That women shouldn’t be forced into silence over males competing in female sports

[Ikeasucks]

NEW Zealand has selected a 43 yr old transwoman to represent them in the Olympics in the women’s weightlifting competition. Female athletes feel they are being forced into silence on the issue. How did it come to this?

www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/females-told-be-quiet-transgender-issue-ex-weightlifter-2021-05-07/

@lifeissweet

What makes me so mad is that this will ultimately lead to a situation where women have to campaign and fight and set up services and sports organisations just for women. Again. Fight for women's categories all over again. Start a Women's Olympics with it's own terms of entry.

All of this fighting, when we should be focusing on fixing the things that need our attention. Things like FGM and forced marriage. Battles we haven't already won once before.

It is such a waste of energy and money when thing like this shouldn't be allowed to be taken away from women in the first place.

This.

I cannot believe it. It's actually quite heartbreaking that whilst it's a modern day trend to give a voice and equal rights to everyone, biological women are losing theirs.

I am actually glad my DD's have dabbled with competitive sport, enjoyed it but left it behind, particularly contact sports and I won't be encouraging them into anything that encourages this blatant cheating for their own safety and sanity. This is going to get worse before it gets better. So much for that whole drive to get kids into sport following the Olympics. Very very sad times.

Totally agree with you lifeisweet.

It is disgraceful. Hubbard is a cheat.

@lifeissweet

What makes me so mad is that this will ultimately lead to a situation where women have to campaign and fight and set up services and sports organisations just for women. Again. Fight for women's categories all over again. Start a Women's Olympics with it's own terms of entry.

All of this fighting, when we should be focusing on fixing the things that need our attention. Things like FGM and forced marriage. Battles we haven't already won once before.

It is such a waste of energy and money when thing like this shouldn't be allowed to be taken away from women in the first place.

Excellent post.

Very well summed up

Completely agree. Don’t understand what the governing boards are thinking. Gender has bugger all to do with sport. It should be divided on sex. So men is an open category , and female is for females.

ive tried to view my opnion on twitter im not scared but of course i got shut down called names etc

i honestly dont know what we can do

Also not a current top athlete but Chris Tomlinson has also spoken out
twitter.com/LongJumpChris/status/1390217857506680833?s=19

A rugby player also did when the World Rugby trans inclusion guidelines came out, but I can't remember his name.

I don't think a third category works or is fair to intersex/transgender athletes. You shouldn't have to reveal personal medical information in order to compete.

What do you think about the Paralympics? Are they unfair? Do you think competitors have to offer evidence of eligibility to prevent cheating?

@FOJN

I don't think a third category works or is fair to intersex/transgender athletes. You shouldn't have to reveal personal medical information in order to compete.

What do you think about the Paralympics? Are they unfair? Do you think competitors have to offer evidence of eligibility to prevent cheating?

They have to go through a medical based on the medical documents from their consultant!

Slightly different for amputees or those with short stature, visual impairment and LD.

But the evidence required just to get assessed by a classifier is very in depth.

Not to mention the waiting list just to be assessed and get the opportunity to compete equally against other disabled athletes.

Then it seems you don't always get equal opportunities. As mentioned above it seems in swimming this year they aren't running competitions for disabled athletes.

They have changed the way they run thjngs to give baked bodied athletes a chance at national ranking though

Very wrong and potentially dangerous. What if a transgender woman enters boxing and starts beating that crap out of women and causes them serious damage?

I’m surprised there’s not more outrage with the competitors themselves. Is it because they fear they’ll lose sponsorship?
Even if one group from one sporty could boycotting a big event, they’d have to be very brave though. Someone needs to break rank.

So anyone should be able to compete in any category as they please? How would that work then? We just accept that female sports as we know it is over? Celebrate men and men-who-now-ID-as-women getting all the medals? Clap over biological women and trans men getting mauled by males in contact sports? What a beautiful, progressive society!

Or shall we even the playing field? Forget illegal drugs, let's just 'roid and T everyone up to the eyeballs and turn competitive sport into some Hulk vs She-Hulk free for all. I mean, it's just fair for everyone that way!

@BrumBoob I would love to see a no holes barred "enhanced" Olympics where all the drugs are allowed!

One thing I haven't seen discussed in this debate is why we bother with age categories? Eg under 16, under 21, masters etc.

@NewPapaGuinea

Very wrong and potentially dangerous. What if a transgender woman enters boxing and starts beating that crap out of women and causes them serious damage?

What, like how Fallon Fox cracked a woman's skull in an MMA fight? That's ok though, because Fox is a super brave member of the LGBT community, and it's definitely transphobia that is the reason people use Fox as an example of why male born people shouldn't be in women's sport.....

@bigyellowbowl, ever see Space Jam? I imagine it would look like the alien team from that!. No gender, no biological difference, just great big hulking creatures 'competing'.

It was Fallon's tweet that really made me sit up and see the problem more clearly than anything else ever has.

@Oysterbabe

It was Fallon's tweet that really made me sit up and see the problem more clearly than anything else ever has.

Oh my God.

Do people not see the language of angry, violent misogynistic men when it's right in front of them? Is the woman costume THAT persuasive?

Transgender athletes should absolutely be able to compete with the gender that they identify with.

Why should they?

‘Gender’ is an utterly meaningless concept that can be changed from day-to-day, minute-to-minute. Change your gender if you want to. It doesn’t actually mean anything.

You can’t change your sex.

Sport is segregated by sex.

So transgender people have no business playing sport, except as the sex they were born.

I’m another Kiwi that’s completely embarrassed by this. So great to know we have a cheat in our team, that we are parading in front of the world.

This is not OK. And any medal won by this person will not count or be recognised by many here.

Well this will produce some really short odds at the bookies.
Unless other countries decide to follow suit.
What a fantastic way to kill women's sports stone dead whilst perfectly illustrating GC women's point.

We would not have the top male athletes we have today if they had to qualify against adults whilst juniors. The whole system would grind to a halt. Why is age more protected than sex? I doubt many parents would be happy about there u12 rugby team competing against u21s.

I've lurked and lurked on threads about this and concluded we need to go right back the start: why do we have women's sports categories in the first place?

To state the obvious, this is because there is a physical difference (height, weight, strength, bulk, speed, stamina) on average between men and women.

Assuming that trans woman athletes accept that this is the reason the two categories exist in the first place, it is surely illogical for anyone to think that it would be fair or appropriate for someone with male physique to compete in the female category.

If they do think that it is fair for a male physique to compete with female physiques, there is then no point in having the sex categories at all and it shouldn't matter to them whether they are competing against males or females.

As they clearly care SO MUCH about being allowed to be in the women's category rather than competing in the men's category, they clearly accept there is a difference (otherwise why would it matter what category they were in?)... and so should logically accept that they, with a male physique are different from the women.

But apparently to call out the cognitive dissonance that must be going on to think there both is and isn't a difference between the male and female physiques is transphobic and must be silenced.

And let’s face it, it would be more convenient for everyone (except, you know, women) if they just shove the transwomen in with us and make us suck it up. Same as they do everywhere else.

I say transwomen because I can’t think of any sporting event involving strength, speed or stamina- which is most Olympic events- where a transman could reach the level where they would qualify and compete with men. They might have a chance in something like archery, equestrian or target shooting.

Is it too far fetched to imagine a scenario where countries realise fielding trans women in female categories equals medals, and start to actively seek out trans competitors for this very reason? Result: women's sport completely trashed for women.