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.

Yes there are disorders of sex development. No there are not more than two sexes.

@WeCouldBeSpearows

Hope do you define biological woman? The woman mentioned in the article above is chromosomally male, but only discovered that when she was pregnant.

In general terms, most people are xx or xy, and the way their body develops fits in with that. But, as with everything, life is not that simple.

I'm so glad you asked.

Female: the reproductive sex class capable of producing ova.

Male: the reproductive sex class capable of producing sperm.

One may have a condition affecting their ability to produce these gametes, but they're still male or female. Such conditions, by nature, can occur only in one sex or the other. A 0 sperm count is not a medical condition in a female body.

People with XXX or XXY conditions are still male or female. Swyer's syndrome is an interesting one, but actually easy to class. Those people are female. They continued along the female developmental pathway because their Y chromosome didn't work (usually, it interrupts the female development pathway that we all start on to produce a male. It's interesting to see why men have nipples but it doesn't mean they aren't men.). They do not have ovaries but they're otherwise female.

And if you've developed along the female pathway, you will have a body designed to gestate, labour and then lactate. These are quite complex processes and your body will therefore be quite different to a male body that hasn't developed to do any of these things. You may well be super fit and strong and be able to beat some men, but a) overall, you probably won't and b) when competing in sports against a male person who is your fitness equivalent in all things except sex, you have almost no chance. Bone density, muscle:fat ratio, haemoglobin level, heart size, fast twitch muscle and more will be on his side.

A person who doesn't know the difference between a man and a woman shouldn't be talking about what sex is. But strangely, when a male person wants to compete amongst women, nobody has any trouble working out where they should go.

There are only two sexes.

I can't believe it even needs saying!

Mediocre male swimmer becomes elite female swimmer. However, unlike female peers posts very irregular times. One day blasts the competition and wins, then the next after doing well in heats , posts a very poor time. Obviously all the speculation about previous win must have affected the time, because nobody would deliberately throw a race and it is so difficult to swim slower than normal isn't it?

By the way if you want to see the difference between elite male swimmers and elite female swimmers, here is the Olympic mixed sex relay final. The difference is staggering.

Swimmer Thomas is a man, in the public eye. Those who will not see are blatantly up to something and I don’t like it.

@CaveMum

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.

I totally agree two categories open & women. Although men might ve a bit scared of being beaten by a bio woman.

Is that really true 6000 differences between men and women? 🤯
I didn't think there were 6000 bits of my body to be different. We need better biology lessons

@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.

That swimmer- So obviously not like natal women. Men and boys are massively affected by testosterone. Their shoulders are broader, arms stronger. Even a weedy man is stronger than nearly every woman.

This absurd thing where men can self ID as women and win where they were hopeless against other men is just sad and cheaty.

@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?

Gender is a social construct so how can it be assigned biologically?

Let me help. When we are born (and sometimes before) our sex is observed and recorded. It isn’t ‘assigned’. It just ‘is’. As we grow up, we are subjected to all sorts of outside influences that people call ‘gender’. Eg the clothes we dress babies in, the toys we buy them, the names we give them. We even have ‘gender reveal’ parties where pink or blue balloons and cake is used to show what ‘gender’ - which we actually mean sex - the baby is.
This continues throughout our lives. We expect boys to be tough and physical, girls to be kind and gentle - look at t shirt logos where ‘boys’ have dinosaurs and trucks and ‘girls’ have unicorns and rainbows. All of it is societal expectations and has bugger all to do with a person’s sex.
A male swimmer putting on a women’s swimsuit and growing their hair is still a male.

It's also worth noting that people in the DSD community have a general consensus that it's offensive and exploitative to keep dragging them into the trans debate, essentially to problematise the matter of sex by claiming they aren't fully male or female.

Or change it to male-bodied and female-bodied? Then if you feel you were born in the wrong body you can still be yourself and perform womanhood or whatever and the world might become more accepting if they see male bodys that identify as female. (Still not 100% sure what that means)

I think female and open would be a reasonable compromise for 2 categories. That means that those men who can’t bear to compete in their own sex class wouldn’t have to be traumatised by being labelled as male.

What pisses me off about this is that I like watching elite female swimmers, I have a daughter who swims and I appreciate the work that goes into the reaction times, strokes, turns and the like.

Elite female swimming should celebrate the very best of the best female swimmers. Instead, some imposter with the benefits of a male puberty is beating them. Not because they are technically better swimmers, but because they have had a testosterone-soaked male puberty. Suddenly, we’re not watching elite women show off how years of training can condition their bodies to be the best and the fastest. We’re watching a male swimmer who was only a mediocre swimmer when swimming against other males, cheat them out of their rightful places.

I liked the t shirt a protester wore "that MAN is a cheat"

It's also interesting that HE wears a dressing gown, when the ladies are in costumes...it's to hide his massive Male shoulders, a stark reminder that HE has the advantage of a male body.

@QuebecBagnet

And I don’t think the other swimmers can boycott. They risk losing their college places. So they’re being forced to partake in this craziness.

They risk loosing any chance of employment at all by going on record about this.

For the readers have a look at the law case

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4507443-Maya-Forstater-Tribunal-March-2022-Thread-3

which demonstrates the vital need for sex based protections which the UK has but many US States do not have.
Imagine testifying that the pigmentation of a humans skin is immutable but being female is not.

The workers in the UK have spent 100 years carving out protections for women. The protections are sex based because women were discriminated on the basis of biology.

As far as I’m concerned if a person can change sex then they should also be able to change colour…..ah, now why is that not acceptable🤷🏼‍♀️. You can be whatever gender you choose but you cannot change your sex of birth.

Can't see that Boredoutmymind ever came back to clarify what on earth he was talking about, but he claimed on another thread that sex was determined by your brain, and that genitals have nothing to do with it. So he probably isn't worth engaging with at all.

[quote Seema1234]@DrivingHomeChristmas - You seem to be saying LT got there through psychology and nothing more. Can you explain how you know this? And if that's the case what makes you so sure that the women competitors who have their college placements riding on being on that swimming team didn't also use psychology in the same way?[/quote]
Yes, the psychology of beating women. Clearly Lia's psychology wasn't good enough to beat other men. (Or was it actually their physiology after all?)

Slowly but slowly I think the world is starting to wake up to what's been happening for the past few years. The erosion of women's rights, safety; safe spaces:, we need to keep shouting louder and louder and keep being heard.

I know this was said early on in the thread but can I request that we stop saying things like ‘come back when you don’t have a penis’ or ‘if you have a penis you’re a man’.

A man who has surgery on his penis is 100% still male.

YANBU OP, I agree with you fully and I also know several transgender people that would agree with you too, not all trans people agree with trans women competing with bio women. It is unfair, the science tells us it unfair, men have a different body shape, more muscle and more stamina, declaring your a female does not change that and never will.

That man is a cheat

Keep saying it

Perhaps the "cis" male team could all have a gender change and join the female team for a season in protest? The "cis" women could do the same for the male team. Thus reasserting the natural balance, whilst not losing scholarships?

@Nnique

I know this was said early on in the thread but can I request that we stop saying things like ‘come back when you don’t have a penis’ or ‘if you have a penis you’re a man’.

A man who has surgery on his penis is 100% still male.

'Come back when you're entire skeleton, lung function and muscle mass have changed'?

If something isn't done about this, it will be the end of women's sport.
It took decades to get any recognition and funding and now you have mediocre men in their own category, take female hormones for a few years, grow their hair out, put on a dress and now they complete and win in women's sport.

People ask why the women aren't speaking out? Because of the absolute hate and vitriol for doing so. The risk scholarships, endorsements, placements, harassment, cancellation, violence.

The only reason JKR has survived is because of her clout and money otherwise she would have been trampled on and cast aside.

Men have a different skeleton, a larger heart, more muscle mass and that is because of their puberty. No matter what hormones or surgeries, after they have completed puberty and their genetic growth, nothing will change their structure as men.

The differences in men are recognised in sport like boxing and wrestling as they know someone competing against outside of their category has zero chance of winning. That isn't discrimination. It's biology.
Same with having different categories for spelling bees. People with a Phd in English don't compete against kids in primary school.

In this case, the attitude is, it's just women. They've been screwed over for centuries so fuck them.

Pictures always speak a thousand words