arms. Now it's not regarded as OK by some people who would benefit from shifting it. It's not obvious what the "right" answer is, but it is obvious who the main victims of changing it will be: biological females.

ReflectentMonatomism I agree.

The status quo is that transwomen are now able to compete subject to testerone levels being below certain levels, so sex segregation is already gone. There are 37 UK men in the UK alone who can beat the long-standing women's world record of 10.49s in the 100m.

Until we see a transwomen destroying female atheletes at the highest level (the tennis example I gave, or a transwomen smashing the women's 100m record) I don't think anything will be done about it. The outrage such a thing will engender will bring the debate into the open. I think it's bound to happen. If we estimate that 1 in 200 people are transwomen, and assume that's reflected in atheletes, it's just a matter of time.

(Source of UK athletics stats [[https://www.thepowerof10.info/rankings/rankinglist.aspx?event=100&agegroup=ALL&sex=W&year=2018 here]].)

In pertinent timing, Hannah Mouncey who - for a while - thought it was fun to assault women in ARL - is now “dominating” women’s handball and has won the John Marriot Sportsperson of the year for 2018.

Quite surprised by the comments early on in this thread! Regarding women's track athletics (an area I know a lot about!) the differences are staggering, not just in sprints but 800m - 10000m and the marathon.

If you take the top women's 800m runner in the UK, she would be about 638th in the UK in the men's rankings. The differences are staggering. She is an outstanding athlete too (world class, European champion etc).

You could easily get a boy athlete in high school to beat any women's Olympic finalists in the 800m. There just is no comparison. For the marathon, yes, there's much less of a difference (they would be 86th in the UK). But that's still a difference. I often think people don't realise how marked the difference is. It's like another world.

I can only speak for track athletics, but if it was to be made unisex, women simply couldn't compete. There may be one or two who would make it e.g. into the rounds at the UK Championships, but they wouldn't go any further than that. There would be no physical danger (unlike contact sports) competing against men, but there would be little point. I seriously doubt that every year, thousands of women, GB internationals included, are 'capping their performance'. Statistics of hundreds of thousands of athletes stand against that.

Growing up, athletics gave me SO much. A big part of that was aiming for competitions, goals and PBs. I can't imagine those races being taken away. Of not having a chance to get to national finals, to represent your country. No chance of winning medals, finishing near the front. It would be demoralising.

I wonder if whoever was arguing for gender neutral sport truly realises we would see a program of Olympic track events with men only as competitors in almost all of the races. Finals with eight men. For every event pretty much. It doesn't sound like they have much of an inside knowledge of sport. Instead of hundreds of women competing we'd most likely have less than ten. Why would anyone want that?

Gender neutral sports across the board dont work for women. Sports where men have a physical advantage are sex segregated. Where there is no advantage then men and women compete together.

The fair solution is to make the men's mixed sex or create a third mixed sex category, as there wont be a negative effect on any serious competitors, male or female.
The fact this isn't seen as a solution just demonstrates the agenda is not about fairness in sports.

The fair solution is to make the men's mixed sex or create a third mixed sex category, as there wont be a negative effect on any serious competitors, male or female

Absolutely. I’ve said this before, but when we wanted to start a women’s rugby team at the local club, we were told “go away, recruit then come back with numbers”. Why aren’t transwomen being told the same thing?

Seems rather ironic that TRAs are so desperate to be recognised as women, and yet don’t want to have to face what women have - simply want what they want and immediately.

Male privilege in action.

Yes women do unconsciously hold themselves back in many areas so as not to offend men, what beth has done is taken this and disingenuously applied it to sport

women do not have the potential for athletic performance that men do, whether they hold themselves back or not is besides the point

You could easily get a boy athlete in high school to beat any women's Olympic finalists in the 800m.

Indeed. 2016 Brazil Olympics, 800m winner was 1:55.28 (and was Caster Semenya), second was 1:56.49, which might be regarded as a more representative time. The USTF record for boys aged 13-14 is 1:56.36, so would have come second to Semenya in the 2016 Olympics. For 15-16 the record is 1:50.51, which not even Semenya is going to get near (her PB is 1:54.25).

You picked the 800m I suspect at random. For the 100m the winning time in 2016 was 10.71; again, the 15-16 record for US men is 10.51, just outside the world record for women which is 10.49. But no-one takes that seriously: the best women's time that isn't obviously doped is 10.64.

Now no-one is saying US youth athletics is clean: there are massive incentives for young men to get scholarships by good track and field performances, and it's not at all policed (there's no out of competition testing, for a start off). But the doping if it's there will be crude and pretty haphazard, whereas the "best 25 women in 100m" table is like an identity parade of suspicion, so if the 16 year old men's times might be a bit dubious, so are the elite women's, so it sort-of cancels out.

Back to 800m, the top women of all time are a laughable parade of dopers, mostly. But 1:56.36, for a 13-14 year old, would put them in the top 40. But only ten of the top forty are from this century (ie, post decent doping control) and not all of those look clean. The best times that don't immediately look dodgy are around 1:55.6, and Kelly Holmes' 1:56.21 is credible. So a 13-14 year old boy would be a more than competitive top-ten elite athlete today if faced with the clean-ish top ten. A top-quality 15-16 year old boy would finish 30-40 metres in front of the best women over 400m.

Olympic track events with men only as competitors in almost all of the races

For most Olympic track and field events the women's world record is outside the men's qualifying time. For the cases that isn't true, the women in question are almost all eastern European athletes active in the 1980s.