The death of women's sports?

[vicviking]

Sorry but seeing the threads on British Gymnastics and Kathleen Stock's comments on the race have made me seriously question what women's sports will look like in 10-15 years from now. We have an obesity crisis; we have women and girls under-exercising (esp once they hit puberty) and we now have a movement that would eventually make it impossible for natal women to win in some sports and leave them more vulnerable to injury in others. There is also the issue of having to share dressing rooms with natal boys/men.

I already decided against enrolling my daughter for gymnastics for a variety of reasons (including safeguarding) but have been considering team sports. I do wonder now about her safety if she starts to have to play against teams with natal boys.

And no I am not a pearl clutcher - I evaluate risk quite carefully. The risks of never being able to win at an individual sport, injury in a team sport and having to share a changing room with a natal boy when would prefer privacy and dignity for her developing body are real. Maybe not now she is so young but with the policies that are being put in place and the creeping acceptance of these nonsensical practices what will women's sport look like when she is at her peak age for performance? Will her and her friends still bother with sport or will these policies have driven women and girls out? Do the governing bodies advocating these policies care?

Many sportspeople hurt their careers by boycotting South Africa in apartheid times.
They stood up for a principle at cost to their sporting ambitions and it made a difference.

That poor man that got stabbed by Lauren Jeska, 'transwoman' was one, as I recall.

The dreadful irony of a man who took a hit to his sporting career to ensure fair play, being stabbed by a male person competing as a female who was refusing to submit to tests to meet the (already inadequate) rules supposed to ensure fair play.

Miss hits Judy Murray

Judy recognised need for girls to play tennis with other girls and coaches are all women Role models

Miss hits is the programme she set up

Girls don’t like playing tennis against boys

Not fun

I'm another one who recalls the first time they made us play hockey with the boys. I was a member of the finest first XI girls' team in our county, I might add - we used to thrash all the teams we played.

First games lesson in the sixth form, some bright feckin' spark in the PE dept thought we could play together. It lasted about ten minutes before so many girls had been clobbered, shoulder charged and knocked over, etc that a halt was called and we resorted to single-sex games again.

The thing with the Equality Act exemptions is that they do not say, for example, "sports must be sex segregated". It says that sports may be sex segregated (in certain circumstances) and that if they are that will not constitute unlawful discrimination.

So it is up to the body responsible for a particular sport to decide whether or not their sport is sex segregated. It's not unlawful to allow trans women to compete in women's competitions. All the EqAct does is allow "discrimination" (ie sex segregation) that would, in other circumstances, be unlawful.

I was drawn to play against a man who identified as a woman in a golf tournament. The local league officials were so afraid of making a mistake that they agreed that he should play the women's course. (Men's tees are further back, and women's tees are forward. Men play a longer course than women)

I'm bloody sure I detected a smirk as he tee'd off. He was powerful, muscular and had a neck like a bull.

To cut a long story short, women dropped out whenever he was a competitor and asked for their money back. The dithering officials were faced with poor attendance, a dip in income and the sight of his ugly mug in the local papers, clutching a trophy at every event. They were only saved when he had to move to the other end of the country.

He also left the seat up in the Women's toilets every time.

I think the AFLW/Hannah Mouncey issue is an interesting one. They took the approach of putting in parameters that they thought was a compromise; allows for the safety aspect of differing size in a contact sport to be considered, while not excluding trans women completely. Mouncey felt hard done by of course, and got to have a tantrum write about it in an international newspaper. The AFLW probably breathed a sigh of relief; they got to look like they were still “woke” enough to consider someone like HM as having a fair chance, while making sure it was unlikely to happen, because of, you know, biology. Personally however I think they took the coward’s approach. They should have stood up for female sports participation and the protection of women and said “No, it’s not fair, we are not having it”.

I suspect many sports organisations will follow this cowardly pathway.

There is an organisation called Women in Sports (I think) which is involved with research and campaigns to get more women participating in sports. Now that self_id is being pushed through, it would be pertinent to ask them the question of which women they are referring to when they write about women.

Yes, it seems bloody obvious that a lot of women who have joined a specific women's sport or women only activity will just drop out because they feel unsafe due to mismatched strength, despondent due to unfair competition and self conscious due to the presence of a male bodied/socialised person.

I also wonder about safeguarding. In my daughter's sport, 13 year olds can play in the ladies team. They all use one open changing room and the advice to sporting bodies is that a teams person can choose to change where they want.

trans person not teams

Self ID can't work in sport. I think all the governing bodies for women's sports should come together and make this clear.

Self ID is a joke in sport, my DH who is middle aged and good but not national standard in his sport would make the commonwealth games and maybe olympic standard as a woman. On an amateur level where there's no testosterone testing he would win first place as a woman everytime.

I keep coming back to the key question: why do we segregate/separate the sexes for sports in the first place?

We need to keep asking that question - because it provides the key answer needed for why transwomen cannot be allowed to enter women's events.

Women in Sports (I think) which is involved with research and campaigns to get more women participating in sports. Now that self_id is being pushed through, it would be pertinent to ask them the question of which women they are referring to when they write about women.

Blimey, unless we all turn into modern day Mrs Jellabys with our nonstop letter writing (nothing but love for you, Dickens) we need the women's organisations to assert themselves and anticipate these issues and publicise the 'unintended consequences'.

It’s because they are utterly obsessed and will do ANYTHING to win at their sport.

^^ To succeed at high level in sport, your dedication and drive to win places you south of what would be normal for many people. Look at all the drugs scandals and the attempts to stay ahead of the testing technology. Why go through all that when it's as simple as Self-ID?

AND - the financial rewards available for a world-class gold medallist are enormous.

I can foresee a number of men going the self-id route for this.

AND - the financial rewards available for a world-class gold medallist are enormous.

^^ Yes! Now there are increasing numbers of sports championships in senior age categories (I mean 40+ - 90+) the lesser awards and rewards are valuable because at the moment new world records are being set all the time.

It would be unbelievably easy for older men to Self-ID and blow away the current women's world records. Oddly enough, the accelerated decline of muscle mass, and fragility of bones, compared to men, means that women's performance in some of the very senior age groups could easily be obliterated.

I've mentioned before my DB1. He's never had any interest in politics of any type. Utterly apathetic But he's very keen on sport. He competed nationally and now coaches under 18s of both sexes, some to national level.

He surprised me last time we met up by knowing the name of the man who took the Canadian women's cycling medal. I was amazed. Cycling isn't even his sport.

Saw him last weekend and he's still incensed. He knows more about it now - obviously been doing some reading (which he hates).

I think a lot of men who really love their sport and who value sporting behaviour will be outraged when they see men pushing women out of sport and, as we so often acknowledge, men's opinions are more valued.

I wouldn't feel equipped to write to women's sporting organizations because I have always hated sport apart from equestrian events. But it would be good if women who are interested and knowledgeable wrote to these bodies. It seems a lot of these TRA gains are partly because bodies, councils, etc simply don't think about the effects on women and girls. The more we speak the better.

Anyone remember the stories of 'Surly Shirley' back in 1976, she couldn't win in her swimming races at the Montreal Olympics because some of the East German & USSR women she competed against were part of a state sponsored doping programme and built like brick shithouses. Sadly we've been here before. I can't believe this is happening again & the sporting bodies don't intervene-it will be the end of womens sports.

I think the general public will only realise what the effects of self-id in sports actually means, when a man wins the Wimbledon's Ladies Championship.

I wouldn't feel equipped to write to women's sporting organizations because I have always hated sport apart from equestrian events. But it would be good if women who are interested and knowledgeable wrote to these bodies.

I will try to write as I have DDs invested in this, plus have followed and championed women's sports for a number of years even though I don't do anything myself.

I think a lot of men who really love their sport and who value sporting behaviour will be outraged when they see men pushing women out of sport and, as we so often acknowledge, men's opinions are more valued.

Yes - agreed. Even if they don't care about women, men won't like the fact that (who they see as) other men are getting ahead in a sport by declaring themselves a woman.

Would it be reported as a man though? Think of the news coverage attack on a man in a subway station by 'women in dresses' (as it was reported). Not one newspaper I saw pointed out the obvious fact that these were transwomen.

I keep coming back to the key question: why do we segregate/separate the sexes for sports in the first place?

We need to keep asking that question - because it provides the key answer needed for why transwomen cannot be allowed to enter women's events.

The Equality Act allows sex discrimination (and gender reassignment discrimination) in relation to sports where "the strength, stamina and physique of the average man" would give them an advantage over the average woman. I think that does it. It's about fairness.

You could ask why they separate competitors in contact sports like boxing by weight - same difference. In that case, of course, smaller, lighter men are not required to compete against larger, stronger men against whom they would have no chance of winning. Oddly, nobody seems to be trying to undermine that system, even though big men of moderate ability are excluded from competing in the groups where they might do best.

My niece is an athlete - and was a very successful one until she started getting stress fractures - caused by her failure to begin menstruation. She's still fighting to get back into competition after managing only one event in 18 months because of this. It's more common than people think.

It's a uniquely female problem...

Kooshbin Serena Williams has said she wouldn't stand a chance against any of the top 350 men. For an indifferent male tennis player, scratching a living somewhere around 200 in the rankings to win in the women's game the financial rewards would be enormous. I long for it to happen because that will be guaranteed to peak trans practically the whole world. Imagine the rant from Serena - last week's performance would be just a warm up.