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 very rarely comment on such threads but I just want to say I am so grateful for all these voices standing up for women and children; women to protect women-only spaces and sports, and children so they are not forced down a path they may eventually not want to tread.

So just to add my own voice - OP, yes YABVVVVVU.

@ICanWearMyBoobsUpOrDown - I hope you and your DC get the help you both need. It sounds incredibly hard.

To the OP with the 5 year-old grandchild, please, please let them be a child - don't label them. My nephew identified as a baby baboon aged 5. You know what? He isn't one. My own DS wore dresses all the time as a 4 year-old- he liked the way the "swished". He is still a boy.

People are dying in the world and the activism middle class (lets be honest) Mumsnetters choose is to actively work to dehumanise and take away the rights of other people who haven't done almost anything bad yes cherry pick like you all do but that's the truth. Brave stuff you're doing guys I hope you're children will be proud of you for it when you're gone.

I'm working class and proud of it. Go away.

Such bollocks from one so ignorant...

I'm working class. I'm a feminist. And I have no truck with the gender myth.

I'd say it's working class people who understand reality and aren't taken in by identity politics nonsense one bit

I'm working-class too. In my experience, working-class people are more likely to dress their small children in stereotypically gendered ways (headbands for bald girl babies and so on) but react with utter disbelief if you say that there are people who think liking the 'girl' things is what makes you a girl. Working-class people generally have no time for the postmodern nonsense that is queer theory.

We're also not afraid of stating obvious truths lest we be accused of not being progressive enough. Hope lies in the proles and all...

Thinking this through might it be possible to construct a handicap system that allows different sexes to compete together in individual sports.
A pp talked about the difference in points scoring between male and female ice skating. If it was possible to work out the average difference in score over say the last three years as a percentage and then subtract that from any individual score of the opposite sex to those they were competing against, would that even it up sufficiently?
So if you were a male runner you would have your time plus the average difference between male/female in that event added.
In weightlifting, you could average the difference in weight lifted.
That way you could compete as the gender you identified as without having an unfair sex advantage.
The disclaimer to this idea is that I know very little about sport but do know that racing operates a handicap system.

To do that the transwoman athlete would have to accept she was male bodied. Which she wouldn't. It would be seen as transphobic to remind transwomen that they were born male.

dreichuplands - if such a system were possible to work out fairly (and it sounds very complex, but hypothetically let's say it can be done) wouldn't the end goal be to have one, mixed-sex category for everyone, with the handicap system making it fair?

I don't see any reason to divide sport by gender identity. It makes as much sense as dividing by favourite colour.

At 11 I wouldn't care at 15 I would she's prepubescent and is basically the same as her other female counterparks

It makes as much sense as dividing by favourite colour.

Are you being green-phobic there Spinster? Everyone knows us green-favourers are better at things than the others. Just trying to deny our existence, you bigot!

dreich

How on earth would it even work.

People train hard and improve or suffer illness and do slightly worse you would constantly have to re evaluate and this three yr average would mean someone was possibly ok the wrong bracket for three yrs

We have a perfectly simple way of dividing sports. Sex.people need to deal with reality. End of. All that effort to maintain someone you dont even knows feelings cos no one dares tell them the truth? Really?

As I said I know very little about sport 😂.
I just have read that you can say that certain times give you one ranking in men's competitions and another in women's. Making sure that the competing person had a ranking which measured their sex performance rather than gender seems fairer than the opposite.

I think it’s such a difficult topic. On one hand you have an 11 year old transgirl who’s obviously facing a really tough time and wants to be involved and it seems cruel to exclude her but on the other hand you have lots of other 11 year old girls who have worked really hard for it too and if there are biological differences that effect ice skating (I admit I don’t know much about the sport but I presume natal sex still gives males an advantage) then it’s not fair to exclude all of the other girls from their shot.

FWIW I disagree with a lot of the typical MN thinking on trans issues but I do agree that in sport you just cannot get around it and until we start embracing trans people’s categories, it’s sadly either transwoman can’t compete as woman or we lose woman’s sport entirely and I can’t advocate for losing woman’s sport.

I get where you’re coming from though OP and I know it’s from a good place.

Its not in the slightest bit difficult.

I think it’s such a difficult topic. On one hand you have an 11 year old transgirl who’s obviously facing a really tough time and wants to be involved and it seems cruel to exclude

They arent excluded though. There is nothing to stop them skating in the boys category. And no reason they cant put the same time and energy into changing the dress codes.

Theres another option. That's one more option that the girl knocked out the running has.

Why does everyone think its us being nasty when we arent the ones lying to the child on a daily basis and then hoping that everyone plays along.

Why are the feelings and rights of trans women athletes more important than those of the women they choose to compete and win against?

Women don't get to "re-classify" themselves at sports and win.

They don't go from mediocre in their sport to "gold" unless they they started "identifying" with para athletes...think about the outrage that would cause....able bodied female sprinter wins men's 100m after "identifying" as an amputee....

This is not rocket science.

You believe in fair play or inequality and labelling the the latter as "inclusive" doesn't make it equitable, it just makes you smug in your woke misogyny.

Did you actually read what I wrote

Can't speak for Fib but I did and its not difficult is a pretty reasonable response tbh.

crossposted that was to sarah

I did. However the point I was trying to make is we need to stop feeling so bad for everyone all the time akd trying to.solve the problem.

Not one of them ( well in this case it's the parents or the managers etc) gives a shiny shite what happens to the girls who get wiped out as a result. These kids dont even enter their minds. It's all about validation and/or trying to bully people into finishing what they started.

Being nice got us into this mess.

It's time to say no once and for all. After all they dont go home worrying about our feelings they dont care. Never will.

So I honestly think we should stop trying to justify why we feel this way. Stop having to phrase everything in the nicest possible way so not to offend.

It's just No.

I agree with Sarah.

Trans athletes have choices yet it's telling how many (again) choose to compete against women.

Why?

Well they want the validation of being "female" and frankly don't give a damn about the physical male privilege they bring to the table as a result.

Making sure that the competing person had a ranking which measured their sex performance rather than gender seems fairer than the opposite

Which is exactly the situation we have now: i.e. in tennis Ash Barty is ranked #1 in the sex-based category of female tennis players and Novak Djokovic is ranked #1 in the sex-based category of male tennis players.

Supposing Djokovic and a handful of other (even relatively low-ranked) male players felt that they were ‘quintessentially female’ and now wished to compete in the women’s draw - no biological woman would ever win another tennis tournament again. Even if you gave them a ‘head start’ of several sets, they’d not stand a chance. So how would ‘gender handicapping’ work in practice?