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.

merrymouse
To address your earlier post:

However, women and men compete separately because their bodies are different as a consequence of their biological sex which can't be chosen.

Have you read nooka's links? Thought proving. This echoes one of the points IceBeing has made:

Embedded in the fair play discourse is the persistent assumption that all males (born or “made”) have a physical advantage over all females (born or “made”). Within the context of sport, it is clear that there is a strong, prevalent societal belief in the superiority of hegemonic masculinity (Cavanaugh & Sykes, 2006). Within gender policy, it is further assumed that some birth males would be driven to change their gender to participate in women’s sports to reap the benefits of inevitable success. Ironically, the creation of a system that provides a place and protection for girls and women to compete in sport is also the same system that necessitates their competitive inferiority (Wackwitz, 2003).

history.msu.edu/hst484-f15/files/2015/10/Sullivan-2011-JSSI.pdf

The IOC's own reasoning is that this change is necessary because of a change in society's perspective on gender

Another reason they give is that they don't believe the requirement for surgery is necessary to preserve fair competition. Outside of the document, I've read that surgery might have been prohibitively expensive for some transgender athletes.

That sounds like a load of obfuscating bollocks to me.

And most of society has NOT changed its opinion of gender. Thank god.

merrymouse
Because the fact that a particular trans athlete does not have an advantage in one sport could not lead to the conclusion that no trans athlete has any advantage in any sport.

Agreed, and presumably one of the reasons that different sport federations have their own rules.

Men may be generally stronger and faster than women, but within that there is a huge range of ability.

Agreed.

How can anybody say the new guidelines are unfair if the new orthodoxy is that anybody who self identifies as a woman is a woman? People might be upset, but the logical conclusion to trans woman = woman is that some women are better at sports than others, and they just happen to be trans (if it's even acceptable to refer to them as trans)

I don't see any problem with raising questions of fairness of transgender competition and I don't share your concerns. It's not a matter of agreeing that a trans woman is exactly the same as a born woman, more about treating a transwoman as a woman.

Re: IOC explaining its guidelines in more depth - in your position I would contact either the IOC or individual members of the committee and ask them. Some of the members have published papers available on the internet which would no doubt give an insight into their thinking.

That quote is such a mess. Or the concept is a mess. Not sure which tbh. It mixes up male/man/masculine and female/woman/feminine as if they are all the same concept

"Embedded in the fair play discourse is the persistent assumption that all males (born or “made”) have a physical advantage over all females (born or “made”). Within the context of sport, it is clear that there is a strong, prevalent societal belief in the superiority of hegemonic masculinity (Cavanaugh & Sykes, 2006). Within gender policy, it is further assumed that some birth males would be driven to change their gender to participate in women’s sports to reap the benefits of inevitable success. Ironically, the creation of a system that provides a place and protection for girls and women to compete in sport is also the same system that necessitates their competitive inferiority (Wackwitz, 2003)."

It's not a matter of agreeing that a trans woman is exactly the same as a born woman, more about treating a transwoman as a woman.*

and lots of us don't want to do that at the expense of women.

There's a word for somebody who takes a fuckload of hormones then finds themselves able to compete in a feild they would otherwise be unable to.

Isn't there.

"Within the context of sport, it is clear that there is a strong, prevalent societal belief in the superiority of hegemonic masculinity (Cavanaugh & Sykes, 2006)."

Societal belief?

The author of that text and anyone reading & nodding to it would be well served by reading a textbook on physiology, where they will see that:

Men have about 10-20% greater bone density than women.

Men have on average 36% greater muscle mass than women.

Men tend to have approximately 40% greater upper body strength and 20-30% greater lower body strength than women.

Men have larger lungs and greater lung volume, which leads to about 50% greater lung volume per unit of body mass than a woman of the same size

Men have physically larger hearts (about 10-15%) than women, and so have greater cardiac output leading to greater endurance.

Men have about a 10% higher erythrocyte count and a higher hemoglobin level, which leads to a higher oxygen-carrying capacity, which also leads to a higher endurance

Men produce more erythropoietin than women and also do so at a faster rate, leading to faster production of erythrocytes at altitudes

Men produce more clotting factors and have a higher platelet count, meaning that they heal faster from wounds inflicted during sports.

Exactly briss . You can't treat TW as women where biology is concerned

It's not a matter of agreeing that a trans woman is exactly the same as a born woman, more about treating a transwoman as a woman.

But why would you do that if you don't believe they are the same, and how can anyone be said to be treating a trans woman as a woman if they don't believe they are the same?

You don't have to share my concerns (or those of other people on this thread), but you haven't provided any argument to explain why there shouldn't be concern or been able to explain this decision. The only clear point you have made is that you personally aren't concerned.

Some of the members have published papers available on the internet which would no doubt give an insight into their thinking.

As other posters have said, this change has consequences that go beyond the IOC. It shouldn't be necessary to dig up research papers in order to understand a decision - it should be possible for the IOC to clearly explain their decision.

I very much doubt that anybody at the IOC cares what I think, but it would be good if MN could invite somebody from the IOC to explain their reasoning. I don't think anybody is going to be able to explain on this thread.

I really hate the way things like this are presented by people with an agenda. "Within the context of sport, it is clear there is a strong, prevalent societal belief in the superiority of hegemonic masculinity..." and "the persistent assumption that all males (born or made) have physical advantages over all females (born or made)...". As if there is some genuine doubt apart from in the cases of a few outliers and it's completely legitimate to gloss over this as merely a difference of opinion.

It's entirely dishonest, inaccurate and deliberately disingenuous.

The idea of women playing rugby against men has made my blood run cold.

Does anyone know why the 'polling' thread has been frozen?

It's reached the maximum thread size of ~1000 posts.

Oh yes, msrisotto, it reads as a new thread and only on page 2, but then says 1015 messages. I thought there were some dark moves from MNHQ afoot

I think that people on iphones can post on full threads due to a bug or something.

Yeah ok...this is nonsense and unfair

Maryz
Fascicle, the reason I think this decision is going to be so far-reaching is that many sport federations follow the Olympic guidelines.

I can't find any policies updated in the light of the IOC's guidelines. But even if federations follow the guidelines, there's this:

The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition. Restrictions on participation are appropriate to the extent that they are necessary and proportionate to the achievement of that objective.

CoteDAzur, I think the author of the article makes an interesting point. If elite sporting events weren't segregated according to sex, would women's performances and results be exactly the same? I'm inclined to think they wouldn't.

merrymouse
Re treating transwomen as women...

But why would you do that if you don't believe they are the same, and how can anyone be said to be treating a trans woman as a woman if they don't believe they are the same?

It's a bit like it not making any difference to me whether or not a British citizen was born in this country. The circumstances of their birth are irrelevant to their treatment.

it should be possible for the IOC to clearly explain their decision.

I very much doubt that anybody at the IOC cares what I think

If I felt the way you did, I would have no hesitation in contacting them and asking for a more detailed explanation. But yes, it would be great if an IOC representative (especially one of the contributors to the guidelines) could do a webchat.

BombadierFritz
That quote is such a mess. Or the concept is a mess. Not sure which tbh. It mixes up male/man/masculine and female/woman/feminine as if they are all the same concept

Which terms would you change, and what would you change them to?

I feel I should say that I don't agree with the content of all the papers I linked to, a couple of them were from a comment under a Pink Times link someone gave earlier - responding to a request for evidence.

The request was I think for someone to show the research that trans women had no advantages over women after a year of hormone treatment. I don't believe that any paper that simply dismisses the physical differences as some sort of societal belief is credible. Plus it isn't of course scientific research, just a paper that refers to previous papers and the thinking of other thinkers. Interesting, but very different.

There were some comments about potential disadvantages trans women might have over women, in that their musculature no longer fits their physical body (ie taking 'wrong sex' hormones isn't good for you).

I would like to see more research about the long term consequences of sex change medication, not so much because of the sports issues but because of the current pressure for non gender conforming children/teens to transition with apparently very little focus on the potential downsides of messing around with your body to try and make your mind feel better.

It's a bit like it not making any difference to me whether or not a British citizen was born in this country. The circumstances of their birth are irrelevant to their treatment

It's absolutely nothing like that at all.

It's a bit like it not making any difference to me whether or not a British citizen was born in this country. The circumstances of their birth are irrelevant to their treatment

venusinscorpio
It's absolutely nothing like that at all.

To me, it is. According transwomen fewer rights because they weren't born women feels similar to penalising people, or forever defining them, by other details of birth, over which individuals have no control. Another relevance of the analogy is the perception by some that people who join a group they weren't born into, erode the position of those whose rights were conferred at birth. I believe it is possible to co-exist in a broadened group without anybody's rights being diminished.