To think Laurel Hubbard should not be competing against women - Part 2

[Belle82]

I am overwhelmed by how much support there has been on this post and that the majority of people agree with the unfairness of this decision, it is good to see the majority being able to have a voice without being silenced.

It breaks my heart that a less fortunate girl who has worked so hard was passed over for a middle aged transgender woman who was 203 in the world when competing against men.

I can’t decide if I want this person to win, to give the argument a better standing on never letting this happen again.
I guess we will find out today…

@Ozgirl75
That is excellent 😂😂😂

I really feel for the athlete who didn’t get to attend because her place was taken because of this ridiculous rule.

Would the same rule effectively mean that a trans man wouldn’t ever have an event to compete in?

I have two six foot plus boys shouting at each other as they loudly agree about how preposterous this is. They know that hormone aren’t ever going to nullify their biological gains as big blokes who have trained hard. If either were trans they could probably pick from a few events. We need more women in sports not fewer and Laurel and other trans athletes need their own space. Presumably this could really benefit trans men too?

I think he was paid off to make it clear that transwomen have no advantage over women

Roviel Detenamo from Nauru should have been representing her country.

I just thought you were being snarky

So did I

Meanwhile the women's 200M is an absolute farce, full of DSD males who benefit from their testosterone and aren't allowed to compete in 400M.

Can we get back to having women's sport for female people?

I don't think there was ever any need to pay Hubbard off.
Hubbard's age, history of injury, lack of fitness and (judging by accounts I've read) poor technique) will have seen Hubbard off, but not before a young, gifted woman was denied her rightful place.

It's scandalous.

My prediction is that in the next Olympics we won't even be told.

@FreeBritnee

Well if they purposely lost what was the fucking point? 🙄🙄🙄

paves the way for other transwomen to compete, this will be used as an example (a misogynistic one) of lack of advantage.

My heart breaks for what athletics will look like in a few years. The number of trans girls taking the place of girls in elite US athletics is shocking.

Hi @Bitofachinwag

While I don't think Laurel gave up on purpose, the technique used on each failed attempt was subtely different to the technique they (successfully) used in previous competitions. Make of that what you will!

I'm glad the IOC have decided their current policy on transgender participation is not fit for purpose and needs to be reviewed - source.

Perhaps Laurel can identify as a 17 year old and complete in junior events. It would be no less crazy than allowing biological men to participate in events for women, which is currently fine.

My concern is that this is just the first wave, we'll get these 40 something not really fit for purpose male athletes paving the way for the real male overthrow of female sport. Its dystopian.

@ferretface do you know why that is? Why they can do the 200m but not the 400?

I can't help feeling there should be an easy solution to this problem. We're used to separate men and women's competitions. Instead of 2 there could be 3.

There would be a competition where anybody could participate. Women probably wouldn't bother because the men will win. There would be another where men are excluded, but women both cis and trans can enter. Then another where there are no trans women, no women with chromosomal abnormalities, and no women who just happen to have high levels of testosterone.

Many years ago there was a woman who ran in a men only marathon until she was detected and ejected. She is held up as a feminist hero. Today feminists spend a lot of time trying to stop trans women from competing against cis women.

She could have organized her own marathon. One for men and women, or one for women only. Nobody was stopping her from running a marathon and nobody is forcing cis women to compete against anyone they don't want to. The problem is there are organizations which control prizes and income. These should be willing to adapt because if they don't they can be replaced.

I'm more concerned that you don't have to announce if you have transitioned. So LH may be the first openly transgender person to compete, but there maybe medalist already.

[quote Ozgirl75]@ferretface do you know why that is? Why they can do the 200m but not the 400?[/quote]
the rule was, crudely speaking, devised as an anti Caster Semenya rule using fairly limited evidence that didn't enable the powers that be to conclusively rule that DSD conferred an advantage at the shorter distance. i daresay the ban will end up being applied across the board, though.

Do we think there'll ever be a transman that competes in the male category?

I see, thanks @puffyisgood

Personally I think they should do it like they do at my children’s junior school; an “open” category and a girls category.
Girls are free to play in the open group (and some do, there is one girl in the A soccer team and 2 in the B team, tennis 1sts is mixed 5/3) but also have girl’s soccer, rugby etc and a few of their own sports (netball and touch rugby). Athletics is run together but timed separately.
Seems to work really well.

@jennywhitehorses "nobody is forcing cis women to compete against anyone they don't want to".

This is untrue. Unless you are saying that all the women in sections that include males should just give up their careers and Olympic dreams and not compete?

@ozgirl75 They are all XY athletes with differences of sexual development (a male DSD). Their DSD means that they produce testosterone and are responsive to it. All 3 medal winning athletes in the 2016 Rio Olympics had this DSD and subsequently after new World Athletics rules were introduced were required to reduce their testosterone levels in order to be able to compete. The limit is set at 5nmol/litre which is still very very much higher than most women.

As they don't wish to reduce their testosterone levels (because they don't win then) and therefore can't now compete in 400, 800 or 1500m (the only distances to which the XY ruling currently applies) they have either gone down to 200m or up to 5000M. Or in caster's case chosen a different sport.

It's a slightly different issue to trans people in sport but this is still making an absolute mockery of women's sport.

It works really well to have sports segregated by sex because sex confers the male advantage. There are two sexes so there should be two sex categories.

Thanks @ferretface that makes a lot of sense.

i daresay the ban will end up being applied across the board, though

It’s not a ban. It’s an attempt to enable biological males with DSDs to be shoe-horned into female athletics. At present, they can still compete in the 400m and 800m, they do need to lower their testosterone (usually from internal testes) although levels are still higher than women’s levels.

The rule for 400m and 800m applies to athletes with male levels of testosterone who have XY chromosomes as part of their DSD and who have gone through a male puberty (ie are androgen sensitive).

CS is XY DSD with 5 alpha reductase deficiency. For some reason it couldn’t be “proven” that male levels of testosterone wasn’t an advantage at 200m (yeah right) but could be at 400m and 800m.

@jennywhitehorses

I can't help feeling there should be an easy solution to this problem. We're used to separate men and women's competitions. Instead of 2 there could be 3.

There would be a competition where anybody could participate. Women probably wouldn't bother because the men will win. There would be another where men are excluded, but women both cis and trans can enter. Then another where there are no trans women, no women with chromosomal abnormalities, and no women who just happen to have high levels of testosterone.

Many years ago there was a woman who ran in a men only marathon until she was detected and ejected. She is held up as a feminist hero. Today feminists spend a lot of time trying to stop trans women from competing against cis women.

She could have organized her own marathon. One for men and women, or one for women only. Nobody was stopping her from running a marathon and nobody is forcing cis women to compete against anyone they don't want to. The problem is there are organizations which control prizes and income. These should be willing to adapt because if they don't they can be replaced.

That would be Kathrine Switzer. At the time, there were no marathons which allowed women. Her running opened up endurance running to women and, yes, she did go on to organise lots of marathons for women.

Importantly, her presence (and the presence of the women runners who would follow her) did not disadvantage male runners.

What scares me is how recent this all is. Switzer's run was in 1967. Only a few years before I was born. The first woman's Olympic marathon was in 1984 - after I started running. Women weightlifters have only been allowed to compete in the Olympics since 2000. This is literally within the lifetime of most of the athletes competing.

And now they're being displaced by people with the biological advantages of men.

I absolutely support the right of transgendered individuals to live the lives they choose. To be treated with dignity and respect. To identify as they will. But there are fundamentals of biology which can't be escaped, and those fundamentals really matter when it comes to how much weight you can lift.

This is unfair and wrong.

• forgot about the 1500!