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?

No. In 20 years time we'll look back and wonder why the fuck we were allowing children to make these decisions for themselves.

I agree the child should be able to compete tho. They're prepubescent so a level playing field at that age.

www.courant.com/sports/high-schools/hc-sp-transgender-high-school-track-lawsuit-20190618-20190618-4mjx7gllrjarlpidhnjeecfosq-story.html

The comment by the parent of the winner fails to take into account that the more male bodied students participate and race and win, the more the top times will be made by male bodied athletes and the girls will be squeezed out.

The comments by him on inclusion and exclusion are similar to the Rosa Parks comment on this thread and are equally execrable. It is pure misogyny to conveniently forget the exclusion of women from all meaningful participation in civic and economic life and from exercising political and civil rights for the majority of the 300 years of US history.

I sincerely hope that the Title IX basis of this case will be upheld. Title IX is the only piece of legislation that specifically referred to rights of women and girls in the US, with the Equal Rights Amendment a failed proposition. It was gutted by the Obama administration, which substituted the word gender for the word sex in directives to schools and universities on matters associated with Title IX. I loved President Obama but he and his administration kicked women very forcefully in the teeth with that.

The mother who said, “The genders are segregated for a reason. They might as well just say women don’t exist as a category," has hit the nail on the head.

Why do you think we have a different Olympics for people with disabilities ( with categories) or why the wheelchair marathon racers do not race with the other racers, because it's not a level playing ground. Women and men have a different physiological make up, so a male should not compete against a female, as its not fair

I don’t agree with the OP yet I understand where her motivation is coming from. A bit of kindness and empathy in these threads would help a great deal. Although I think the OP is misguided she has not gone out to offend

For this boy to gatecrash girl's sport, there will be a girl who will basically be told that she can't compete any more. There will be people like OP who will promote him over more talented girls because being nice to him is all that matters and who gives a shit about the girls missing out?

I really didn't approve of the whole 'feeling like a girl' crap. Being a girl is down to biology. It is not a feeling. For a male to say they're a girl/woman because of the way they feel is appalling misogyny. How dare they not only reduce girls to a feeling, rendering them not even people, but also think they are the ones entitled to quantify what that feeling is.

The argument about children coming second is moot. We’re not arguing against mixed sex sports - single six sports exist for a reason and to permit people of the opposite biological sex to participate is to say, “This is a woman” not, “oh we all join in now.”

No. Not at all.

As for all this gender nonsense, kids should be what they were born as and if they have a problem with that when they get to 21, fair enough, but children do not have the emotional or mental ability to be making these decisions and encouraging them is, IMO, abuse.

Of course she should be allowed to compete!

We're all different shapes and sizes so not a level playing field genetically anyway.
E.g i'm only 5ft and my SIL is 6ft and muscular, she'd beat me by a country mile in any race, but that's ok because she's genetically female?!

The OP hasn't even read the article she's posting about, has she? She's mixed up ice skating and roller skating...

So your born male compete as a male on the world stage your always in top 30....you never win anything..
Bright idea ... I am now a woman...
Next year 3 gender swap in every sport and no woman wins a single medal ever again ..

It is a fact that male-female transgender people have a unfair advantage in sport. It would be like all the blade runners saying they wanted to take part in regular running races and if you said no you were being ableist! The issue is, nowadays, if you dare admit that transgender people have an advantage in sport showing proof and reason you are called transphobic.

but that's ok because she's genetically female?!

Yes, see, you're getting it now.

Yes, that is perfectly fine because she is genetically female.

A male would beat you by five or six country miles.

Everyone should watch this Swedish documentary following detransitioned young people (translated into English) and see what they are dealing with. Their voice is completely left out from the ‘affirmation’ narrative around helping ‘trans children’, again, you have to wonder why we can’t hear about their permanently devastating, deeply unhappy detransitioned young adult experience when nobody wants to know their struggle, just as much as we hear about the happy much younger kids kids who have socially transitioned.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3571009-Trans-Train

When one of my dds was five she insisted on being called a male version of her name and wore football kit everywhere. I remember a parent watching her and saying "she's basically a boy isn't she?" I said 'she's as much a girl as any child born female" - not sure where that came from i didnt know anything about trans kids then, thank fuck. Anyway fwiw she's now 14, bought her first dress a week ago, finds boys mainly irrtating and would be horrified at the idea of being one. She's very happy in her own skin. I'm so glad she had such a carefree childhood where she was left to express herself however she wanted.

What a load of bollocks this is

Looks females
Quintessentially female
Female in every way other than sport

This kid is a boy. He can compete in the boys category with the other boys. He is not being excluded from the girls category for being trans. He is being included in the boys category because he is a boy. It’s disgusting that girls are expected to step aside because grown adults say a boy matters more and if they don’t get to compete it doesn’t matter and the boy might self harm.

As for Rosa Parks.... A member of an oppressed class standing up against racial segregation is not quite the same as telling little boys they can cheat if they want because girls losing out really doesn’t matter.

Cassort, I'm really glad you started this thread. You are apparently immune to the many well-reasoned arguments expressed by many different intelligent, articulate and critically-thinking women here (I think you are a TRA who has come on here to cause trouble).

But I think this thread will cause many lurkers who have not yet made up their mind on this issue to think "Wow, I now see how allowing biological males to compete in the biological female category in sports, will lead to the exclusion of women from their own sport. That's not fair".

So thank you for that.

Do you think also that Hannah Mouncey should be able to compete as a woman, or is it just about cute little kids?

Lots of facts and stats about what we know from the evidence about transing children here:

blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2019/02/25/gender-affirming-hormone-in-children-and-adolescents-evidence-review/

anothernotherone Of course she’s read it! She’s been thinking about it for five hours.

Like @Ascreed, I think that we will reflect in horror that we
Gave drugs to children that may cause unknown damage
Treated children who were exploring identity through dress up as though they had a psychiatric condition
Allowed them to be castrated and mutilated.
I desperately wanted to be a boy between the ages of 4/7. Luckily I was born in the 70s so was allowed to be a tomboy, my mum dealt with it well and I survived to adulthood with my female genitals intact. I'm pretty fond of them.
I know I can't speak for everyone but it fills me with horror what could have happened.
If I'd been a child now.

OP, think of it this way. Imagine your daughter was an elite athlete participating in the Olympics in a sport such as running/weight lifting where men have a big advantage physically over women. If trans women were allowed in the female category, your daughter would never have a chance of achieving gold, no matter how hard she worked. Would you think that was fair? There are some sports that trans women would have a massive advantage over biological women, and that's just not a level playing field, which sport should be. I don't have any hate as you've been accusing people of, but in this instance I believe there should be a third category.

The same would apply to trans men as they would also be at a disadvantage against biological men, so a third category would be beneficial.

Someone should be telling this little boy that of course boys skate, and that he can have long hair and make up if he wants. But that he's male, and there are lots of different ways to be male.

OP, your comparison to race (buses) is utterly misplaced. Imagine you’re a little girl who has worked her ass off to be good in sports, and then one day a biological boy decides he’s a girl and he’s allowed to compete against her. His biology puts him at an advantage. The little girl has now learned that she will never, no matter how hard she tries, win. Because it’s no longer a level playing field. What is her lesson here? That she isn’t worth as much as a Male.

So don’t freaking well talk about unfair!