Trans people being allowed to compete against women in the Olympics

[OhShutUpThomas]

The Olympics are now allowing men who have taken hormones for 12 months compete against women.

It is NOT transphobic to say that this is grossly unfair and a huge violation of women's rights.

Women who have trained all their lives cannot be expected to compete against people with male bodies and who will be allowed roughly 4 times the normal female testosterone levels.

It's not on. We can't stand for it.

Please get behind this mumsnet. Someone needs to take a stand.

It's NOT transphobic to state that this is unfair. It really isn't.

I totally agree that the trans activists are primarily after validation...and that this would be a massive own goal.

What they will prove is that trans woman are definitely biologically male.

I wonder if said transman running the 100m will wear the mens vest or the ladies little bra?

IceBeing if transfolk want to compete, they need their own competition. They cant hijack women's competition. It's quite simple really. I'm sure most feminist will support a para competition of the trans variety. Problem solved.
Oh, or would you rather trample all over women's vulnerabilities? Hmmmmm

I see trans women competing against women as a positive step for feminism because it will lead to the downfall of women's only competitions.

Nobody has an intrinsic right to become a professional sports person - you can tell this because the vast majority of people can't do it, whether male or female. So there is no 'female rights' perspective to this.

But women do have an intrinsic right to do a job they are actually qualified for - like serve on the front line of the military! But they are denied this on the basis of gender alone, in part because people in decision making positions look at things like the olympics and say - well obviously women are so much weaker than men...they have to have their own competition or they wouldn't be in it at all. (I actually heard that trotted out on Radio 4 within the last month as evidence that women couldn't serve on the front line).

So I genuinely think women should compete as equals against men...because the best women will then be seen to be better than the vast vast majority of the men....and people will realise how stupid it is to make arguments based on the average fitness of women versus the average fitness of men, and treat all people as individuals.

I think that's just you IceBeing

Icebeing, I work in tennis and I can tell you that you are wrong about the best woman being better than 99.9% of men. In many many sports it's about power, which women simply do not have compared to men.

The downfall of Women's only competitions
What downfalls are there from women's only competitions exactly?

nancy only about 1:1000 men could actually get a tennis serve reliably over the net...I reckon serena williams can take them all.

Where would she rank in the mens game? Top 100? Top 1000? She is still better than around 3.5 billion men....

I think in terms of actual biology (such as competitive sport) the only people arguing that there's no difference between xx and xy chromosomes are transwomen. The rest of us seem to recognise biology and aren't pretending it doesn't exist.

ice, you argument would also do away with the Paralympics and weight classes in boxing. Which, again, seems patently ridiculous to me.

IMO, doing away with all women's sport and therefore female athletic role models for children is a crazy idea. Most of the kids I teach don't enjoy sport just for the sake of it. They want to win, to be the next Dan Carter or Jessica Ennis-Hill. Take that away from half the world population even as a dream, or something to aspire to, and it's a step backwards.

As I have already said twice...having separate womens competitions damages the perception of women as competitive. It allows people to deny them into front line military jobs...it makes sport segregated from school upwards to the detriment of women playing at club level everywhere.

I bet Nancy cant actually say where serena williams would be in the world rankings....because women are SO WEAK it would be dangerous to let them play tennis against men....and hence it doesn't even happen at club level where lots of women could own lots of men...and hence sexism is further embedded in all our lives.

I have played club level sport when I wasn't allowed on the court because of my genitals even though I was playing at a level in the range of the others already on court waiting to play. They stood around like lemons waiting for the obligatory 4th bloke rather than play against me. Sexism at the top causes sexism at the bottom...and there are far FAR more women negatively affected at the bottom than there are elite women positively affected at the top.

jessica I thought the lesson of the failed olympic legacy was that people don't get into sport because they got inspired for a week or two?

If kids don't enjoy sports...maybe we should be changing the sports to make them more enjoyable...maybe especially for the kids that were never going to make it to the olympics anyway...

There are several synthetic sports (like korfball) that automatically level the playing field and enable people of different physiques to play together fairly. Maybe sport needs more of that and less...well boxing could definitely go....and pole volting - wtaf is the point of being the worlds absolute best pole volter? Can't believe we waste money on this crap.

Serena would possibly scrape top 100, more likely somewhere in top 200. You certainly wouldn't be watching her or any other woman in a Wimbledon final if the competition was mixed.
The fasted women's serve ever recorded was somewhere around 130mph, compared to a men's best of 165phm. That is not down to technique it's due to physical power

Wow I think we have a warped version of an MRA in our midst.

Oh and I don't recall saying anything about men and women playing tennis being dangerous! I guess your club had never heard of mixed doubles?

TA/MRA presumably interchangeable it seems.

nancy so why did you say she wouldn't beat 99.9% of men then?

There are 3.5 billion on the planet and only 100 she can't beat. So she can beat 99.999997 of all men.

This is what I am talking about...the perception is women are a lot weaker than men at tennis but in reality the best woman if bloody fantastic at tennis and can beat almost ALL the men.

Bloody fantastic but never good enough to be the best if the competition is mixed. What is the point in women playing a game they can not win? World class sports people don't aim to be number 157 in the world, they want to be number 1. Serena might be able to beat most men, but she won't beat the men that matter.

fuck mixed doubles. mixed doubles more than anything else in this sorry world can fuck off.

Imagine you have 4 players...the best is female, the next two are male and the weakest is also female. common sense says you play the two women against the two men to get the most even (and hence fun) game...but on no! because of fucking mixed doubles and the fact that genitals trump actual ability in sport you HAVE to play in mixed configuration meaning you have a shit wipe out game....if you are extra especially lucky the man you are playing with, who isn't actually as strong as you, will still insist on taking the majority of the shots because women are so shit at sport they need to have their own separate competitions.

oh good lord

I was really disagreeing with ice

Then i thought...ooh good point

And now I'm back to

Its a roller coaster

sorry rufus...I don't mean to be so unpredictable!

ice the only thing I'm getting from your argument is "I wanna play against the menz and I'm not allowed. No fair"
You really don't seem to be thinking about the bigger picture here. I don't want my daughter growing up in a world where it is perfectly acceptable for a biological male to beat the crap out of a woman. Fallon Fox.
Where men can waltz into women's only areas, just by saying "today I'm a woman"
Where men can do what they want and the little woman has to shut up and deal with it.

That's what will happen if we allow this. If we sit back, and say "well there's no point" then everything women have fought for will come crashing down piece by piece as our rights get trampled over again and again.

Its keeping me on the thread to be fair

nancy tell that to whoever is currently world number 157 in the mens game....apparently they think it is worth it!

I bet serena would make top 100 anyway...that puts her in the main draw at wimbledon. Many MANY men out there dreaming of being that good.

fatty it honestly isn't just me...I see all the women in our club ignored an underestimated. I see they all can't play in a competitive league because there aren't enough women playing in the area and they aren't allowed to play in the mens teams.

I also don't think this is the same as the other areas in which trans women genuinely are stripping back womens rights in the struggle to get some of their own.

There is no right to the life of a professional sports person. There is, I think, a right to being able to take refuge somewhere to recover from domestic violence and not have to share the space with penises.

Ice, I know players that have ranked higher than 157 and it wasn't good enough for them, professionals want to be the best. nobody remembers no 157 and there's no money in those kind of rankings.