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.

being transexual may also be biological...or at least have biological origins.

Really still don't understand why it was wrong to say trans women would look like women....

oh well I guess I will find out when it happens...

Biological as in can change biological sex like a clownfish?

For the people above debating what rank of male tennis player Serena Williams could play against, you may be surprised to know that this is not a hypothetical question.

From Wikipedia:

Another event dubbed a "Battle of the Sexes" took place during the 1998 Australian Open[33] between Karsten Braasch and the Williams sisters. Venus and Serena Williams, aged 17 and 16 respectively, had claimed that they could beat any male player ranked outside the world's top 200, so Braasch, then ranked 203rd, challenged them both. Braasch was described by one journalist as "a man whose training regime centered around a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple bottles of ice cold lager."[34] The matches took place on court number 12 in Melbourne Park,[35] after Braasch had finished a round of golf and two beers. He first took on Serena and after leading 5–0, beat her 6–1. Venus then walked on court and again Braasch was victorious, this time winning 6–2.[36] Braasch said afterwards, "500 and above, no chance." He added that he had played like someone ranked 600th in order to keep the game "fun."[37] Braasch said the big difference was that men can chase down shots much easier, and that men put spin on the ball that the women can't handle. The Williams sisters adjusted their claim to beating men outside the top 350.

An 18 year old 4th ranked Serena Williams claimed she could compete with men in professional sport; the US Open champion believing she could take on and beat the best players in the men's game. Nothing ever came to be from this claim.[38]

So the best women's player in the world can't beat the 203rd ranked man even when he's playing poorly. How are we to believe IceBeing's notion that this wouldn't just spell the end of women's participation in sporting events?

Given the information we have about girls' sport increasing lifespans and self esteem, it seems like cutting off girls at the legs by having unisex competitions would lead to decreased lifespans and more mental health problems from girls. How nice that IceBeing is so dedicated to equality between the sexes that she'd happily take away something we know improves the quality and quantity of women's lives.

Really glad you quoted a real-life test, Womb.

I've posted on t'other thread about power lifters. Here's a quote: "The strongest female deadlifter in IPF’s recorded history was only able to tie with a man who was, literally, less than half her size. And she had a gear (equipment) advantage on him."
deadliftquest.com/can-girls-deadlift-as-much-as-guys-part-2/
Stats & background in the link.

I blame Hayley Cropper for all of this.

This thread's on Discussions of the Day! Whoopee! And the other one's on In the News

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Lol, Val.

Why on earth would you imagine that a man who takes drugs to reduce his testosterone for a year would look like a woman? Many athletes wear tight clothing while competing. Their penis and testicles are pretty bloody obvious! That's ignoring height and general shape of course. If you look at the silhouettes of the average man and the average woman there are plenty of differences to see.

I participate in a martial art. My club is mainly aimed at youth (I go with my ds). We practice against each other, and we all have things we are good and bad at. The skills required to go up belt levels are the same for male/females but in competitions we are segregated. Having sparred against the guys there is no way I could compete against them without getting injured. Even sparing with my son (16 and slightly taller than me now) results in some serious bruising unless he is pretty careful. Before Christmas one of the guys kicked me a bit too hard (I defended poorly too) and broke one of the bones in my hand. If we were fully mixed the vast majority of the girls would have to stop competing because it would be dangerous.

I don't know why you think it's feminist to pretend that when it comes to basic biology there are no differences between men and women. That doesn't mean that there aren't individual women who can perform as well as individual men. The answer to the military issue is to set standards for entry and allow women to try and meet them. Some will, most won't. If the rationale for excluding women is based on Olympic performance making all entry open won't help because instead of women in segregated categories there will just be no women at all.

Some people would argue that women ( particularly liberal feminists ) have only got themselves to blame for this.
Most white, middle class, lefty women support & embrace any minority/oppressed/ group out there, whilst belittling & (verbally) attacking anyone who has a 'daily mail opinion' - Would we be in this mess if the Jeremy Clarksons of this world were running things? - can't see him allowing this yet he's hated by liberal women. & while we've been championing everyone but ourselves, this sort of thing has been happening under our noses.
I honestly think it's too late to change anything now, if you say anything off the scripted agenda you're an ignorant bigot - so we just shut up & get shafted by everyone. Just from reading these threads, people are too scared to say anything on Twitter incase they get rape/death threats - & I don't mean being deliberately offensive, I mean just saying things like ' hold on a moment, is this really fair?' - you can't even say that sometimes. & we live in a free democratic country apparently?

No one gives a toss about me. I'm just a working class, UK born female - boring, unsexy, & of no interest to anyone.
< shrugs >

It seems like they are trying to prove we are transphobic by claiming you can't see a difference between women and trans women...
Kind of like, "well if you think they look like men you're obviously transphobic, theyre women and they look it"
When that's not the case at all. There are very visible differences between biological men and biological women. To deny that is ridiculous. That's also the point of this thread. The differences are there, not just in how we look, but how the male and female bodies are designed. Biologically male bodies are better designed for sport, therefore trans women competing against women is not on.

Surfer - agree. I'm afraid to get anywhere feminism is going to have accept that the brief period of relative female freedom and acceptance of our arguments is over, and that feminism has go back to being controversial again. The suffragettes were considered mad and dangerous by many; modern feminists needs to challenge Islamism and genderism and so will just have to live with 'bigoted'.

I fully support Mumsnet's decision not to get involved. I think it would be a terrible idea for them. Their well reasoned arguments against the IOC would be drowned out by the backing from the whole "blokes in a dress" and "They're 'Lady-feelz'" bunch. They wouldn't want to associate with them.

Yy. I imagine any official campaign would probably be attacked by a load of straw men too, so can see it is lose-lose for hq.

I saw a comment on one of the travel websites that literally made me LOL.

Someone had written that "I identify as a pregnant woman should I be worried to travel to Brazil in the Olympics due to Zika virus""

And below that "I identify as the Aedes mosquito I am very upset at all this hate directed at me"

Bizzare world we live in

I think those posts show that people are starting to realise how much horseshit so much of I am what I feel movement is

We can hope for some common sense before this comes into place but recent history shows that to be unlikely.

Even worse though, you can be sure there won't be any records kept, there will be no monitoring as to how quickly all the records and medals go to transwomen as they will just be listed as women and anyone else trying to keep track will be flamed officially and unofficially as bigoted. All we will see is records being broken here, there and everywhere.

Totally agree.

An idea that came to me on this is asking Sense About Science's Ask for Evidence if they would consider looking into this and pushing those in charge of this ruling to give the public clear evidence of their claims - both the biological ones and on the impact it will have. I think it is important that they show us the evidence for sports general, to women's sports specifically across ages, and each individual sport.

Getting the science community involved would possibly do more good than Mumsnet and they've done all sorts of politically volatile things so if enough people ask and show interest in getting this then they're quite likely to do so I think:
www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/askforevidence.html

In my younger days, I wrestled on an otherwise all male team, I could only compete in my weight class and spar with those 2ish classes in either direction, and the disadvantage was more dealing with crowds than anything -- but no one would have suggested then that doing that meant I could do boxing or race against any of the guys because that would be completely different. I think the evidence needs to be clearly shown in general and for every sport and I'm not really seeing any for sports in general.

Thanks for raising this OP.

It seems to me that the Olympic Committee has rather rushed into this decision and the various challenging issues could have been more widely explored and discussed before altering qualifying criteria for women's sport.

Generally I think it's so important that everyone be supported to live without discrimination and find their way through life however they are best able - and so support our LGBTQ + community

However I also have some interest in women's sport and feel there are challenges here to the integrity of, and respect for, women's sport.

A tricky one I'd say - that deserves to have a wider debate before decisions are reached

I fully support Mumsnet's decision not to get involved. I think it would be a terrible idea for them. Their well reasoned arguments against the IOC would be drowned out by the backing from the whole "blokes in a dress" and "They're 'Lady-feelz'" bunch. They wouldn't want to associate with them.

I don't blame them really - very politically tricky - and I'm not remotely surprised.

I do wish we could have some recognition that there is near-consensus of opinion, though.

Hi all,

Sadly, we have had to remove a few posts for troll hunting. As always, we're very happy for everyone to express their view; you don't have to agree with it, but as long as everyone posts within the guidelines, we'd like to encourage an open discussion.

We've been discussing these threads at MNHQ, and we'd be happy to ask a representative from the IOC or similar to come on for a chat, and/or to host a debate on the issue. We're currently putting some feelers out, but if there's anyone in particular you'd like to hear from, let us know; we can't guarantee anything, obviously, but we can always make an approach.

On the question of a campaign, we tend not to run them on issues where there's strong polarisation on the site (ie some people -albeit a minority - feel v strongly against), and in areas where we may not have a lot of influence (an international athletics body may, for example, be better placed to take this on). However, we can certainly host the debate and publicise the strength of feeling on this issue voiced here.

Thanks
MNHQ