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?

Morning everyone!
As requested, we've discussed this deletion in the office and have decided to reinstate this thread. We're going to go through it now but as it's a long one, can we enlist your help please and ask you to report in any posts you think we need to look at?
We don't think you'll be hearing from the OP again, fwiw, but at least the thread has raised some interesting points.
Thanks all, much obliged to you all for giving us your thoughts.

I'm really glad about the reinstatement. There are so many useful links and good arguments that would have been lost. Thank you @MNHQ. Much appreciated.

No problem, Prawn, we're always happy to take a look, even at our own work.

Thank you MNHQ

Yes thank you.

Thank you @MNHQ - much appreciated.

Yes, thank you.

As mentioned earlier, if this sort of thing keeps getting deleted, women keep having to go over the ground again and again and again. Let it stand, dated, to show we will still not be silenced and we are pro women, not anti anything else.

A reinstatement. Is this a first?

Thank you for reinstating the thread.

"All for the name of women's sports. I bet 60% of you wouldn't run for a bus, let alone participate or compete in sports."

I don't compete in sports - but I do enjoy watching them, and, more importantly, I believe in fairness - and it is patently unfair for biological males to compete against biological females in many, many sports.

I read somewhere that, if she were playing against the men, Serena Williams would not be in the top 500 players in the world - surely that demonstrates how allowing self-IDed trans women into women's sports would destroy them. Any biologically male athlete who wasn't doing well enough against other biological men could self-ID into women's sports, and immediately become world class. In my book, that is cheating, pure and simple.

I enjoy watching sports - both men's and women's - and I don't want to see women's sports destroyed by allowing trans women in.

Let them have their own category and compete against each other.

And @Cassort - can you see the irony of you complaining about the personal insults you say have been used on here, and then calling everyone who disagreed with you 'hysterical'??

Do you know that that is a deeply misogynist insult? Do you care?

Thank you MNHQ, very pleased to see this thread reinstated. There have been so many really thoughtful and articulate posts here (in the face of some extreme provocation too) and I think it’s important to let this kind of thread stand. It really highlights that, despite constant claims elsewhere the contrary, the discourse on mumsnet around trans issues isn’t just a bunch of hate speech from a bunch of vitriolic t**fs. No, it’s a bunch of ordinary women concerned with centering women and girls and their rights in arenas where they need to be centered.

That is good news

It is a shame that these threads end up with so much name calling on both sides

I wonder how much support the Lionesses would have had if half the team were transwomen? Or they had to play against transwomen (iran for example)?

Of course he shouldn’t, as harsh as it sounds, why should all the girls suffer for 1 boy?? Y are his needs more important than ALL the girls?

Thanks for reinstating this thread.

It’s really important that those who are unfamiliar with the issues read the intelligent arguments put forward by the many posters on this thread and make their own minds up.

Even if the OP has made a highly offensive, ignorant and racist comparison to Rosa Parks.

@Cassort
I can't imagine rugby is in danger of a burly rugby player decided he's a woman and taking you down.......... Stop with the ridiculous.

Meet Hannah Mouncey, Australian rules rugby player who has broken the leg of a female player.

web.archive.org/web/20171014085939/www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/aflw/transgender-footballer-hannah-mouncey-waits-on-aflw-draft-call/news-story/123a463e71aa3c4b9bbd634724ce8f75

Thank you- I'll enjoy reading tonight!

Thank you very much, @MNHQ - there are a lot of interesting and well-reasoned points on this thread, and it would be a shame to lose them due to the calculated goadiness of the OP.

I can't work out if the OP is a TRA, or just a regular rampant misogynist.

One thing that is obvious is that they have zero idea of the sheer scale of the problem. The dozens and dozens of men identifying as women who are competing against women.

Including MMA fighting. (Trigger warning, the video is distressing.)

m.youtube.com/watch?v=8dGHFOJBl6k

Using emotional blackmail because this is a child is a popular tactic. Obviously, anyone of normal intelligence will understand that if you make a rule, you can't just confine it to one small boy. And anyway, why should you? It's not logical.

The thing with this debate is that there are no logical arguments. None.

It always comes down to why can't you be nicer, you bloody uppity women. Often accompanied by the full on rage, insults, and hopeless sexism of the OP.

No.

And in the MN time honoured tradition, that is a complete sentence.

The look on the girl on the left's face says it all really.

Thank goodness this has been reinstated. Watched World Cup last night with dh. Most of the US players have had sports scholarships to US colleges. I have family who have been through college in US. The thought of a female missing out on a sports scholarship because a trans woman out performed her by virtue of their post male puberty advantages - pretty shocking.

Thank you @MNHQ