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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

Trans Park Run Deletion

991 replies

TheUterati · 30/04/2018 12:25

Poorly played, MN, very poorly played.

The perspective that when male athletes identify as female athletes and on the basis of that are eligible to compete against women, they are cheating is an absolutely valid one that is deserving of discussion.

Points in its favour are:

  1. The context of cheating in sports as a whole - those self-harming activities that athletes willingly participate in to give themselves a competitive edge.
  2. The evidence that mediocre male athletes who identify as female manage to then carve out glittering careers where those would not be available to them had they continued to compete as males.

It is an absolutely valid perspective.

Accusations of cheating against specific individuals may well be against talk guidelines, in the absence of supporting evidence, but those individual posts can be deleted and a friendly warning from MNHQ posted on the thread.

Males identifying as females and competing in female sports is a key issue in GRA, whether it occurs at the 'social, fun' end of things or at at Olympic level. To silence this debate is an appallingly heavy-handed.

OP posts:
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Rufustheconstantreindeer · 30/04/2018 15:25

Agree with trousers

Peer reviewed evidence will be required Smile

busyboysmum · 30/04/2018 15:26

It seems to me that feminist chat has got very anti-feminist all of a sudden. I don't recognise all these new posters but they certainly don't seem to have very feminist views. Are we under attack by MRAs?

AngryAttackKittens · 30/04/2018 15:28

Yes

CadyHeron · 30/04/2018 15:29

In general women and girls are not supposed to be competiitve, especially not ruthlessly so as required at higher levels, and if they really must do sport they must do it while looking sexually appealing.

Confused Women absolutely can be competitive at sports. Parkrun isn't competitive though. Since when do women have to do sport whilst looking sexually appealing?! I must have forgotten to get a copy of that memo. I look like an overweight running bag lady, and have zero make up on (like I have zero make up on every other day) when I do it. That is just.....complete, total projection on your part as of course women can be competitive, of course they can run non prettily.
Ereshkigal · 30/04/2018 15:31

Parkrun isn't competitive though.

Why do they collect and display biological information?

AlecTrevelyan006 · 30/04/2018 15:32

Parkrun IS competitive for anyone who wants it to be

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 30/04/2018 15:32

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

CadyHeron · 30/04/2018 15:34

Why do they collect and display biological information?

I don't know, it's obviously problematic for some when it's non competitive.
Should they just stop collecting it? It only ever shows next to name on the rankings board. Doesn't matter a jot in the event itself.
As someone said, the more the merrier. It's not taking away places for women or anything,as males and females are all in one big list together.
(I'm happy for it to stop as it is, not advocating getting rid of it.)

CadyHeron · 30/04/2018 15:35

They are both male. What other differences are important?

So taking self ID out of the equation, you are saying that fully transitioned males to females are still male?
Can you not see that that is kind of the definition of transphobic?

Ereshkigal · 30/04/2018 15:36

I don't know, it's obviously problematic for some when it's non competitive.

Yes it is problematic when they are quite clearly directly encouraging competition.

AlecTrevelyan006 · 30/04/2018 15:40

The fact that Parkrun collects data on gender means they can prove that 49% of participants are female - which is a really useful statistic to know for studies about female participation in sport and exercise

It would be a less useful statistic if lots of people recorded as female were actually trans women

Ereshkigal · 30/04/2018 15:41

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 30/04/2018 15:43

So taking self ID out of the equation, you are saying that fully transitioned males to females are still male?

Yes.

Can you not see that that is kind of the definition of transphobic?

It is unfortunate that facts based on verifiable reality are deemed transphobic by the thought police.

LangCleg · 30/04/2018 15:45

Why do they collect and display biological information?

I don't know.

Isn't it obvious? People enjoy comparing themselves on a like by like basis. Parkrun want to encourage this because a) it helps their popularity to offer extras that people like, and b) it will motivate people to keep coming back and therefore improve their fitness.

I do agree with Cady that Parkrun would destroy its own ethos by attempting to police this officially, especially not aggressively. But any MTF trans participant who doesn't at least mark themselves as assisted is behaving in an extremely entitled and unsporting manner and making it harder for women to compare themselves against other women.

Rufustheconstantreindeer · 30/04/2018 15:47

This is the definition of transphobia

Definition of transphobia. : irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against transgender or transsexual people.

I can't see itsallgoing has done the above

Rufustheconstantreindeer · 30/04/2018 15:48

I do agree with Cady that Parkrun would destroy its own ethos by attempting to police this officially,

Yes

I think cady is bang on the money with that

OnTheList · 30/04/2018 15:48

Ahh I wish I had been back on this morning before it was deleted. I was accused of being transphobic in there for saying that if a transman was taking testosterone then they should not be competing with women and it should come under normal doping rules. Wanted to see if there had been any further replies to me.

(I understand park run is not a race as such, but I was speaking more generally about transpeople in sport)

OnTheList · 30/04/2018 15:49

But yes, I appreciate the work MN are doing, and do accept that sometimes I will disagree with some of their decisions, but I am very grateful for them continuing to allow discussions on this topic when it would have been so much easier to give in to the transactivists bullying.

OnTheList · 30/04/2018 15:50

It seems to me that feminist chat has got very anti-feminist all of a sudden. I don't recognise all these new posters but they certainly don't seem to have very feminist views. Are we under attack by MRAs?

MRA/TRA, whats the difference really? Same tactics, same views on women..

TERFragetteCity · 30/04/2018 15:51

So taking self ID out of the equation, you are saying that fully transitioned males to females are still male? Can you not see that that is kind of the definition of transphobic?

They will always BE male.

They cannot change their very essence of being, their whole socialised history and they will never have experienced any of the 'issues' that women experience.

How do these 'women' identify out of prostrate cancer?

Biology is transphobic it would seem.

Rufustheconstantreindeer · 30/04/2018 15:52

i was accused of being transphobic in there for saying that if a transman was taking testosterone then they should not be competing with women

Absolutely

If a transwoman is a women and should therefore run with women

A transman should obviously be in the mans race

I mean thats the logic isn't it (not sure if i agree with it myself)

OnTheList · 30/04/2018 15:56

Well it was in reply to someone saying that if transwomen should run with men, then should transmen run with women. I said yes of course, however if the transman is taking testosterone then they should be treat the same as any other woman who was taking testosterone and disqualified, so in that case they should run with men so they do not disadvantage women.

Apparently that was transphobic. Rather than common sense.

OnTheList · 30/04/2018 15:59

I think some don't like the fact that I think of women first and foremost. My main concern is keeping women safe, and making things fair for women. So I really do not think that in saying transmen on T should run with men...means that transwomen should run with women. Given transwomen have an advantage over women too.

Maybe the best way to sort this mess is to have womens sport, and then 'other'. As men will not be disadvantaged in any way by having both transwomen and transmen running with them, so this is the fairest way I can see.

Rufustheconstantreindeer · 30/04/2018 15:59

Makes perfect sense to me onthelist

richmarr · 30/04/2018 16:04

SardineReturns, "obvious" isn't enough, no. Plenty of things people consider obvious turn out to be untrue.

I very clearly asked for a reasoned argument, ideally evidence. By that I don't mean that you should have a study, I mean that you should be able to explain the chain of events through which girls become disengaged with sport so that each part can be discussed.

If it's so clearly the case you should be able to make a reasonable argument that it's a likely outcome. Especially since you seem to claim so much as fact "we know [X]... we know [Y]". I'm sure there's plenty you know that I don't, but if you want to convince me you need to do more than make unsupported claims.

There are a huge number of challenges and injustices facing young girls, but they don't have an attempted suicide rate of 40%, so this is not an area where I personally am comfortable coming to hasty judgements.

At the end of your comment you say "And so, here is the solution. Put sport back where it belongs" but I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. Could you clarify?