Part 2: Female swimmers beaten by transgender athlete stage podium protest at ‘unfair’ result (

[pombear]

Hope you don't mind whytcvv just posting here as your thread reached the limit for posts

Posting your original OP here:- Ignore my previous thread-start as it didn't include important title"

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

Link to previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4508526-female-swimmers-beaten-by-transgender-athlete-stage-podium-protest-at-unfair-result

And as a gay woman who is completely inclusive and champions the courage of TW and TM, at the same time safe places for born-females are essential, including toilets, prisons, hospitals and changing rooms so let's not leave JK Rowling to be burned at the stake

👏 👏 👏

We could deal with this so easily by adopting Simon Fanshawe's approach. Women are w

I hit post by accident!

Women are women, transwomen are transwomen.

Happening now in the World Indoor Athletics Champs, 32 women are held from their final so that 1 man can perform...

@YorkshireTrailRunner

Happening now in the World Indoor Athletics Champs, 32 women are held from their final so that 1 man can perform...

Please start a thread and tell us all the details, with a vote here in AIBU .

You know this topic, please share.

Oh. I didn’t realize that Thomas got boo’ed as they took the podium.

twitter.com/daily_memes__/status/1505620186807775233?s=21

[quote Helleofabore]Oh. I didn’t realize that Thomas got boo’ed as they took the podium.

twitter.com/daily_memes__/status/1505620186807775233?s=21[/quote]
Those poor women on the podium having to clap this cheating arsehole who stole all their rightful positions. Though it looks like the woman who came "second" wasn't...?

The governing bodies of swimming such as USA swimming and Swim England, couldn’t give two hoots about the Also rans. They don’t care that these women have given everything to be the best they can be only to be beaten by someone who couldn’t even get into the B male team. They couldn’t care as these women will never bring in gold medals for their country and all the glory that comes with it.
What they do care about is the elite stand out swimmers like Michael phelps, katie ledeky and Adam peaty. Thomas is 8 secs behind ledeky. It’s quite a significant margin however if you have watched Thomas swim they are coasting on purpose, the splits prove this. When and if these two swimmers meet in the pool, hopefully lia will have the arrogance to think they deserve to win and will go all out to beat her. This is when USA swimming will start to give a stuff as they won’t have their star swimmer Beaton by this second rate former male competitor. It’s a shame it will have to come to this, as all the women who they have beat on their way to this race have all been collateral damage.

@Hasselhoffsheadband

Apparently Lia Thomas came last in the 100yd freestyle.

So....

A few weeks back at the Ivy League championships, Lia won a race by miles, over half a length.
2 days ago Lia won a National championship race, and the video clearly showed Lia was not kicking like the other competitors were. Huge backlash, everyone saying how unfair it is.
Lia then comes last in the latest race.

Its not that difficult to see what is happening here is it?

This is how it has to be played though isn't it? Of course the likes of Lia Thomas can't come in and thrash all the competition in one go can they? That then completely eliminates the idea that transwomen don't have any advantage over women. This has to be a slow drip, TRAs need to have the opportunity to say 'look, Lia is just like any other woman, they don't win all the time'. Otherwise it's game over before it's even got off the ground.

It doesn't matter though, because every time a male is competing, they are taking the opportunity away from a female. Lia Thomas has no right to be competing in these National Championships. They were nowhere near the top when they were competing in the men's.

Thomas qualified 4th fastest for the 100 yd final (top 8 from 60 entries go through to final). Thomas finished 8th in the final, swimming slower than the prelim time.

In the prelims Thomas swam 47.37 and in the finals 48.18.

Full results here: swimmeetresults.tech/NCAA-Division-I-Women-2022/?utm_campaign=inline-superpage

Swimming in the male category, Thomas wasn’t a sprinter and best 100 yd time was 47.15 (in 2017). That’s 5 seconds slower than the slowest male invited to the 2022 NCAA finals, and over 7 seconds slower than the fastest male.

But swimming 47.37 isn’t that far off Thomas’s PB from 2017.

correction over 6 seconds slower than fastest male qualifier.

Totally agree. It will stop girls and women training and competing.

It appears that there is no objective test in sport for being trans is there? Just self identify and that’s it?

So any mediocre man could, in theory, choose to reduce their testosterone and say they are now a woman and compete as a female? Absolutely any bloke?

And those who make the rules are fine and dandy with this presumably.

Huge support on twitter for this brave girl twitter.com/RekaGyorgy_/status/1505654417848213506?t=AXjHOzloRPpzpkV0-SPL3g&s=19

If anyone is interested, I kept Thomas’ times updated as they came up through the season on this thread.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4414643-Penn-s-Lia-Thomas-breaks-200-500-Free-records-in-meet-with-Princeton-Cornell?msgid=115991521#115991521

Told my women friends about this episode. They were not complimentary about Lia Thomas. Neither is my husband.

I think the issue could be decided scientifically. You measure the power to weight ratio or relevant statistic for elite women. Anyone more than 5% better than the average of the best women can't compete with them.

Doesn't address the whole issue of 'what is a woman' though. Is it a lived experience of girlhood and puberty? Is it our bodies or our minds?

Biology makes a woman.

@CaveMum

The thing is the knock on effects of allowing men into women’s sport will not be easy to reverse. As girls start to see places being given to males they will think “why bother?” and start to drop out of training, this will mean a generation will lose the opportunity to compete at higher levels; we will have fewer women available for elite competition; the positives of events like the Olympics inspiring young girls into sport will be lost and it will take a huge amount of work to encourage girls back into sport again.

And as female sporting records are inflated because they are achieved and claimed by males then they will become unattainable for women athletes for all time. Records achieved by drug cheats in the eighties took years to reclaim by clean athletes, records achieved by men will never be reclaimed by women.

Women athletes will never be able to stand on a podium and know they are a national, international, world or Olympic record breaker.

@flyawaytrampoline

Sharron Davies posted something interesting on her Twitter feed earlier in the week - apparently even with the required testosterone reduction, Lia Thomas' testosterone levels are still multiple times higher than would be allowed for a woman (i.e. at which point the woman would be banned from competing). Made me wonder what would happen if the female swimmers asked to use testosterone to match that of LT?? I'm not for one moment thinking they would - but hypothetically how could the governing bodies justify banning female swimmers for artificially high testosterone levels, given LT is OK to compete?

Because they would say that the hormones Thomas has taken are permitted because they don’t enhance performance, whereas if women knowingly take a performance enhancing substances they will be banned.

Some of the records set in 80s track and field still stand, despite 30 years of progress in sports science, coaxing every tiny micropercentage of increased performance out of female athletes' bodies.

Florence Griffith Joyner (born 1959, died in 1998) still holds the official 100m (10.49s)world record and the 200m (21.34s) world record.

Wikipedia has this to say about the 100m 10.49 second record: It is widely believed that the anemometer was faulty for the race in which Griffith Joyner set this record.[68]A 1995 report commissioned by the IAAF estimated the true wind speed was between +5.0m/s and +7.0m/s, rather than the 0.0 recorded.[68]If this time, recorded in the quarter-final of the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials, were excluded, the world record (until the 10.54 recorded byElaine Thompson-Herahon August 21, 2021) would have been 10.61 s, also by Griffith Joyner, recorded the next day at the same venue in the final.[68][69]

Someone excessively cynical might wonder how much that report was about determining genuine wind speed error, and how much about finding a tactful way to give other female athletes a chance. I, of course, am not that person and I can't speculate based on personal observation, because I wasn't around in 1988 America.

But anyway, so looks like Elaine Thompson-Herah should hold the 100m world record.

Made me wonder what would happen if the female swimmers asked to use testosterone to match that of LT??

They'd be disqualified for doping.

The testosterone limit for a transwoman athlete is nearly four times the amount found in any woman, even one with high testosterone, and could not be replicated in a woman except by doping.

But the testosterone rule wasn't introduced because it made it fair - transwoman athletes still retain a massive athletic advantage even if they comply with it. It was introduced because it was possible.

The comments on the BBC fb page are heartening to read.

The swimmer who came 17th has written an open letter speaking out. Good for her - Reka Grygy.

It boils my blood when this is described as .inclusive! No its exclusive of women how can they not see that!

Though it looks like the woman who came "second" wasn't...?

And this makes me so sad. I don't want to live in a world where we are questioning if someone 'looks' female. I don't look female but I am a woman, if someone is in a woman's race it should be a given they are a woman. Admitting Penis people does more harm than just taking away chances to win.

[quote pombear]@whytcvv Sorry, bad form, forgot to '@ you as it's a new thread. If you don't want it to continue do let HQ know.[/quote]
Absolutely no worries!

"
So any mediocre man could, in theory, choose to reduce their testosterone and say they are now a woman and compete as a female? Absolutely any bloke?"

Oh no apparently this won't happen. No one would pretend to be a woman (subtext being a woman is too humiliating to tolerate unless you have no other option)

@Roseglen84

I watched a youtube video of this and even though the vast majority of the comments were rightly calling bullshit, it was depressing how many men were laughing and saying 'well this is what women get for feminism blah blah, .

Yet again blaming women for men's behaviour.

Ah yes this is a good point. Men (not all men) can come across as smug like this is what you get for wanting equal rights.