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.

Looking at the article and the article it links to, I am still none the wiser. The trans Doctor they refer to claims to have influenced the decision, but frustratingly doesn't reveal any of her arguments.

The comments on that article are par for the course, sadly. One lovely individual rabid transactivist has already told a "TERF" to fuck off. It really is cultish. Or something which sounds very similar.

Please have a think about using "born in the wrong body". Its one of the pervasive things that people hear so many times they think its true. And its not, a baby's sex is decided a looong time before it has anything resembling a brain. Not denying the dysphoria, but it is the brain that is 'wrong', not the body (and i dont mean that in a medicalising sense)

I do not think it would be right to tell her, after all that she has gone through, that she is not "actually" a woman, because she is in almost of the sense of the word.

Seriously. Why are her feelings more important than women's rights? Why does validating her personal view of herself as a woman trump everything for everyone else, including all women have fought for, like protected sex-segregated spaces and for their sports achievements to mean something? I've been through a lot too. Why don't my feelings count?

You're falling into a common trap there Tiger - the idea that we have to let transwomen do what they like because their lives are so hard. Women's lives are, for the most part, much harder than men's but every thing that is brought in try to redress the balance gets jumped on by misogynists (sometimes these misogynists are even women) as being massively unfair. For example, we build rape crisis centres because women are all to commonly raped and then the misogynists complain that we haven't made them available to men who've been raped. If men want access to rape crisis centres then they should bloody well make their own - not try to take ours off us.

I think that she has been cheated about so many things by being born in the wrong body, so I wouldn't call her a cheat (nothing is black and white in this life, is it?).

'Born in the wrong body' is increasingly no longer used by mental health experts. It's the mind that is thought to require treatment. For no other mental health issue is cutting off healthy body parts an accepted form of treatment.

I truly do feel for people who feel, or are led to feel that their body is 'wrong.' It must be hard. But this hardship does not entitle you to trample over the rights of women by competing against them with a seriously unfair advantage. You said it yourself that your friend wins time and time again.

That's not fair at all.

But unfortunately, what you say is often their view. They've been through a lot so why shouldn't they? Entitlement, in other words.

Trans people deserve to be treated with care and respect. But they are NOT respecting women by demanding new rights, which require women's rights to be taken away from them - the right to fair competition, in this case.

The more I'm looking into this issue, the more articles and blogs and comments I read, one thing really stands out to me. Women asking for an opened and reasoned debate and trans people very aggressively shutting down the arguments before anything can even be discussed properly. I thought what happened to Germaine Greer was an extreme example. It's not, it is very much the norm.

Yep Tinkly - they say they feel like women but they sure do act like men.

Perhaps she has gone through a lot as well. Perhaps she is an abuse victim, perhaps she had to sacrifice her education for her sport, perhaps she has trained every day since she was 10 to be the very best she could be -

Perhaps she has a baby at home, had to take a year out for pregnancy and birth, and has to train around breastfeeding?

Been there!

My husband and I are both triathletes. The children are just becoming keen. I'm dreading the day when my daughter comes second to someone with a male body. Why would she bother again?

It's all very complex I think.

No, it really really isn't. It's perfectly simple from where I am. No objection to trans people living their lives any way they choose, no objection to her getting treatment on the NHS, and I fully support protection against discrimination in the workplace and public life. But I do not personally believe your friend is a woman, nor ever can be. I resent feminism having to centre trans issues, I think thy're pretty much irrelevant to the lives of women. I resent being told that I cannot discuss physical issues which directly contribute to women's oppression globally in feminist spaces (because basically it might make someone have to deal with the fact that they are not the same as women).

To be blunt, I think it's all postmodernist bollocks enabled by the terminally hard of thinking and also unscrupulous people with vested interest, and that your friend is suffering a serious medical condition with which I sympathise. And I'm not going to pander to the unsupported and I believe prejudicial worldview that subjective feelings trump biology. And I think it's outrageous that where women's rights to safety and protection from harassment are concerned and in many other cases, we should have to.

So I guess we'll have to agree to differ.

Entitlement, in other words.

That's exactly what it is.

I agree Venus.

The more I'm looking into this issue, the more articles and blogs and comments I read, one thing really stands out to me. Women asking for an opened and reasoned debate and trans people very aggressively shutting down the arguments before anything can even be discussed properly.

yes I have to admit I do tend to agree here

Depressing, isnt it claudia :(

smiles yes c'est la vie BBA

Urgh, apathy like that is even more depressing :(

(Sorry, to clarify, that isnt meant at all aggressively. I'm not to fab at getting the right tone sometimes )

IceBeing, why would I find the achievements of a transwoman any more or less inspirational than those of any other group to which I dont belong? How very odd to claim it transphobic.

maryz

The thing is the winner will more than likely be reported as a woman...not a trans woman

So someone that likes sports may notice a difference but all anybody who isnt fussed about sports (especially womans sports ) will see is yet another woman winning a womans race

Like with the crime reports or that person who pretends to be a paraplegic.

I don't think it's transphobic to say that people look for role models - I think it was Sally Ride who said "you can't be what you can't see". Women and girls tend to look to other women for examples of how to achieve, overcome obstacles etc. In the case of sport, there's not much inspiration or learning to come from a male person beating women in their category.

Do you ask black people why they don't find the achievements of whites inspirational?

Maybe that is why I'm not getting it. I don't feel any more attached to the group 'female elite athletes' than the group 'transexual elite athletes' or 'male elite athletes'. I am equally not a member of any of those groups...and to be honest neither is 99.999% of the human population.

ohshutup really...Im putting words in your mouth? What about all the places you rephrased of my arguments you did? check out your post of Tue 26-Jan-16 20:01:42 then come complain to me....you could check the others but they got deleted...

good netiquette my absolute ass.

hermione do you think we should have a separate 100m final for white people? The average white person won't beat the average black person in a sprint - so clearly it isn't a level playing field...