Female swimmers beaten by transgender athlete stage podium protest at ‘unfair’ result

[whytcvv]

When will the rules change as I completely agree this is unfair and I expect that you will all largely agree with me.

For anyone that doesn't agree, please explain your reasoning to help me better understand.

This reminds me of the weightlifting story from last year.

People that are born female and people who are born male should not be competing in these events together. Our physical bodies are not comparable.

Have as many genders as you can think of, but there are only two possible sexes that you can be born as and that is what eligibility in these competitions should be based on.

AIBU

Don't know how to add poll.

I think this situation is what is opening up the conversation and allowing a more free discussion about this general subject than the majority of things have before. People who would've been frightened to speak out before on subjects such as sex segregated prisons, hospital wards, toilets etc are able to say 'this doesn't look right' as a way of starting the conversation.

Didn't Thomas have a brother who was extremely accomplished in men's swimming? When they then started competing and were mediocre it must've been difficult to accept that, it doesn't mean they should have the right to compete with women. That's calculated and disgraceful.

There is simply no way that anyone can look at this and believe there isn't any cheating going on. Even the TRAs/MRAs must see it. Obviously they don't care about the impact, but they see it.

It's complete batshittery for this to continue. And society will look back on this in decades to come and wonder why the fuck it was ever allowed.

Because transmen would have a testosterone advantage over females.

Well no anyone taking performance enhancing hormones wouldnt be allowed to compete, or would be required to stop taking the hormones to compete.

This male swimmer in a female race and the subsequent podium protest shines so much welcome light on the issue.
US college sport is massive and success for many schools relies on the coaches directing the scholarship money to the most talented individuals.
A US college sports scholarship can be the difference between being able to afford to go to university or not, it's not just women's sport in jeopardy here, it's their education.

I am all the supporting trans-rights but not at the expense of others.

I think you will find that very few people oppose trans rights to the same dignity and fairness as everyone else. No one wants trans people discriminated against in employment or healthcare except a fringe few homophobes.

However, the people Stonewall and other pro trans organisations are angry at and actively targeting are not those people. It's people like JK Rowling who wants women's refuges to be single sex. Or sportswomen who want to compete against only women. Or politicians who want to balance what is being taught in schools so surgery is not presented as a magical answer to not conforming to stereotypes.

What trans people mean when they say trans rights is access to women's sports, spaces and bodies. So no, I highly doubt you support that. But you don't need to preface not supporting that with a special about not being transphobia. It's just what most people think is fair and safe.

@TracyMosby

Why does there need to be a trans category? Can't those who are biologically male compete against those who are biologically male? It doesn't matter if they see themselves as a woman inside. (I don't mean that offensively so sorry if I've used the wrong words) Because transmen would have a testosterone advantage over females.

Ah I see. Its complicated!

Or perhaps we need to wait for a woman to be injured or killed in contact sport competing against a biological male

Google Tamikka Brents, a martial arts competitor who had her orbital bone (skull round the eye) smashed fighting Transwomen Fallon Fox.

She had not been informed before the fight that her opponent was Trans

@OfstedOffred

Because transmen would have a testosterone advantage over females.

Well no anyone taking performance enhancing hormones wouldnt be allowed to compete, or would be required to stop taking the hormones to compete.

Maybe there needs to be 3 categories. Biologically male, biologically female and those who are taking drugs.

@Pyjamagame

I just don't understand this 'gender identity'. I mean, the only reason I know I am a women is because I have the body of a woman. I wear trousers and t-shirts, but like cooking and DIY and I am always the navigator on family days out. I mean, how does a person 'feel' like a man or a woman? How does a person 'live' like a man or a woman? It all sounds so sexist to say 'I wear a dress and like pink therefore I must be a woman and must change my body accordingly'.

This is exactly my issue with the whole gender identity issue. It's like suddenly we have to return to a narrow view of gender. Like footie and DIY? Well you must be a bloke then. Like cooking, decor, clothes? Clearly you're really a woman. Whatever sex you were born.

We grew up with the understanding that girls should be allowed to do anything boys can do and that boys should be allowed to be interested in things that were traditionally Sen as girlie.

We seem to have taken a massive step backwards in stereotyping.

Can’t believe I just read a woman arguing that maybe the women racing might not have had the right psychological approach. Only a man in sport could have the right attitude? Women athletes got to that podium just by doing their own little best?
Hopefully Mr too shit for the B team (why wasn’t his psychology helping there?) not swimming at full power will hopefully bring changes. I don’t know how he dares… oh wait…

If anyone is interested to hear some of the science without the politics listen to - more or less ‘testosterone and sport’ on bbc sounds. It’s a wonderfully factual account of the differences that being born male or female have on sporting ability and how lowering testosterone can influence performance. (Spoiler alert men have a huge advantage)

@HoppingPavlova

There needs to be trans category. That’s the only way so trans male compete against trans male and trans women compete against trans women. That’s the only fair way. Otherwise all cis women athletes may as well pack up and go home now. The males who don’t rate in the male comps will just come across to the women comps in order to win.

Otherwise all women athletes, corrected it for you although I agree with your post apart from that. I'm not a cis women as I don't identify with the gender of the sex I was born as. Frankly using cis is 'triggering' and 'mis gendering' which is an actual crime. I am a woman.

Women are not support humans for males who don't fit in perfectly to society's expectations.

I read this on here, I use it a lot irl.

The problem with the odious prefix "cis" is that it presupposes your allegiance to gender identity ideology or it makes absolutely no sense.

I am a woman, an adult human female. If cis just meant "non trans" I would accept it more but it does not, otherwise a "trans woman" would be a woman who identifies as a man, rather than vice versa.

I don't accept that I should be labelled according to an ideology that I find false and harmful, that believes that male people are women if they decide they are. It's meaningless and offensive to me.

Even by removing a penis he will still have superior cardio and muscle strength.

Woah yes that hits it home a bit!
We aren't talking about bog standard people here they are athletes who have worked hard and are physically in very very good condition.

Even in bog standard people men on the whole are massively stronger on the whole and it's visible.

I'm two years older than my brother and I remember when we were little and being horrible to each other and I could beat him every time we would have a fight. Until we were teenagers and then I couldn't!

We're bog standard and average 😁 he's taller, broader, with much bigger hands and feet and much stronger than me.

Uncomfortable as it is for some, men and women have massive physical differences which are visible to all and impossible to deny.

@Boredoutmymind

your wrong saying only 2 sexes can be born. do some research .

some women are stronger, taller than some men and other women. should these women not be allowed to compete?
transmen can compete with cis men in sports.
so transwomen can compete with cis women in sports.
should we have weight and height classes in all sports?
Where does it end?

too much transphobia on here.

So much foolishness in one post. Do you know how ridiculous you sound trying to justify unfairness?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

The problem with the odious prefix "cis" is that it presupposes your allegiance to gender identity ideology or it makes absolutely no sense.

I am a woman, an adult human female. If cis just meant "non trans" I would accept it more but it does not, otherwise a "trans woman" would be a woman who identifies as a man, rather than vice versa.

I don't accept that I should be labelled according to an ideology that I find false and harmful, that believes that male people are women if they decide they are. It's meaningless and offensive to me.

This 100%

The mixed races in the Olympics are interesting I agree, there were more this year than ever before. I imagine if this shit carries on we've seen the last mixed sex mixed race.

There only needs to be two sporting categories - Women’s (for biological women only) and Open (for biological males and transmen).

So many of the comments on here are dismissive of women - we are not small men, or inferior men, or men without a penis, we are an entirely different category. There are more than 6,000 differences between men and women, chopping of a penis or taking a few hormones does not magically turn a male into a female.

I weep for the lack of critical thinking in the world today.

@notyourmummy

I think that makes you a Cis woman...maybe my definition was clumsy, it's not my field of expertise!! Cis means you don't identify as something other than the gender assigned biologically to you, I guess?

Are you using gender to mean biological sex class?

If not you are describing social stereotypes of presentation eg males wear swim trunks, females a swimsuit.

Both sex have breasts but social conventions (gender expecation) have created a divergance where female breast symbolise sex toys, males symbolise strenght.
So swim trunks and swimsuits cover the sexual areas of the body.

There are words for the sexes of numerous speices ie bovine, sheep, human.

The sex which produces the ova is classifieds as female eg cow, ewe, woman.

The sex which produces the sperm is classified as male eg. Bull, ram, man.

The words woman (singular) women (plural) and man (singular) men (plural) are nouns used to as a description for a specific sex.

English has words to describe humans when the sex of the human(s) is not known, person is singular, people (plural)

Using a word before woman and using it as noun (eg cis ) creates a subgroup of female females into which both female humans and male humans are being grouped.

The English word for a group with both sex is people.

So cis woman can be refined down to a single word person.

Examination of your post and a little reshuffling

I think that makes you a person ....maybe my definition was clumsy, it's not my field of expertise!!... female means you wear a swimsuit rather than the swim trunks, I guess

Was this the ideological basis of using that word as a noun?

For people who still aren’t sure that this isn’t all a bit transphobic, but can’t shake a feeling that something isn’t quite fair…

Step your way through it.

Why do we have women’s sport at all?

Because physiologically, male and female bodies are built differently. For most sports, separating the sexes is crucial to ensure that women are kept safe (eg in contact sports), the competition is fair, and that women get to test ourselves against other women, and have a chance of winning.

Even exceptionally gifted and hard working women can’t compete against men. This isn’t saying “women are weak”- acknowledging difference does not mean admitting inferiority at all.

For many years, women were explicitly excluded from competitive sports, and from making a living from sports. Women specific sporting categories and competitions seek to redress this balance.

Male bodied transgender athletes turn all of this on its head if we decide that the physical basis for separating the sexes in sport no longer applies. No matter the interventions, a male body can never become a female body, and it’s positively insulting to women to say that a male body weakened by lowering testoerone is the same as a female body. It is not - womens bodies are whole and complete in and of themselves and are not an inferior version of a male body.

A male body never has to be trained around periods, PMT, pregnancy and so on. We are only just recently starting to understand how to train elite women as women, and not as small, weak males.

Women’s needs matter. Women’s sports matter. All athletes must compete in their sex categories, or womens sports will be diminished. Gender identity cannot be substituted for sex in sport, and it is the most naked, howling misogyny to do so.

I will never apologise for championing womens sports.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/

I think it is great that Lia T is accepted as a woman and should not be subject to abuse or exclusion for being Trans.

Let her wear a swimming costume instead of trunks, tuck long hair into a swim cap, wear waterproof mascara.,. and compete against swimmers of her physical class.

And if any of those swimmers objects or harasses her in the changing room then he should have his place in the team and the college withdrawn for being transphobic.

Seems fair to me.

@Boredoutmymind

your wrong saying only 2 sexes can be born. do some research .

some women are stronger, taller than some men and other women. should these women not be allowed to compete?
transmen can compete with cis men in sports.
so transwomen can compete with cis women in sports.
should we have weight and height classes in all sports?
Where does it end?

too much transphobia on here.

Waiting to hear about these other sexes??

And if you mean DSD, you do know that this happens to either a male or a female…don’t you?

I can’t believe there is even a debate about this. It’s so obviously unfair.
Transgender athletes should, of course, be able to compete. But in their own categories. It’s so simple.

@NaiceHamAndHugs are you saying trans women are women once/if they have had full surgery?