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 have a beautiful 5 year old Granddaughter, born male, but who is insistent that she is female

Aged 5, one of my DC was insistent that she was a unicorn.

OP is clearly very naive and not very bright if she thinks this compares to racism.

If we allow people to compete based on identified gender we may as well cancel all sport forever.

I think OP has simply had her head turned by a sad face photo of a cute child whilst having no idea what the real issues are.

"I have a beautiful 5 year old Granddaughter, born male, but who is insistent that she is female."
Who hasn't been through puberty and who can, anyway, call themselves what they want and like what they want. If you have already defined that child at 5 years old you are not doing them any favours.

I think OP has simply had her head turned by a sad face photo of a cute child whilst having no idea what the real issues are.

Indeed, but I’d bet that rather than offer a well-supported argument as to why sex-based biological differences should be disregarded in preference to internal beliefs, the OP will fall back on the usual ‘you’re all transphobic bigots’ and flounce.

It’s a handy ‘get out if jail free’ card for those who cannot answer the question of why female athletes should be disadvantaged, and should accept that fact gleefully in order to be ‘nice’.

A five year old? You trust a five year old's opinion on something that's life changing that they have no idea about?

YABU.

It isn’t transphobic to be concerned about the creeping erosion of women’s sport.

My basic thoughts are that if you happen to be transgender, you're facing into a fucking lifetime of hell and discrimination and hate. So if you happen to be good at a sport, maybe just allow these people to be? There's not going to be a transgender female in every women's race. On the odd occasion where there is, is it really worth all this hatred?

I thought this too - and in terms of self definition on forms and use of toilets, i agree it makes total sense. Sports bothers me though, we already have so many issues with girls participating in sports at low rates, and as the example of Caster Semenya and recent MMA fighters have shown, having just one or a few transgender competitors can massively skew outcomes. This girl is now 11, but will very shortly be going through a male puberty - or be heavily medicated as a child in order to avoid it, which also sounds dangerous to me.

I'd support having Y chromosome and Y-chromosome-free categories, I suppose, which would still leave a few people on the outer, but perhaps allow people to live socially as they wish, but also to avoid letting the medals go almost exclusively to those born male.

This child should not compete against female because despite his 'gender identity', he will continue to have all the physiological and anatomical advantages that makes have over females.

Flo-Jo set the 100m and 200m world records in 1988. At the last Olympics ALL the MALE competitors beat her times

Sport is sex segregated because otherwise females would have no chance. They would effectively be removed from sports. If we allow that to happen, THAT is something that we will look back on in 20 years time with horror

You watched a short video and she looked female?

W T A F

I'm hoping that the recent changes in a lot of peoples attitude towards transgender people, particularly amongst our young people, will mean that her future will be happier than it would have been had she been born when I was.

I fear not. The outlook for so-called trans kids is pretty bleak. If your grandchild's parents don't obtain puberty blockers - untested heavy duty meds with very nasty side effects including a significant loss of IQ - for the child, the next step will be male puberty. However if they go from puberty blockers to cross sex hormones they will be sterile and stuck with a small child's penis like poor Jazz Jennings who, now a young adult, has never experienced orgasm and was surprised when boys at school showed no interest in Jazz.

A transgender five year old is like a vegan cat. At that age children believe that they can literally - and magically - change sex. That's what adults are leading them to believe.

But it's totally untrue. Medication and surgery will make a healthy child a lifelong medical patient. And, to be blunt, the extent to which medication and surgery can simulate being of the opposite sex is very limited, as are the dating pools of most transgender people.

OP is clearly very naive and not very bright if she thinks this compares to racism.

Or the OP is actually racist and therefore only too happy to diminish the struggles of an oppressed group.

The parents of the transgender child must know their child will have a huge advantages in a few years over the other competitors.
New avenues are opening up for exploitative type parents to push their transgender children in to sport and win big money prizes and acclaim.

Purely because she would have physical competing advantages it wouldn't be fair, they have a physical advantage over other females - unfortunate but I don't think avoiding hurting her feelings is quite enough to allow an unfair advantage. Having a 3rd category may be the answer but that would be way in the future when it is more common.

Mentioning biological fact can't be hate.

You might want to recall the first climate change protesters, who in return for pointing out biological facts signalling global emergency, were rudely attacked as capitalism haterz.

Some still are, but still the climate change scientists persist in sharing their inconvenient biological facts. OP, accusing people of hate who only tell the truth will stop working soon, and then where will you be?

Left only with racism and misogyny to fight your battle with. Please don't use dirty weapons to attack little girls - you have other arguments. Try decency, tolerance, and respect - for everyone.

Sad, just sad for decent transgender people everywhere. Who deserve all our protection from a lot worse trials than a kids' skate-off.

People are always saying that my 10 yr old DD 'looks like a boy' (short hair and trousers). Doesn't mean she is one

It makes more sense when you think about males competing against females, when they get slightly older than the child in OP...

I had a medical check up last week and the gp said my blood pressure and physiology was that of a healthy 40 year old. I'm 52. Still can't run in the 40 44 category at parkrun despite feeling 42 and my body partially mimicking a 42 year old though.

Why? Because sex and age categories matter in sport.

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

If one child is told she can't compete, that possibly is the end of the world*

Spoken by someone who does not partake in or have a child who partakes in a competitive sport.

For a child who ALWAYS finishes second behind the child with an advantage over every other competitor, for a child who NEVER WINS at their chosen sport then it may aswell be the end of the world and they may aswell never compete.

It's like telling a pro athlete "oh well, but it's the taking part that counts".

You have no clue OP.

It is very dangerous for women in contact sport...

Cassort

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

If that race is linked to college scholarships, it could well be.

Here, why don't you watch Tamikka Brents, a woman have her skull smashed open by Fallon Fox, a man who thinks he is a woman;

Except in reality, it’s not someone refusing to budge on the bus, is it? It’s someone walking up to a woman on the bus and saying, “Move. I want your seat,” in an otherwise empty bus.

There’s no such thing as a ‘trans child’. That’s a completely adult idea which this kid has been labelled with and I dont think it’s a kindness to tell anyone they can ‘change sex’ because that is a lie and an impossibility. Full support for any child or adult wearing whatever they like or doing whatever hobby they want, good for them. But gender stereotypes (‘femininity’, how you dress or wear your hair etc) do NOT = actual biological sex.

I also don’t think it’s giving this kid the appropriate right to have an open future to give them the idea that they can be female in terms of entering them into female categories for public competing either. (And I’m not even going there with what is being done to women’s sports which is completely wrong- trashing their efforts by allowing men into women’s categories)
We know most children will desist from these ideas after puberty. Why not let him be a boy who just likes doing or wearing whatever he is into? rather than socially transitioning a kid by giving him a fictional identity (‘female’) which he is more than likely to grow out of but may then feel stuck with and forced into carrying on because adults have made him into some kind of poster-child for a political belief. He may just grow up to be a gay man in time, (no idea about any one individual case but clearly, in principle transing kids can be linked to the homophobia of adults around them) and/or he may grow up into a man of any sexual orientation who just happens to be into fancy dressing up and ice skating. Neither of the above things will make him a woman. Have you looked into the stories of detransitioned young people OP? I wouldn’t wish their struggles on anyone and they are not supported by the T community groups at all. They feel vilified and ostracised and let down by those around them.
Why might that be?

What magnetic said. They should compete as a boy but looking how they want to look. You have to separate being unkind from being based in reality. Nobody wants a child to have a hard life or be unhappy but pretending something is real is only kind to an extent, when you start denying physical facts youre doing more harm than good to them and others. Change the boundaries of how you can look and act as a male or female, don't pretend you can change your biology.

The child is a boy, and statistically will accept, realise this in the future. He cannot and should not participate as a girl, because hes not a girl.