Nic Williams on Woman's Hour (Tuesday) talking about sport and gender identity

[OrchidInTheSun]

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1069731404488077318?s=21

Nic Williams will be debating with Beth Jones, who is an academic at Nottingham Trent www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/social-sciences/dr-beth-jones

As Katvon above says, Beth doesn't seem to be trans.

However why a psychologist is an appropriate person to conduct research into whether trans women have an advantage in sport is beyond me (and presumably her too given her lack of relevant qualifications).

I'm sure she was very highly paid for her endeavours though..

I hope they highlight that she's a social scientist otherwise people will hear the 'doctor' and 'research' and assume otherwise

Good luck Dr Nic

Looking forward to hearing this. There is enough evidence out there to prove that being born male bestows benefit in sport in terms of earning and performance. There is very little evidence that taking hormones removes that benefit which is why artificial hormones are banned in sport.

But this is about women and girls sport
Sport England did a lot of research into why women and girls don’t take part in sport
One of the conclusions from that report I think was single sex sport was very important
Even at club level not just elite athelets

reported in the Guardian as brave & stunning Lauren’s story, is what peaked transed me

Also me. Every time I so much as hear Helen Pidd's name, I peak all over again.

just reading about this on twitter

The 2018 Asian Women’s Handball Championship was yesterday won by Austrialia 29 - 24. Only Iran had an ALL woman team.
How is that fair?
Tomorrow Radio 4’s Women’s Hour discusses men identifying into women’s sport. Tune in at 10am!
Clips of the match:
facebook.com/35782783466167…

I expect Beth will create a straw man- either include trans people in sports according to their id or deny them the benefits of engaging in sport.

My prediction also. I hope Nic has worked this out and is prepared for it.

I agree, particularly in the case of young people, that access to sport is a good thing. This is not the same as allowing cheating in competitive events.

I posted this on AIBU earlier this year

Interesting research opportunitites on the Loughborough university site:

One of the most influential, powerful and visible institutions upholding the gender binary is sport – where participation is predominantly segregated by biological sex, rooted in the widely-held beliefs about fairness and the biological advantages associated with being male. Such beliefs are over-simplistic, legitimise discrimination, and hinder the sports participation of transgender (intersex, trans, non-binary) individuals. With the rapidly growing societal visibility of transgender people, there is an unprecedented need to address areas where discrimination may arise.

The newly formed Gender and Sport Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT), led by Dr Gemma Witcomb in the School of Sport Exercise and Health Sciences (SSEHS), is recruiting five highly motivated PhD students to explore the current and changing landscape of sports participation for transgender adults and children and recommend changes to promote inclusive participation.

www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ssehs/research/centrefordoctoraltraining/

The studentship provides a tax free stipend of £14,777 per year for three years

so 5 x £14,777 x 3 = £221,655

That's a lot of funding......

Not just finding - in the states scholarship is a Big Thing. Missing a women’s sport scholarship to a bio man?

MrsBeaujangles

Completely agree. Sport benefits everyone (i’d love to see more girls do sport) and generally there are lots of sports you can play or take part in recreationally that are mixed - maybe not just competitively.

And life isn't fair. At 5'1", I had to accept that I wasn't going to make the netball team. And a slightly built male isn't likely to excel at rugby lesgue

#lifesucks

I wonder if Dr Harrop was on a night shift when he was tweeting his missives at 4am?

Just looked at that Loughborough link:

"The more we delved into the issue, the clearer it became that many sporting organisations had overinterpreted the unsubstantiated belief that testosterone leads to an athletic advantage in transgender people, particularly individuals who were assigned male at birth but identify as female."

That's just nuts, isn't it? Why does she think that Eastern European female athletes were injected with testosterone for so long? Just because it was a fun thing to do? And of course she doesn't even consider the superior size, weight and muscle advantages of male athletes.

Nic should ask her why trans women are trouncing women in female sports, while trans men have made no such gains in male sports.

I hope she brings up one or more of McKinnon, Hubbard, Mouncey.

Im on holiday and can't access BBC i-player so really appreciate being able to follow the debate on here. Tia.

I'm sure Nic will bring them up. I hope she also brings up Fallon Fox:

whoatv.com/transgender-fighter-fallon-fox-sends-opponent-to-hospital/

Obviously this is an issue not just about the huge, glaring unfairness of allowing men to compete against women, but the physical danger it puts women in.

That quote from Loughborough website for those PhD posts is truly depressing. Funding to prove that natal males need to encroach on female spaces in order to access sport meanwhile this will discourage females from taking part and even fewer women and girls will benefit from sport and those attempts to encourage them will be undermined by the need to include transgender females and what little funding was available for this purpose will decrease. And I don't need three

I really hope Dr Nic comments in the fact that Beth is a psychologist, not a biologist and that she actually is.

Last sentence should say that I don't need three PhD students to spend a year thinking about it to come to that conclusion.

Oh yes how could I forget Fox!

I hope Nic asks about the pyschological impact on girls when, however much they train, they will never win: cyclists; swimmers; track and field.

One of the conclusions from that report I think was single sex sport was very important Even at club level not just elite athelets

In terms of safety DD played some non-competitive mixed adult hockey when she was 16. I was terrified, even though the nice young men were very aware and willing to hold back. And very relieved when she was accepted into a competitive single sex team.

I can't find it just at the moment but I remember reading something by the man who set the olympic criteria for trans athletes. The criteria are nothing to do with making it 'fair' in terms of competition, but rather about being 'inclusive', i.e. nice. The only reason there is any criteria at all is to act as some sort of gatekeeping. The problem is that this then focuses on testosterone as the be all and end all (because the criteria is a level of testosterone). So you get all this research about whether it really does have an effect or not. But it misses the point - limiting testosterone was never about bringing trans women down to the same level as women, but to stop it being a complete free for all. Predictably there are people who don't like any restriction on competing so are trying to break down the testosterone link, which ignores all the other advantages that male people have over female.

Bex/Stonewall, Sally Hines, Linda Riley, and now Beth Jones all have careers that are very much supported by trans related funding.

Follow the money...