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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think it was never that complicated to define a woman.

527 replies

Abisequer · 26/03/2026 14:51

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has ruled that eligibility for the women’s category of Olympic events will now be limited to biological females, starting from the LA 2028 Games.

AIBU to think the category ‘women’ was never complicated and the obfuscation by certain governing bodies has compromised fairness in sport for women.

Examples of obfuscation include claims that genital checking would be needed or that biological men with lowered testosterone would be on an even playing field with biological women.

AIBU to think it was never complicated to define a woman and a cheek swab is all it takes.

Article

Transgender women banned from female Olympic events in new IOC ruling

The International Olympic Committee has ruled that eligibility for the women’s category will now be limited to biological females

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/transgender-ban-ioc-female-category-gender-eligibility-b2946193.html

OP posts:
Thread gallery
23
SabrinaThwaite · 26/03/2026 22:16

damelza · 26/03/2026 20:44

"The male category is an open category, and trans men can get a TUE for testosterone, so no barriers to competing.

Other than the barrier of being biological female so highly unlikely to be competitive against biological males …"

Exactly my point. Bio males (TW) on the other hand.....

I’m in absolute agreement with you.

Biological males, whether that’s male people with DSD and androgen sensitivity, or the good ole ‘skirt go spinny’ trans identifying males, have no place in women’s sports.

SSAW2026 · 26/03/2026 22:25

Xiaoxiong · 26/03/2026 14:53

Agreed. It's only complicated if you're trying to have the definition of "women" include some men.

This.

The trans lobby aren't liking the pushback. Lets face it, biological men will never be women, no matter how many bits are lopped off (or not), or added (or not) and wearing a dress does not make a woman.

Goodbye men, you are not welcome in women's sports (stick to the men's) or prisons, or rape centres, or pregnancy groups, or toilets, or changing rooms, or boys in brownies or guides, or in the WI.

Trans women are men, just a version that feel more like women, but can only ever 'feel' or pretend because they aren't actually female.

MyCrushWithEyeliner · 26/03/2026 22:33

Sortingmyself · 26/03/2026 17:34

Weren't they offered their own categories and they said no! because it meant that the rest of the world wouldn't be validating them to be 'real' women. (In the case of transwomen).

FFS 🤦‍♀️

1000StrawberryLollies · 26/03/2026 22:37

Abisequer · 26/03/2026 14:59

The ship is definitely turning.

Although the reporting needs to stop using the words banned.

Being kind is not compromising women’s fairness and safety in any respect.

Yep. Banned Hmm. In much the same way as 30 year-olds are 'banned' from receiving an old-age pension, able-bodied people are 'banned' from competing in the paralympics and 15 year-olds are 'banned' from attending primary school. Men having to participate in men's sport rather than women's should not raise a more dramatic reaction than any of those examples!

MyCrushWithEyeliner · 26/03/2026 22:38

#BeKind everyone

Unless it’s stomping all over women’s privacy safety and rights, then it’s ok because we don’t matter.

Helleofabore · 26/03/2026 23:01

Galsboysgirls · 26/03/2026 20:47

YANBU

I can’t remember which interview I watched - it wasn’t this one. But the way caster talks about women. It’s very clear in my mind that they don’t see themselves as one.

I think it is difficult for any person to be credible with an interview where they declare that their testicles don’t make them less of a woman.

TheKeatingFive · 26/03/2026 23:19

Great news. I agree it was never complicated, unless you don't want to say no to men's demands.

AntiqueBabyLoanSmurf · 26/03/2026 23:36

Helleofabore · 26/03/2026 16:50

I will always remember Semenya saying that Lynsey just didn't work hard enough.

That is really one fucked up position from a person who has known for years that they were male and had masculinised.

That closely mirrors the (deliberately) absurd things that the wonderful JP Sears said 'in character' in his sketch about him wanting to become the world's best female swimmer.

Then, at the end, he decided that he felt 10 years old and so was going to become a star in pee wee football.

y

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?pp=ygUVanAgc2VhcnMgYmVzdCBzd2ltbWVy&v=_sgjc29QCGo

HaveYouActuallyDoneAnyWashingThisWeekMum · 26/03/2026 23:37

YANBU given that 99% of three year olds can tell the difference between men and women in a matter of seconds and without the man / woman needing to speak.

The obfuscation has provided a lot of shocked bemusement over the years and I still can’t get over how many people really seemed to embrace gender wang 🐑 🐑 🐑

Firefly1987 · 27/03/2026 02:04

Helleofabore · 26/03/2026 23:01

I think it is difficult for any person to be credible with an interview where they declare that their testicles don’t make them less of a woman.

Their voice and entire body language screams male so they might want to work on those too!

nevernotmaybe · 27/03/2026 03:39

Not difficult at all?

Someone with Swyer Syndrome is XY, and is basically as biologically female as any woman. Although they don't have eggs, you can implant one and they will give birth.

XY and XX does not dictate sex for certain, so yes it can be extremely complicated.

We are currently going through the loss of the y chromosome although it will take a long time if it does happen. But this has already happened to other mammals, and do you know what happened to these mammals that lost the Y chromosome entirely? Nothing, still both sexes. Because, and proving that, it isn't that simple.

DeepBlueDeer · 27/03/2026 05:39

Helleofabore · 26/03/2026 16:06

This part is also interesting as a summary:

Performance Advantage:

o Consistent with the functional effects of higher circulating testosterone levels, Males have larger and stronger skeletal muscle and bone, larger and stronger hearts, larger lung size, more red blood cells, and lower body fat than Females trained to the equivalent level.
Together these attributes afford Males individual sex-based performance advantages in sports and events that rely on strength, power and/or endurance.

o Female athletes experience performance disadvantages relative to Males, associated with Female anatomy and physiology, that contribute to overall Male performance advantage in sports and events that rely on strength, power and/or endurance. These disadvantages may include, for example, the menstrual cycle, gestation and anatomical differences such as periodic ligament laxity (looseness), wider hips and more breast tissue.

o XY Transgender athletes and athletes with certain XY differences/disorders in sex development (DSD) (as defined in Schedule 1) have anatomical and physiological advantages in line with being Male even as their legal sex, the manner in which they were raised, and/or their gender identity may vary. XY transgender athletes and athletes with XY-DSD typically have testes/testicles and testosterone levels in the Male range. The clear majority are androgen-sensitive, meaning that their bodies are receptive to and make use of that testosterone during growth and development and throughout their athletic career.

o Androgen-sensitive XY-DSD and XY Transgender athletes retain Male performance advantage due in part to training effects and fixed traits. There is no current evidence that testosterone suppression or gender-affirming hormone treatment eliminates this advantage.

o XY-DSD athletes with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) (defined in Schedule 1) and other rare XY DSDs that do not benefit from the anabolic and/or performance-enhancing effects of testosterone should, on that basis, be included in the Female Category.

• Magnitude of Advantage: At the elite level, the magnitude of the Male performance advantage is different depending on the sport or event:

o There is a 10-12 per cent Male performance advantage in most running and swimming events.
o There is a 20+ per cent Male performance advantage in most throwing and jumping events.
o The Male performance advantage can be greater than 100 per cent in events that involve explosive power, e.g. in collision, lifting and punching sports.

• Variation in Advantage: The extent of the performance advantage (and its implications) varies across sports and events and from occasion to occasion, depending on the athletes involved.

• Safety risks: In contact sports (e.g., individual and team combat, collision, projectile sports), the strength and power differential between Males and Females increases safety risks to Female athletes.

This doesn't sound all that "simple" to me.

It is simple to me that transgender athletes ought compete with their biological sex, which is usually easily and conclusively determinable.

I don't think it's so simple for athletes with DSDs, and that the going-forward approach is "people with these DSDs are treated as males, and with these DSDs as females" does seem to underscores that.

I think the decision ultimately seems to be the right one but I nonetheless do retain sympathy for those athletes who always thought, with good reason, that they were girls/women. I feel deeply uncomfortable with labeling some of those people as "cheats".

People were always (rightly) quick to point out that using intersex people to argue for trans rights was not appropriate, but I think there's a tendency among some "gender critical" folk to view people with DSDs no differently to transgender folks on occasion.

Shedmistress · 27/03/2026 06:06

DeepBlueDeer · 27/03/2026 05:39

This doesn't sound all that "simple" to me.

It is simple to me that transgender athletes ought compete with their biological sex, which is usually easily and conclusively determinable.

I don't think it's so simple for athletes with DSDs, and that the going-forward approach is "people with these DSDs are treated as males, and with these DSDs as females" does seem to underscores that.

I think the decision ultimately seems to be the right one but I nonetheless do retain sympathy for those athletes who always thought, with good reason, that they were girls/women. I feel deeply uncomfortable with labeling some of those people as "cheats".

People were always (rightly) quick to point out that using intersex people to argue for trans rights was not appropriate, but I think there's a tendency among some "gender critical" folk to view people with DSDs no differently to transgender folks on occasion.

but I think there's a tendency among some "gender critical" folk to view people with DSDs no differently to transgender folks on occasion.

A decade it has been since 'gender critical' folk have been saying 'please don't use the DSD argument to infer men can become women'. And still we get this twist turned back as if it is us that ever did this.

The people that did this were trans activists.

LadyVioletBridgerton · 27/03/2026 06:31

It’s strange how only men who are about 500th in the world in their sport suddenly want to become ladies so they can be number 1. Talk about desperate. It’s like the slowest kid in year 11 whooping and hollering because they’ve just beaten everyone in the reception class at the 100m race.

Shedmistress · 27/03/2026 06:51

Turned Sky on last night to see a big old bloke banging on about how unfair it was and how he'd played women's sports and it was all fine.

Watching the presenter walking on eggshells not to upset him though...blimey mate. What an embarrassment.

ChasingTheDuck · 27/03/2026 07:04

I'm obviously delighted by this, but even more so the general comments about this on social media.

Even less than 12 months ago anything reported on this in the media would have seen comments sections a hot bed of screaming about "literal violence" "you're the reason women will die" etc etc. The article has popped up in my FB feed more than once, across various outlets and when I looked at the comments expecting lots of "be kind" etc I was actually amazed to see hundreds and hundreds of comments supporting it, don't get me wrong there is still a handful of how women are hateful keeping the category all to themselves, but hundreds of women and men in support of this and talking about fairness, biology matters etc. It feels like the tide in at least the general public is turning.

TheKeatingFive · 27/03/2026 07:09

DeepBlueDeer · 27/03/2026 05:39

This doesn't sound all that "simple" to me.

It is simple to me that transgender athletes ought compete with their biological sex, which is usually easily and conclusively determinable.

I don't think it's so simple for athletes with DSDs, and that the going-forward approach is "people with these DSDs are treated as males, and with these DSDs as females" does seem to underscores that.

I think the decision ultimately seems to be the right one but I nonetheless do retain sympathy for those athletes who always thought, with good reason, that they were girls/women. I feel deeply uncomfortable with labeling some of those people as "cheats".

People were always (rightly) quick to point out that using intersex people to argue for trans rights was not appropriate, but I think there's a tendency among some "gender critical" folk to view people with DSDs no differently to transgender folks on occasion.

Every single person with a DSD is either one sex or the other.

It may have taken medical investigations to determine which one, but it will always be determinable.

In developed countries, people are not going to find out they are a different sex due to this testing.

Shedmistress · 27/03/2026 07:11

TheKeatingFive · 27/03/2026 07:09

Every single person with a DSD is either one sex or the other.

It may have taken medical investigations to determine which one, but it will always be determinable.

In developed countries, people are not going to find out they are a different sex due to this testing.

Even in underdeveloped countries they know about periods.

1apenny2apenny · 27/03/2026 07:20

Good they’ve finally conceded they got it wrong. Now they need to strip athletes of their records and medals. Let’s start with Caster Semenya.

Imdunfer · 27/03/2026 07:22

DeepBlueDeer · 27/03/2026 05:39

This doesn't sound all that "simple" to me.

It is simple to me that transgender athletes ought compete with their biological sex, which is usually easily and conclusively determinable.

I don't think it's so simple for athletes with DSDs, and that the going-forward approach is "people with these DSDs are treated as males, and with these DSDs as females" does seem to underscores that.

I think the decision ultimately seems to be the right one but I nonetheless do retain sympathy for those athletes who always thought, with good reason, that they were girls/women. I feel deeply uncomfortable with labeling some of those people as "cheats".

People were always (rightly) quick to point out that using intersex people to argue for trans rights was not appropriate, but I think there's a tendency among some "gender critical" folk to view people with DSDs no differently to transgender folks on occasion.

I think the decision ultimately seems to be the right one but I nonetheless do retain sympathy for those athletes who always thought, with good reason, that they were girls/women. I feel deeply uncomfortable with labeling some of those people as "cheats".

I think those days are gone really. It may have been true of Caster Semenya that he really didn't know when he started competing as a child, but he knew as soon as his testosterone levels were investigated. He continued until very recently to use the law to try to recover the right to run without testosterone suppression, and that I call cheating. Though I do see why he would feel very let down by the system that built him up as a gold medal Olympian then threw him away.

The people with sex differences who think that they are female are disabused of that notion as soon as anyone starts the medical investigation of why they are not menstruating and why their bodies are changing as if they were receiving testosterone. It wouldn't be possible to be anywhere near reaching elite level in sport without the medical support that would have done that in the current day and age, imo.

Imdunfer · 27/03/2026 07:26

Suddenly the human rights of women are worth fighting for? The right not to have to be tested to play female sport, of course. This is an Australian Guardian report and Australia actually made a criminal out of a lesbian who refused to have male bodied people join her group. They prosecuted her, she has a criminal record. Apparently the IOC ruling is illegal in Australia!

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/mar/27/olympics-transgender-women-athlete-ban-human-rights-response-ntwnfb

nolongersurprised · 27/03/2026 07:32

nevernotmaybe · 27/03/2026 03:39

Not difficult at all?

Someone with Swyer Syndrome is XY, and is basically as biologically female as any woman. Although they don't have eggs, you can implant one and they will give birth.

XY and XX does not dictate sex for certain, so yes it can be extremely complicated.

We are currently going through the loss of the y chromosome although it will take a long time if it does happen. But this has already happened to other mammals, and do you know what happened to these mammals that lost the Y chromosome entirely? Nothing, still both sexes. Because, and proving that, it isn't that simple.

It’s very simple if you actually read the IOC Guidelines.

Step one : screening test for SRY gene. If negative can compete in women’s category.

If positive, need further testing to ascertain whether the athlete is androgen sensitive. If yes, they can’t compete against women, if no, as in CAIS, they can.

Honestly, none of the “biology is soooo messy” crew seem to have understood the judgement at all.

Helleofabore · 27/03/2026 07:48

DeepBlueDeer · 27/03/2026 05:39

This doesn't sound all that "simple" to me.

It is simple to me that transgender athletes ought compete with their biological sex, which is usually easily and conclusively determinable.

I don't think it's so simple for athletes with DSDs, and that the going-forward approach is "people with these DSDs are treated as males, and with these DSDs as females" does seem to underscores that.

I think the decision ultimately seems to be the right one but I nonetheless do retain sympathy for those athletes who always thought, with good reason, that they were girls/women. I feel deeply uncomfortable with labeling some of those people as "cheats".

People were always (rightly) quick to point out that using intersex people to argue for trans rights was not appropriate, but I think there's a tendency among some "gender critical" folk to view people with DSDs no differently to transgender folks on occasion.

I feel sympathy for those with medical conditions where in the past a medical team decided that they were female when they were a male person.

Feeling sympathy for a person in that situation should not have meant giving them special consideration to enter the female sports category, in my opinion. On the other hand, having sympathy for them should have meant taking actions, for an example, to ensure their communities were better informed to eradicate negative discrimination.

With the technology and knowledge that has been available for a long enough time now, combined with understanding where some of these DSDs cluster, I would also exact that the prevalence of those children remaining undiagnosed early is even smaller.

Can you name an Olympic athlete who competed at Olympic level in the last two Olympics without full knowledge of their medical condition and who would not have had full access to the same studies and papers that we all had about male androgenisation advantage?

Because after Rio, the IOC made it very clear that those athletes had to reduce their testosterone levels. Therefore they knew full well they had an advance because otherwise the IOC would not have forced the suppression of testosterone and by that stage the studies were showing there was no reduction in testosterone that removed the advantage.

The information was fully available and as Olympic competitors those male athletes had the information available to them. With all that information available to them, they still consciously chose to compete in the female category.

I think there are limits to describing ethical behaviour as merely being, if you can because the policy lets you but you know the policy is contentious and being challenged, then you should do something.

Helleofabore · 27/03/2026 08:02

Imdunfer · 27/03/2026 07:26

Suddenly the human rights of women are worth fighting for? The right not to have to be tested to play female sport, of course. This is an Australian Guardian report and Australia actually made a criminal out of a lesbian who refused to have male bodied people join her group. They prosecuted her, she has a criminal record. Apparently the IOC ruling is illegal in Australia!

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/mar/27/olympics-transgender-women-athlete-ban-human-rights-response-ntwnfb

Edited

I, personally, cannot see how the Australian Federal government can continue to ignore the mess that Julia Gillard influenced in the changes in the Anti-discrimination Act. This is being challenged now through several aspects, including as you point out from the situation of Lesbians wanting to exclude male people.

It leaves Australian sport in a precarious situation. Because to host the Brisbane Olympics in 2032, this situation will have to be fixed. And if sport is going to be the thing that fixes it, so be it. But it has to be done.

Gillard and her team created a mess on this specific issue. I believe she attended the Yogyakarta convention and was convinced. She was a qualified and experienced lawyer. She knew what she was doing.

GenieGenealogy · 27/03/2026 08:13

So let's celebrate the real winners in the women's 800m race at the 2016 Olympics.

Gold - Melissa Bishop of Canada (time was a national record)
Silver - Joanna Jozwik of Poland (ran a personal best)
Bronze - Lynsey Sharp of Great Britain (ran a personal best)