AIBU to think female sports categories should apply at all levels not just the olympics?

[Fastline]

In light of the welcome news that biological males or people with SRY (Y) gene are no longer allowed to compete in the women’s category in the Olympics, AIBU to think that it shouldn’t only be elite sports women who should have fairness and safety in sport?

AIBU to think that all women and girls deserve the protected female category for both fairness and safety from grass roots sport to county level and beyond.

I mean, what is the point of having separate categories, which are there for biological differences if anyone can self identify into them.

........... in the latter, encouraging participation becomes more important

Wow. To encourage participation, it's okay for men to bulldoze their way into women's sport, as long as it's only at an amateur level.

Men in women's sport does nothing to encourage women's participation - it does the opposite.

Men already have plenty of opportunities to participate in sport - far more than women.

There are numerous male people in the UK currently playing regional league football. How many playing in one regional league do you think is acceptable when just one can cause harm to a female player? If the harm simply is that a female player is discouraged and leaves because that person is receiving acclaim and reward from others for their playing technique, is this harm enough?

What is your personal bar for 'harm' to female players before you fully support the exclusion of male people from female football at all levels?

In the Sydney metro league there are 5 male people playing in one female team. Other teams have had meetings to discuss this issue and been threatened with sanctions from the organising body.

THE IMPACT OF MALE INCLUSION ON FEMALE SPORTS

Fairplay for women have released this report as follows.

For years women and girls have been facing unfair, and sometimes unsafe, sport because of trans inclusion – which means male inclusion in women’s teams, events and changing rooms.

and

The scale of the problem, and its effect on women and girls, has been concealed by the fear around this issue. A culture of intimidation and silencing has forced women to keep quiet or walk away. This is not inclusion, it’s female exclusion.

Fair Play For Women has heard personal reports from across 35 sports in the UK. From these, we have compiled around 50 personal testimonies representing 25 sports. We have protected their identities because they are worried about reprisals in their sport, or about the possible impact on relationships or on their jobs. Given that women have lost their jobs for expressing opinions about this, they are probably right to be cautious.

Our report gives them a voice. This, the first ever report on the impact of trans inclusion in the UK, shows a widespread problem, affecting many women and girls all over the country, at all levels, from juniors to masters and at all levels of competition and participation. Women and girls are being put at risk and their legitimate concerns disregarded. Their stories debunk the claims that this is a small problem, affecting only a few, and that it does no harm. They include big sports like football, athletics, swimming and cycling, and contact sports like judo, American football, ice hockey and roller-derby.

https://fairplayforwomen.com/new-report-how-trans-inclusion-in-sport-is-harming-women-and-girls/

60 year old men would have also played football at school. I doubt many 60 year old women played when they were at school.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HOW A FEW CAN NEGATIVELY IMPACT MANY

Tweet from Mara Yamauchi on 13th December 2025

x.com/mara_yamauchi/status/1999910910782222623?s=46

“At least 11 males ran in the Female category in UK parkrun today.
Two ran at the same parkrun. One got 7th Female so nearly the entire female field got bumped down, of whom 13 women got bumped down 2 places.

Of these 11 men, at least 7 have broken UKA rules by racing in the Female category in licensed events (one has broken the rules at least 8 times & uses the slogan “F UK Athletics”). One of them is this man - “F JK Rowling”. 👇

Between them, these 11 men bumped down >1000 females.”

This is why just one matters.

AN ANALYSIS ON HOW JUST A FEW MALE PEOPLE CAN CAUSE HARM TO MANY FEMALE ATHLETES - THE FALSITY OF 'JUST ONE'
@hecheateddotorg
18th March 2025

To analyze performance differences between "trans"-identified male and actual female participants in girls' sport, we need look no further than girls' high school track and field.

Track and field provides the clearest data as it is an individual sport and has had the highest number of recorded male participants to date at the high school level.

There are a total of 37 male athletes on record who have participated in girls' high school track and field in the United States.

Of these 37, one athlete participated in only one race due to the cancellation of the season during the COVID 19 pandemic. Another athlete participated in a tech/private school league that did not participate in a state championship. These two athletes will be excluded from the data.

Out of 1,276 completed events, male athletes finished as follows:
1st place: 440 (34%)
2nd place: 188 (15%)
3rd place: 123 (10%)
Other: 485 (41%)

Male athletes came in 1st 34% of the time, only 7% less often than they did than any other place outside the top 3.

They finished in the top three in 59% of their events and outside the top eight in only 19% of their events.

24 of the 35 male athletes (68%) qualified for their respective State Championship meet in a total of 136 events.

When looking at athletes competing against same-sex peers, depending on the state and division of competition, anywhere from 5 to 15% of athletes are expected to qualify.

For example in states that use regional-sectional qualification, the top 4 finishers at a regional meet (often with 2 heats of 8 runners each) qualify for the sectional meet where the top 4 finishers at the sectional then advance to State. This means that out of 32 runners at regionals, only 4 (12.5%) will advance to State.
This number also does not take into account the fact that only the best runners on a team will be entered in a regional meet and often the same runner will qualify in multiple events. A runner may also have a higher chance of qualifying in a relay as 8 runners (top 2 teams) advance to state rather than 4 in this type of qualification.

In other types of qualification or less competitive, smaller regions, it may be easier to qualify.

At the State Championship meet, there are typically 24 entries in each event. 1 of the 24 will win, meaning 4% of the 15% of athletes who have qualified for state will be a state champion, or 0.6%.

Of the 24 male athletes who qualified for state against girls, 11 of them (46%) have won a state championship title, or 31% of the total.

4 of the 35 male athletes (11%) have also achieved a top 10 national ranking.
The percentage of male athletes who have been in the top 10 of all track and field athletes in the female division in the entire nation is higher than the percentage of female athletes who have won a state title.

To find the percentage of female athletes who are in the top 10, we can take the 57 indoor and outdoor events ranked on milesplit. com multiplied by 10 (10 athletes in each) then divide by the total number of female athletes in high school track and field - 506,015 (according to nfhs. org).

This number does not take into account the fact that many athletes in the top 10 appear there in multiple events and several of the 57 events are less commonly run. (All 4 male athletes in the top 10 achieved that placement in a main event).
This means less than 0.11 percent of female athletes achieve a top 10 ranking.
"But not all states require hormone therapy!"

It is true that some states do not require males to undergo any sort of testosterone suppression or medical intervention in order to compete against girls.

We can therefore, look to the athletes who have reportedly begun "identifying" as the opposite sex and undergone "medical interventions" prior to puberty or in early middle school as it has been proposed that males who do so are in line with "average female performance."

There are 3 athletes who have reportedly "transitioned" prior to puberty. Based on their feminized appearances and high voices, we can infer this included puberty blockers.

All 3 athletes qualified for the state championship meet, 2 of the athletes were conference champions, and one athletes was not only a state champion and New England champion, but he was ranked in the national top 10.

None of these performances are in line with an "average" athlete. In fact, the national ranking out of three athletes is statistically unlikely to the point of being impossible without an athletic advantage.

"But you just know about the athletes who are good. There could be more you don't hear about because they don't win anything."

When we look at the expected percentages, we can see that about 6 out of 1,000 athletes win state and 1 out of 1,000 are in the top 10 national ranking.
In order to see the 24 males as state champions and 4 males in the top 10, there should be around 4,000 males who have competed in the girls' division in track and field. (3,965 additional athletes, none of whom can have won a state title).

There have been 37 on record.

Numerous state senators and legislators have come forward testifying to the number of "trans"-identifying males participating in their states.

When these legislators testify that there have "only been 2" in the state, or in the case of Ohio, 17 athletes in 8 years, and these numbers include all sports, and when male athletes have been banned from participating in girls' sports in about half of the states in the nation, it is not likely that there are an additional 3,963 male athletes that not only does nobody know about, but who also have not won a single state title.

In regards to the prepubescent "transitioners," there should be an additional 1,000 of them who have not won a state title or achieved a top 10 ranking. This is also highly unlikely, as we've seen multiple prepubescent "transitioners" in other sports also winning national and state championship titles.

Male participation in the female division is not just unfair, it is blatantly so.
These percentages do not reflect the cost to the female athletes behind them. Just 2 male athletes in cross country and track and field in Maine have negatively impacted over 2,000 female athletes.

If each male athlete negatively impacted 500 female on average, that means over 18,500 female high school track and field athletes in the United States have been forced to compete against and have been negatively impacted by these boys.

This includes loss of titles, loss of medals, loss of relay spots, loss of entries in large meets, loss of qualifications for championships, loss of records, loss of privacy, and loss of confidence.

*2 male athletes in Maine negatively impacted over 1,600 girls

3 boys in Washington, over 2,000

"Which is fine, no one expects things to be checked in amateur sports. It relies on honesty. There’ll always be cheats."

fast. Parkrun don't even ask people to be honest. They refuse to make a fair play statement and also remove the known men from women's results.

They remove known men from the women’s results?

Do they?

No they don't

That's my understanding

Sorry fast, I didn't explain that well, no, they refuse to remove the men from women's results. One man was imprisoned in 2017 but parkrun have allowed him to keep a women's course record.

Someone in parkrun needs to zap that time from the spreadsheet.

I see!

thanks for explanation.

Good grief.
You couldn’t make it up.

Be kind!

Be kind yourself I want to say!

ParkRun is a bad example as it is not affiliated to any governing body. Look at the rules from British Cycling, British Triathlon, UK Athletics, Aquatics GB, the WRU and no doubt many others and you will see that the rules apply at all levels.

Governing bodies can’t force event organisers to affiliate (a lot of mountain biking races for example are run by commercial bodies unaffiliated to British Cycling) but they can and do enforce the rules for affiliated events.

Christ the suicidal empathy from some women towards men who want our stuff is unbelievable.

no, fuck off, this is women’s stuff. I give not a single fuck if the men who stole our stuff are sad now they have to give it back.

I think Parkrun is a great example.

It’s base level, free sport that has a ranking for all participants and has displays fastest in categories.

But how would you "police" it? No one's provided proof of anyhting before being reported in their categories. No their ID, age. There's nothing to stop me letting DS run under my name if I was so inclined, let alone him running as a woman. Trying to implement a system that did prevent it would be expensive and time consuming, which goes against everything parkrun is.

It’s not about policing.

It’s about the rules.

There will always be cheats.

Parkrun have rules that allow biological men to register as women so that promotes an unfair sporting event.

parkrun rank their runners on their website.
Men have the opportunity to know where they sit in that race compared to others.
Women do not because some men register as women.

ParkRun isn’t a great example. It’s an outlier. It is an independently organised event which has chosen not to affiliate to UK Athletics. There will always be event organisers that choose not to affiliate to a national body but in any given sport the vast majority of events will be affiliated and follow that national governing body’s rules.

ParkRun is in no way representative of athletics in the UK.

It’s also how many young people get into running.

As per my OP, rules that include fairness should be at every level.

What is the sudden obsession with "policing" everything and declaring that therefore we must not have any rules at all unless they can be "policed" (or conversely that we must not have rules because the fictitious "policing" regime would be too onerous)?

Should we abolish recycling bins because we cannot install recycling bin police to verify that every single item placed in every single bin is on the list of recyclable items? No, that would be ridiculous.

We have rules and most people most of the time follow them. Dealing with the individuals who breach the rules isn't that difficult.

ParkRun is an exception in athletics. Just like RadRace is an exception in cycling. They choose not to affiliate to a governing body that prioritises fairness and there’s nothing anyone can do about it other than vote
with their feet.

Your OP implies that governing bodies only enforce sex categories at the elite level when this is simply untrue.

Up until 2024 Olympics in Paris, many sporting organisations including Athletics, had policies that permitted self id into the female category and many had testosterone limits in competitive categories. Lord Coe, who presided over World Athletics in the run up to the Rio Olympics when sex testing had been dropped and the 800m womens podium had 3 XY chromosomed people on it, said that he would die in a ditch to protect the right of transwomen to compete at grass roots level in the category of their identity. This shifted with the Paris Olympics... and World Athletics were one of the first to herald the new clearer rules restricting the female category to females. For some organisations who really fought for inclusion (in fact the UK Sports council renamed their policy and website from Equality to Inclusion and the IOC made a huge press release saying Inclusion was more important than fairness).. it has been very hard for them to back track, not least because a small part of them had to buy in to the narrative that Inclusion was more important in order to write the policies. It is great that things have changed, but I am not able to forget how readily most sporting organisations were able to convince themselves that men should have the right to self id into the womens category..

@ChateauMargaux World Athletics brought in its policy in April 2023, over a year after Cycling, Triathlon, Swimming and Rugby. They (and Coe) were laggards, hardly ‘one of the first’.

You are right, I got carried away.. Many, up until quite recently, had some form of 'not gone through male puberty' and previously there were 'must lower testosterone'.. criteria.. in fact this 'not gone through male puberty was the last nonsense to be removed.

The point I was trying to make and tripped over myself in doing so.. that while many people believe, in the words of an earlier posters, that their sport has been clear on what the female category means and does not make a song and dance about it, the facts are that most sporting organisations brought in some policy permitting males in the female category around or before 2016 and despite receiving guidance in September 2021, most took their time reversing these guidelines and some specified for elite completions only...