AIBU to think that this child should be allowed to compete as a girl? Transgender topic.

[Cassort]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/48800075/transgender-skater-fighting-to-compete?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3SHOZZproHs8lkaYi9tz5VcKPnE9xQRt7AR8m8rRPu5lPTJkp1m1808Os

It's an 11 year old (born male) ice skater. There's a little video where to me she looks female.

I daren't put this on the feminism board, but AIBU to think that in 20 years time we will look back in shame at how we have treated transgendered individuals?

I just put myself in those shoes for 5 hours. What on earth would I think? How much hate would I feel? How fucked up/strange/weird would I feel?

I have a very uneasy feeling in my soul about the vociferous opposition to transgenderism on MN currently. It doesn't sit comfortably with me.

I came across this story just now and it's typical of I suppose what the feminist MNers want transgender people to face. I.e. that they can't...

Should she compete as a girl? Or AIBU?

Just to be pedantic - there are no official boys or girls teams in football until 18. A girl can trial for any team she wishes, ditto a boy.

And I just don't feel that if that advantage is that they are genetically male, while quintessentially female, that it's any different than putting all the shorties competing together and all the fatties together

Just because it's what you feel doesn't make it true.

Stop making it about the boys and think for a moment about the displaced girls.

Haven't rtft, but wanted to agree with @Ascreed (and probably many others, but I think she phrased it particularly well)

I think the damage we will be looking at is lots of sterile adults that have had healthy body parts mutilated or cut off in pursuit of something which isn't possible and largely based on gender stereotypes.
What does "being a girl" mean to a child, that is more then just gender stereotypes?

I am a teacher and have taught a couple of transgender/gender fluid children. What makes me sad is that they say they "just feel female/neither". That implies that there is a correct way to feel male/female. It strikes me that for the majority of transgender children, they seem to have very rigid constructs of gender. One told me "I like to have long hair, and do it nicely. Sometimes i like to paint my nails." and I thought how sad it was that they felt they couldn't just be a boy that did their hair nicely and painted their nails sometimes. It is very sad and challenging to feel "other", but I can't see it helps to sell someone a lie. I don't think they will every feel "truly female" either.

I've never liked traditionally female things. My sex is something that I can't change as it is genetic and in every cell of my body! As far as I'm concerned, the battle should be to counteract any societal negative effects of that, not to deny it's existence.

Georgia was allowed to join a boys team because she was a very good footballer, not because she thought she was a boy.

Yes, the whole trans thing is a separate issue but it's what this thread is about so not sure why you're bringing her into it.

This kid is 11. He doesn't want to go and compete against boys when he turns 12. He wants to compete against girls.

I trained with young men for a couple of weeks when I was 18 for a very specific reason.

The key word is train. In a training situation and with their/the coaches blessing I was able to do what I needed safely.

Could I play rugby safely in a match situation against men? Absolutely not.

I do feel for the child, its not so much a difference now providing they have not developed enough for there to be a difference, when they get old though there will be an issue and I think it will just set them up for more disappointment as they get older, as they will not be able to compete in sports in the female catagory because male and female bodies are very different, even if when they get older they do decide to have surgery, their bodies will still be built as female or male, its to do with differences in the Musculoskeletal, which can't be changed.

Also why does my autocorrect automatically capitalise Male ?! Noticed it in other people’s posts too so not just my phone . Grammatically incorrect and abit sinister...

Musculoskeletal System sorry

You cannot choose your biological sex.

I do fully respect that you can choose your gender. You can choose your own name, your clothes, your lifestyle and I would support anyone with sympathy and kindness if they were going through something as difficult as transitioning.

However, you should compete in sport according to the biological sex you were born, or not compete at all. That is right and that is fair.

YABU!

Sport should be split on sex nothing else. Those who suggest extra categories who's going to fund them?

You'll end up destroying amature sports and female rights.

Our local pool back in the day had a Ladies only night, no children, no males.
The men folks complained they wanted a mens night.
What did the pool come up with?
An Adults only night, they couldn't justify two single sex nights and banning children so Ladies night became Adult night.

Fast forward a few years and adults night could no longer be justified.

Anyone remember the GDR. Drugs scandal, where they gave drugs to the woman and they won almost everything, till drugs testing found them out. That.

In Rosa Parkes' day EVERYBODY thought she WBU......

No they bloody well didn't.

And the comparison is insulting and irrelevant.

I love this thread ❤

And ignorant.

If you want to blame people for this kid being miserable how about blaming the parents etc who expect everyone to go along with it rather than living in reality and allowing that kid to compete wearing whatever they like in the boys competition

No one will ever be truly happy when it relies on other people making them so. Sooner or later the personal cost for people is too high and they cant do it anymore.

Why is it our responsibility to be nice shove over and allow our dds to be pushed out of everything. Why isnt it their responsibility to face reality and put the fight into changing dress codes or expectations instead.

Many people feel being compelled to lie very distressing its abusive to expect people to do that.

I haven't RTFT yet but my initial reaction is this.

OP, why are you not questioning the transing of a very young minor? Why are you transing that minor with your certainty that they should be encouraged to believe that they are female?

The transing of children very often leads to the mutilation of their bodies, renders them dependant on drugs and destroys their fertility.

I think you should have a good hard think about why you are supporting the transing of children rather than hand wringing over whether boys should be able to compete against girls in sex segregated sports.

YABVU

In all honesty, I don't really get the whole transgender issues. Firstly, you can't change who you are. So you should be accepted as who you are. I don't think there is any argument here.
But I agree, in sports it's slightly different. People should be categorised by ability defined by their bodies - like they do in boxing. If you are female / male that will define your muscles, none density, endurance ... Than you should compete with people that have similar attributes to make it fair and equal.

I think that for one child to have their life made miserable because they can't be who they want to be, is too high of a price to pay for one other child to win a race.

But it's okay for the girl who has built her life around sport to be made miserable because she'll never win, because there's a transgender child in her club/county/region who has a male physiology? What if 'who they want to be' is best in their sport? What if that is a fundamental part of their identity? And what about the girl a couple of places down the rankings who loses her chance to compete at high level at all?

There are all sorts of reasons why the vast majority of us will never be olympians. It's not an absolute right to win at sport - it's something you have to be good at, and work hard at, and sacrifice for. And you still might not get there. You could be injured, miss out because of finances, or just be in a particularly talented age group. Everyone can't have everything they want - in sport or in any other aspect of life. Choices have to be made.

This child has choices ahead. Difficult choices - and I'm sure everyone posting has immense sympathy - but what they don't get to choose is the right to win, just because they want it. They can compete - they just have to do it in the correct sex category, even if this isn't exactly what they want. The child consistently coming last in their correct category probably doesn't want that either - but they don't get to say 'actually, I want to go and compete in something I can win more easily.'

My 18 year old son was able to see how stupid allowing biological males to compete in female sports. I suggested that he and the rest of the school's rugby 1st XV identify as female to bolster the performance of the female team.

I do have sympathy for transgender individuals and do think they should be accepted as their chosen gender wherever possible. Single sex sport is not one of those places unless the sport is already one where females compete against males.

Sometimes being kind means saying No.

The rhetoric posted on this thread by the OP is extremely distasteful.

Firstly to tackle the 'anti-trans' label: this is strident TRA narrative that's appropriated against anyone who takes even the slightest issue - or even wants a debate - surrounding the thorny issue of what happens when trans- rights and women's rights conflict. Mumset is one of the very few arenas online where that is possible. I've seen the shitstorms that ensue on Twitter when such a thing is attempted, and witnessed athletes like Martina Navratilova (incidentally a champion of LGB rights) and Kelly Holmes bearing the brunt of it. In both cases, the desired effect was achieved. They were silenced.

That is the material point here: I doubt many people have any serious objections to the fact that some people wish to live as a different gender. Trans people have always been with us, and they're not going away any time soon. The issue, therefore, is how to accommodate their rights and those of women without women invariably having to step aside and accommodate those.

What would you say to a female rape victim who felt threatened by sharing changing space with a be-penised person? Why should trans-rights trump hers? Or is this to be the same response as that of #MeToo - i.e. that victims - especially historic ones - should put up, shut up, and remain silent so 'society' can feel more comfortable?

As to the Rosa Parkes analogy, comparing the trans- situation to the enslavement of a whole oppressed race who are STILL treated as second-class citizens in the American south is beyond offensive.

I don't know much about skating but I do know in swimming the girls seem to do faster times in the younger categories but by 11/12/13 the boys are doing faster times due to the shape of the skeleton, muscle and fat distribution and amount of oxygen so I think allowing this child to compete as a girl might be fine for her first competition but essentially her body is going to have a different build/muscle/oxygen levels within a year or so. I'd be very unimpressed with a boy competing as a girl in swimming in those age brackets.

I don't know about skating so male skating / female skating might have different techniques suited to their body types so whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage someone who knows about skating will have to say.

OP started this thread for a bunfight.

If one child comes second in a race, it's not the end of the world.

But it might be. That first place might mean being selected for another level of training, a scholarship or a national squad. Places for girls, who struggle enough in keeping going at sport at exactly that age, will go to male children. So we don't hurt their feelings. Once you have a girl in sport, and see the struggles, it's a clear cut and dried issue.