AIBU - Transgender 'athletes'

[HappyHippo1234]

To start off - I have no issue with trans people at all. The only issue I have is transgender females (male to female) competing in women sports.

Yes, they may have been taking hormones and they have lost some muscle and gained some fat. But, they have stronger bones and bigger spines, hands, feet, lungs and hearts. Basically trans females have an advantage over biological females.

What I absolutely HATE about the situation, it the trans athletes attitude, it honestly disgusts me. Did they never take biology as teenagers or learn about puberty?
For them to sit there with their wins and say that they have no advantage just p*sses me off. Are they stupid or ignorant? There's no way they don't know they have an advantage. Do they not realise they are taking wins away from girls and woman who have spent their whole lives training for a sport only for it to be taken away from someone who was a mediocre male.

Look at Lia Thomas, she was somewhere in the 400-500th best college male swimmer or something like that. She is now trans and BAM she is number 1 and winning everything.

It just annoys me to no end. Especially the trans woman who you can tell that they KNOW they have a major advantage and are cheating the system and then sit there with a SMUG GRIN on their faces. I mean every Caitlyn Jenner said it's wrong.

Sorry for the rant. My DD15 has been upset all week as on the weekend another girl beat all the girls by a huge stretch in her cross country meet (her team is usually 1st but were bumped to 2nd). At first everyone thought this girl was great, until one mom heard the group the girl was with discussing the results and how it was great for the team that this girl came out as trans and was boosting their results etc! Fair to say that news travelled quickly and there were MANY parents complaining to officials. But surprise surprise nothing was done about it. So at the award giving ceremony everyone waited as everything up to 1st place was given out and as soon as they got to the 1st team, I would say 95% of people walked away. It felt harsh but necessary!
(Also the girl was 16 and had only recently transitioned from what we could gather and when you actually looked at her you could tell she had gone through at least some portion of male puberty). Again nothing against the girl just don't think she could compete.

And to get around all these discrimination lawsuits, I think they should change the categories! Have an XX category and an XY category, that why there is no debate and no 'discrimination' as you can't identify as XY if you are XX! (And then also have an open category where trans, non-binary etc. can compete).

SORRY THAT WAS SO LONG. NOW FOR THE VOTE:

YABU - Trans (XX) women are woman and should be allowed to compete with XY women, even though they scientifically have an advantage.

YANBU - They will always have an advantage and so should not compete with XY women.

I don't personally give a fuck as to how one dresses, presents, chooses to live their life. I do however care when the above infringes and impacts negatively, the rights of another, which is mostly women when it comes to gender ideology. And in the cases of sport, spaces, prisons IT DOES.

The people who pop up sporadically on MN with you are all 'anti-trans'! It's a far right rhetoric, cis! waah waaah waaaah have no other argument other than to state this. They make the statement then fuck off. It's boring.

Why does being trans (it's usually transwomen) entitle you to go anywhere and have anything you please? Because it's another form of male entitlement packaged up in a pretty pink bow, as that's female innit.

All trans people have the same rights as anyone else, including competing in any sport they choose, if they are good enough. In their sex class.

'and I think it's a good life lesson for her that she won't always win and sometimes life's unfair.'

With all due respect, if there was any a statement that should be directed at transwomen, this is it!

are we happy or at least accepting enough to call them by their chosen female name, respect their choice to present superficially as a woman (whatever that means)

We all see what you're insinuating blatantly accusing us of, but it's nil points for you, I'm afraid. The issue isn't what people like to be called or how they like to dress. Gender critical people don't believe there's anything inherently masculine or feminine about clothes and interests, so they'd actually welcome people smashing the stereotypes.

We're just saying that there are innate and immutable differences in male and female sexed bodies (even Tom Daley accepts and understands this when choosing who to date and who to hire as an incubator) and in the interests of safety, respect, inclusion, equality and fairness, there are times when they need sex-segregated spaces. These can exist alongside unisex spaces for those who consent to use them.

Is that so terrible?

@SoupDragon but other people will cheat to win, won't they.

You'll lose out on a promotion because the bosses niece will get it. You'll lose your no claims bonus because someone drives like a dick on a roundabout so it's seen as a 50/50 claim. You'll lose out on all sorts of things through life because of other people's actions.

Is a biological boy in sport one of those things that should never even happen in the first place? Of course it is. But Op didn't even know it was a boy until their parent bragged.

Do one please, you know trans athletes do not want their own category

And this is a good example of why this site is so completely toxic about trans people. Absolutely no discussion allowed. Any deviation from the mumsnet party line (trans people are cheats and liars) means abuse. I'm glad I hid the Feminism topic and I'm glad I have the opportunity to hide this thread too.

This .

The word is Cheating.

Call people whatever name they wish to be called.

However, why should any person need to use compelled speech on any topic?

And I don’t know many feminists who disagree that people can wear what ever they wish to wear. So what does it matter what people are wearing if they don’t demand access to the spaces, and the opportunities that female people, of all genders, need to overcome millennia of negative sexist discrimination based on having a body type that is female? The issue is about what people wear.

Plus I also don’t believe feminists think all trans people are rapists, violent, fetishists. Many of us have trans people in our lives that we care about. That doesn’t mean there are no males who are trans who are also rapists, violent, fetishists. Probably at least the same % as found in all the male population. However, lots of people use polarised language to imply that feminists are saying this.

My dd played against boys teams for years. It's quite normal for younger footballers to play in mixed teams.

So why do you feel biological males should compete against biological women, knowing there are differences that give them an unfair advantage?

You read that poster making a negative generalisation and you call people pushing back on that falsehood ‘toxic’?

I think maybe that it is you who has the prejudice here.

It is against the talk guidelines to make such a statement as they have made. If you believe that people should be able to make blanket false claims such as that, I suggest you contact MN HQ directly and argue your case.

Use of cis is offensive as hell cancer stop it

Can we not cancer fucks sake

"Identifying as a man doesn’t confer the advantages of being male. Identifying as a woman does not negate them." @SquidwardBound

This has possibly got to be one of the best short summaries of the issues around trans. It all goes in men's favour and does nothing for women.

No, no, no, that’s a girls lessons, boys lesson is - if you want to take something from girls, you can, and you’ll be celebrated for it! Just remember to scream bigot at them if they try to refuse.

Everytime they were offered it was refused third spaces are not the goal here

That is one sport.

it is good for women in that sport. Obviously

meanwhile, in other non-Triathalon events, there are no such rules.

which is not good for women athletes.

sorry you cant understand this.

We have a transwoman living very close.

She's amazing. She spends hours on manicures, make up, dresses like Bet Lynch from Corrie and wears heels I'd die trying to walking in.

I call her her name, I compliment her perfectly manicured nails and always ask her how she gets her wig hair so perfectly curled (mines naturally curly but never looks that good!).

But would I accept her competing against other woman in Sport.

No. But she also doesn't agree with it.

She also uses accessible toilets as she says she understand why woman would feel uncomfortable with someone of male sex in woman's only spaces.

I have a lot of respect for her. But she is t biologically female nor does she claim to be.

I think what she said is true.
They don't want their own category
Otherwise they'd campaign for them, wouldn't they. Probably get a lot of support too.

@Naunet quite!

OK I'll bite.

Have any trans women tried to set up their own category in any sport?

I don't. And haven't said that I do. I've pointed out that British Triathlon have done good research in this area and have introduced an Open category. I've said I wouldn't have turned my back on the imaginary athlete in the OP. I've said my dd routinely played football against boys in league football. And I've said that there's no room for nuance on mumsnet.

It seems unfair that trans women cannot compete in their chosen sport that they may have dedicated their lives to

Professional sport is unforgiving to lots of people. If you’re short you’ll never be a rower or basketball player no matter how well you train etc. There are lots and lots of examples like this.

I've said this before on other threads but personally I don't have a problem with this. Sport should be a meritocracy, the best should win. I think dividing things up by gender is as wrong as dividing them by race or sexuality. Some athletes have a natural advantage over others - you rarely see successful jockeys that are over 6ft tall for example - it's unfair, but it's life. Scrap the gender division altogether and the "transwomen in women's sport" argument goes away.

On the wider societal issue we simply need to answer this question: can a man become a woman and a woman become a man? It's a simple yes/no answer. As a society we need to decide and then the "transwomen in women's sport" problem goes away.

Either a person can change from being a man to being a woman, in which case they should be treated as a woman just as much as someone born a woman is. Access to women's facilities, sports etc. Or they can't in which case they shouldn't be able to change their pronouns or birth certificates.

The problems we currently have are because we haven't answered this simple question. The idea that a man can become a woman in some regards but not others is ludicrous. If they're not considered fully a woman then they're not a woman. If they are considered fully a woman, they shouldn't be treated differently to a woman.

Maybe there should just be a referendum and we could be done with it.

Is our local kids’ football setup really unusual? They’ve had transgirls playing on the boys’ teams for a while. No suggestion that they should join the (pretty good) girls’ league, as far as I know. Just all the other kids told to use their new names and not tease. The kids get to train and compete amongst appropriate peers, which is surely much of the point of sport.

At least one, I know, quietly reverted to his birth name in late teens. That’s surely a more difficult option if you’ve not retained a pool of friends throughout.

I don’t know what the exact position is once they get older, but surely a 16 year old can only legally be their birth sex anyway, so there’s no problem with them competing as that sex.