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.

Tennis isn't the 100m.
Or the marathon, or cyclist road racing is it.

You can't ignore the physiological differences in biology based on sex, on personal experience of 1 or 2 examples.

Well if there's not enough women for a women's league in your club ice, eradicating women's sport isnt going to change that, and you probably still won't be allowed to play the men...

And you will never, ever, in a million years be gold medalist or number one against men.

Women will never have the vaguest chance to be top of their game once men and women are mixed.

Women's sports is women's sports. In it's own right. It is entertaining and exciting to watch. Four women have rowed across the Pacific to raise money. That's a fantastic achievement and they looked rightly so triumphant!

Men's sports is men's sports. In it's own right. It is entertaining and exciting to watch. But it isn't and should never be the default.

Sport is all about gross motor movement isn't it? So wrt first principles, the bigger the better.

Fine motor movement isn't lauded at all, although back in the day it was a way to prove how 'feminine' one was but we never hear about needlepoint champions and they were judged on embroidering clothes for men to wear mainly anyway

I am sure short peoples sport could be short peoples sport too...and the very best short people could compete...and we could all be amazed that they could still thrash us at the pole vault even though we tower over them....

I don't know why that isn't a thing yet womens sport is?

I mean you could put the height barrier at half the population....to have the same 50:50 split you get with male female....

Honestly - why shouldn't short people get to compete against other short people on a level playing field? Without the short olympics there is no chance of short people competing on the world stage or fulfilling their dreams of becoming professional athletes (except in a minority of sports in which small stature is an advantage). Where are the sporting role models for short children? Why should they take up sport when there is noone like them performing on the world stage?

Can you see this is identical to the argument for women only sport..even to the detail that there are a few sports women would stand a chance in?

I bet short people are kept out of the army too....

first sentence should say they I am sure that short peoples sport could be an entertaining sport in its own right also.

If you want to campaign for the short Olympics, knock yourself out.

no point as I am above world average height....

You could go by hair colour and ban hair dye?

I am pretty sure us gingers are at a genetic disadvantage in sport....

You can be a short ally. You don't have to be short to campaign for short rights you know.

I think the olympics should be done by lottery. The IOC selects a team from each country via a random selection from their general population and the team then gets 1 year to train.

Then winning a lot of medals would be the result of having a healthy general population rather than the result of happening to have the biggest genetic outlier residing in your country at that particular time point.

Then governments would pour money into the health and well being of the whole population rather than funding a few exceptional people to devote their lives to the somewhat pointless activity of perfecting their pole vaulting technique...

All in all I think it would be more fun, more inclusive, more interesting and would get more people interested in sport.

Seeing normal people doing athletics would be a whole new experience - and might actually inspire children to think they could do it and enjoy it too.

Yes, it could be a bit like the Hunger Games. The most exceptional team would be allowed to live. That would inspire people and get them interested!

maryz womens sport should be undermined...because womens sport undermines feminism....It would have made almost no difference to my life if professional sports women didn't exist...it makes a big difference to my life that people think all women are inferior at sport to all men....to the point that they can't play against each other....at any level.

Making all sports open would stop people segregating sport by gender across the board.

Neither me nor my husband get to play league level sport...I don't because their aren't enough women to make up a womens team...and he can't because being a little bit worse a player than me he can't get in the mens team and wouldn't be allowed to make up numbers on the womens team because he has a dick. If the leagues were all open we would have a 1st second and third team...me, my DH and all the other club women would get to play.

Seriously, splitting by gender first over ability is about as sexist as it comes. Why would any feminist support it?

venus...er..I guess...or they could just get medals like they do now?

It would be awesome....and could work like jury service.

If your name came up you could go train for the 100 m butterfly....it would be all the more interesting a personal interest story if you first had to conquer your fear of water and learn to swim!

I like my idea better, but you're right, we can do all sorts of random shit if we want to. Not really the topic under discussion though, is it?

On the minus side the IOC ruling does seem very VERY unfair on the current professional female athletes who have invested their time and effort into sport on the basis that they could compete and have a chance at being the best to change the landscape around them and doom them to mediocrity.

On the plus side, records will be tumbling left right and centre....and equilibrium will return rapidly once the upper echelons are filled with trans women and it will just be a slightly different random selection of society that gets to go to the olympics than the random selection it was before...and they will still look like women - so the argument about putting girls off sport won't really hold...

maryz just because someone thinks something very different doesn't mean they are trolling. I genuinely believe what I have said on this thread. I do think professional athletics is pointless and that womens only competitions are demeaning to women.

I also think the olympics would be better if it was real people competing but accept that very few people agree with me on any of this.

maryz why wouldn't they look like women? I was under the impression most trans women look like women?

ice the segregation wasn't random before. It was based on biology.

on one random aspect of biology....could have been height...or build..or race...