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?

I feel sorry for this child. Not because he was refused admittance to a female race but because he has been sold a pig in a poke. Why the hell are the adults around him telling him he can be a girl rather than giving him the facts that as he is xx chromosomes he is male and it is perfectly acceptable for a boy to like so called girly things and still be a boy.

@Cassort
I’ve just watched the link again and it seems the fathers have an agenda as it’s perfectly legal for the child to compete if they changed the name on birth certificate to a female name

Can we look at a sport that does understand the human body.
Boxing.
Look at how many different weights there are to protect people due to body size, strength

Look up Fallon Fox

Female name? What’s that then? Mary, Evelyn, Jamie, Sydney, Gareth?

Trans my arse. Why are there so many who claim this now?

I wonder if a young boy would rather be a straight female than a gay man.

And a young girl would rather be a straight male than a lesbian.

Message to girls of today:

Lose the competition. Lose the race. Lose the scholarship.

Because men - in nail polish or not - believe all the prizes are theirs.

No prizes for women. No rights for women. No sense for anyone.

TheInvestigator

I dod not know that about Claudette Colvin. Thanks.

AIBU to think that in 20 years time we will look back in shame at how we have treated transgendered individuals?

In 20 years’ time people still won’t be able to change sex.

He can be a ‘female’ all he likes (if that means wearing a dress and pretending to be Marilyn Monroe/Carmen Miranda) but doesn’t make him a woman.

But so many of the high profiles are ‘lesbian’. Which is odd considering how much hatred is thrown at actual lesbians.

I think the idea of children transitioning is deeply troubling. Who knows what damage that will do long term. It's impossible to change sex. Over 18, do what you like.

@TheInvestigator
I think the main issue on this thread is the offensive comparison the OP made about the struggle of Black Americans for equality following slavery and an 11 year old child with misguided parents.

@Supersimpkin
Message to girls of today:

Lose the competition. Lose the race. Lose the scholarship.

Because men - in nail polish or not - believe all the prizes are theirs.

No prizes for women. No rights for women. No sense for anyone.

^^ this

Women pushed so hard on the 70s. When did young women give up and when the white flag?

@LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD
I was trying to point out that the parents could change the child’s name if their main aim was to carry on competing.
I certainly don’t think boys should be allowed to invade female sport.

I would agree with everyone else here. One thing I can never get my head round though is ‘feeling’ female. I’m know I’m a woman because I’ve got all the appropriate bits inside and out. I know male and female brains are also physiologically different. I’ve been socialised as a woman. BUT I still don’t know what it ‘feels’ like - inside I just feel like me. I accept I might be missing something here, but could someone please explain to me what feeling like a woman actually is?

Yes ghanagirl the difference is that Black people have fought for the right to be treated as equal HUMAN BEINGS. Women fight for the right to be treated as equal HUMAN BEINGS. Gay people fight for the right to be treated as equal HUMAN BEINGS.

Transactivists fight for the right to make everyone pretend that human beings can change sex and to abolish women's rights

Women's sport is for women for a reason. Really don't understand how people can not understand this. It just stares you in the face at every sporting occasion in nearly every sport.

unfortunately sometimes bodily characteristics we can't help do stop you doing things

if you are colour blind you can't be an airline pilot or train driver

if you are under 5' 2" tall you can't be cabin crew on many airlines as it is a safety requirement to be able to reach certain equipment

I would put Castor Semanya genetic problems in this category she can't help it it is not like taking drugs to cheat but she still can't do this job "running medium distances as a woman" I do feel a lot sorrier for Castor than I do transwomen as that is a choice

we know that Serena Williams on her very best day in her career would have no chance against the top men, ok she could probably beat Joe Bloggs at Bridgnorth tennis club but if men identifying as female could play as females there would be no biological females in the draw at wimbledon within a few years it would be a men and a men in dresses competition

Sports is one area that should focus on sex not gender. Men are physically different to women. I am quite a liberal viewed person but this is just male bodied people taking womens spaces. What did Emmeline Pankhurst and the other women fight for? This isn't a Rosa Parks moment, they have a seat on the bus but they are trying to take someone elses.

My solution would be:
Let the transwomen compete at the same time/in the same heats as the women for non contact sports but for the purpose of qualifiers/ results, put them in a different league, F* or whatever. So they can't take biological women's places on the podium. This doesn't work for contact sports and you'd have to split the league out there like weights in boxing.

Anyone who says it doesn't matter clearly doesn't do competitive sport and understand how female athletes might feel when faced by this.

Intersex athletes are a little different and it has to be a case by case basis as clearly we mustn't punish biological exceptionalism. I think both Dutee Chand and Caster Semenya have been treated badly by the relevant authorities in this regard and levels of testosterone is a poor measure to define what is a woman for the purpose of competition, it is about an overall package.

The way things work with skating rankings would mean that, if trans women were allowed to compete against biological females, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t see a single biological female in the “ladies” finals at international competitions such as the world championships and Olympics.

Try and wrap your head around that for a second OP.

In most sports, like athletics, skating, tennis etc...in 25 years if you had it your way not a single female would ever have the chance of winning in their chosen sport.

OP - you are being very unreasonable placing importance on the child's looks. Whether the child is 5 foot, slim with lipstick or 5 foot 6, muscular and wearing trousers they are the sex that they are born in. If competition criteria included "looking female" then you'd end up driving children to go through at best procedures like waxing and at worst cosmetic surgery to look more feminine.

I don't know if these are issues but in couples competitions, 2 people in dresses or 2 people in trousers should be allowed. Boys and girls should be able to choose dresses or trousers too without jeopardizing points in the competition,

OP I don't understand why you think that girls should withdraw from the competition to make space for trans girls? Presumably children in South America aren't given puberty blockers so competing against their biological sex shouldn't be a problem?

I don't understand why in this debate the answer is rarely to have a third space. I understand that once trans women take hormones that they can't compete with men who don't take hormones. However they can't compete with women for the opposite reason too. World Records for women should have been achieved by women. Do you think that records broken when communist countries were doping women should stand?

I think that we will look back and wonder why we treated trans people with drugs and surgery and not by reassuring boys that a preference for glittery dresses and long hair don't mean that you're not a boy. Feminists expanded the definition of woman so that everybody from a perfectly groomed duchess in jewels to a weightlifting muscle woman are all women. Females could be a ballet dancer through to a fire fighter running into burning buildings and they were female. Males haven't had a similar movement where the definition of masculinity isn't challenged and broadened plus there's an absolute refusal by many to acknowledge the prevalence of autogynephilia in adult Transwomen. Broadening the definition of boy would help those like Maria who define themselves as girl because boy doesn't fit them.

In Rosa Parkes' day EVERYBODY thought she WBU

I missed this earlier - and I'm now gasping at this level of casual racism by @Cassort Utter white-blindness

I doubt that African-American US citizens thought Ms Parkes was unreasonable. But, oh well, they're not white so they don't count in the OP's world. Just like girls and women don't seem to count ...

it is perfectly acceptable for a boy to like so called girly things and still be a boy.

Except is isn't. It should be but, as yet, it still isn't. Not without ridicule and bullying. I actually think it is far more acceptable to be transgender. I genuinely believe that if it were truly acceptable to dress and behave however you want, regardless of sex, the number of transgender individuals would drop considerably. I do believe that there are people who really are "in the wrong body" (for want of a better phrase) but I suspect most would be happy just living a feminine or masculine life but remaining their biological sex.

From the OPs link
'The South American Skating Confederation allows skaters to compete as women if they have a female name on their official ID, which Maria doesn't.'

This is what should be the story here. WTF is a 'female name'? What earthly difference does it make to your physical abilities?