Women aren't men minus puberty

[IamThereforeIdontIdentify]

The discussion about men in women's sports is opening the door - wide - for boys who had had puberty blockers to take part in women's sports. The discussion about male puberty being something that is not undone by reducing sportsmen's levels of testosterone is valid and important. But there's something missing too.

I don't know how to address it, which is why I'm posting here, but female puberty isn't what happens in the absence of male puberty. The changes women's bodies go through surely also need to be framed as a) positive b) separate and valid in their own right and c) unachievable by simply avoiding male puberty.

Even a change in the language would be welcome (by me ) not framing the adult male form as the standard, which seems to be increasingly common when sports are discussed. I do realise that most sports were actually developed for men, which doesn't help.

But does anybody see what I mean and/or have ideas about any of this?

Going back to the puberty blockers, I guess it's possible that male teens/adults who've taken hormone blockers and cross sex hormones will not have the physical capacity to compete against girls who've gone through normal development. Which is sad in the physical implications of that for the teens/adults themselves. But at the moment I think it's fair to assume that in the next five years we'll start seeing these kids assuming they can join women's sports because their puberty has been blocked and our arguments about going through male puberty being an advantage will need to be unpicked.

I have also heard differences in haemoglobin loosely mentioned if at all. But women have a lower Hb due to menstruation and Hb carries oxygen so it's rather a big deal actually.

I heard Paula Radcliffe mention them this morning too - hadn't heard that before.

Pushed send too soon!

I don't know what the difference would be in real terms to the sex level differences though.

So are you hoping to frame female puberty as a disadvantage of sorts? But even within that you have so much varriation.

Hb levels are the whole point of blood doping (which is banned).

We could solve the sports problem very easily. We already have a Paralympics.
Simply arrange a Translympics.
These people can then compete against each other, without injuring female athletes or using male bodies to cheat in women’s events and set impossible records.
Judging by the numbers invading women’s sport at present, there would certainly soon be enough for a separate competition.

You're completely right. Women are not defective men.

We are quite commonly presented as 'men -', rather than a positive value in our own right. A lot of people also seem to think 'man - penis = basically a woman'.

Kids that have their natural puberty suppressed and go straight to cross sex hormones are unlikely to become elite athletes - the risks to health and life expectancy are enormous.

But yes, I appreciate that if we focus too much on the puberty aspect now, we will face different arguments down the line (and some children may have rushed into medical intervention on this premise).

The fact is, that even in the little red child development books given to all U.K. parents on the birth of their babies, the growth charts/expected milestones for male babies and female babies are different.

Sex is determined at conception and a Y chromosome should be enough to exclude a person from women’s sports (and 2 xx chromosome people cannot be allowed to compete on synthetic testosterone either, that’s just sensible anti doping rules).

I see what you mean, but I think it risks taking the debate back to arguments over language instead of arguments about biology.

I think a fair line is to establish what to do with the current crop of male bodied athletes. Once that is established, there will be pre-pubescent trans males coming through and evidence can be gathered, but there will at least be a solution in place that is fair to women and the onus will be on non puberty males to prove their biology in the context of this fairer system.

Ideally, the male category will open to those with different gender identities and this will apply down through the school years. Realistically, boys who mess about with their bodies and spend too much time on tumblr/you tube/naval gazing are not going to be Olympic athletes in any category.

The sport I have seen the most trans people in is Quidditch, which is mixed anyway, and people growing up in a gender bubble might gravitate towards things like that in place of swimming/tennis.

So are you hoping to frame female puberty as a disadvantage of sorts?

Clearly female puberty is not a disadvantage. Adult females are much bigger, stronger and faster than prepubescent females. If a girl didn't go through puberty she wouldn't stand much chance as an athlete.

If a girl didn't go through puberty she wouldn't stand much chance as an athlete.
Some of the athletes with DSD are female but haven't gone through female puberty. It's not necessarily the case; but other females who don't go through female puberty (e.g. those with Turner Syndrome) are obviously at extreme disadvantage.

The sport I have seen the most trans people in is Quidditch of course it is. Because if you can change sex, then obviously you can fly on a broomstick!

If a girl didn't go through puberty she wouldn't stand much chance as an athlete.

One of the effects of high intensity training on young female athletes can be failure to commence menstruation - female athlete Bobby Clay (yes, she's a woman called Bobby!) is a known victim of this and its impact was osteoporosis:

www.flotrack.org/articles/6050791-british-teen-phenom-bobby-clay-reveals-how-she-got-osteoporosis-at-age-20

It has also affected - less seriously than Bobby, but enough to prevent her competing for over 2 years - an outstanding young athlete I know.

Simply arrange a Translympics.

Except of course that ain’t simple. I’d love to think that the trans community is capable of organising something like that, but generally speaking their approach is to exploit, and frequently destroy, all the events and resources that women and gay people organise. It seems that they never create anything of their own. If anyone ever tried to organise a Trans Games I predict it would make the Fyre Festival look like the Apollo moon landings.

The Gay Games already exists, and includes Transpeople:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Games

So that’s interesting - do the Gay Games use Paraolympic type systems for ensuring fair competition between athletes, or do they just throw everyone in the same pot and see how it all falls out? Either way, they must have some great long term data for how trans athletes do in competition.

Here’s the gender policy from the last event - no idea as to whether data collected has been consistent from one event to the next though:

www.paris2018.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PARIS2018-Gender-Policy-Final.pdf

Women are not men without penises.

Yy OP - it's been increasingly pissing me off too, the notion that you can remove a penis from a man and you get a woman. (See also womb transplants)

bit annoyed that some people seem to be piling on the 'women are just so weak' angle re the sports - yes maybe we have comparatively less body strength than males, but surely there are some sports we will be better at, too? More dextrous, nimble, something? Anything?

I'd settle for knowing there was an Olympic category for procrastination, charity shopping or biscuit eating, really. I need something to aspire to.

See, the 'Gay Games' illustrates perfectly the issue here. There is absolutely no need for a separate sporting event for homosexual people, because being homosexual has absolutely no effect on your physical body. You can perform exactly the same whatever your sexuality.

This is obviously not true for transgender people. Which AGAIN is why tagging the T on the end of LGB is just an exercise in riding on the coat tails of someone else's hard work.

This is what ticks me off too, ChattyLion

Women are not men with bits missing. The misogyny of this, the refusing to see women as a separate, equally valid, equally formed being, the gladness with which men and women are happy to frame women as nothing more than imperfect or altered or adapted men - as if they can't exist in their own right - is one of the things that made me realise. We are so very, very far from sex equality.

We're not even yet seen as fully human, and there are women who argue this bullshit to further their own inferiority and existence only in relation to men (hi Emma Bloody Thompson) : it isn't just men doing it.

Women are not men with bits missing. The misogyny of this, the refusing to see women as a separate, equally valid, equally formed being, the gladness with which men and women are happy to frame women as nothing more than imperfect or altered or adapted men - as if they can't exist in their own right - is one of the things that made me realise. We are so very, very far from sex equality.

This. We only exist in relation to men, as an 'inferior man'.

Total. Misogyny.

Agree wholeheartedly with this

I had a moment today. Besides all the fuddy duddy touchy feely stuff being squeezed into the Equality Act now:

Section 11: Sex
Para. 54

Sex to mean being a man or a woman, and that men share this characteristic with other men, and women with other women.

Nuff said. No man is a woman.

I'd settle for knowing there was an Olympic category for procrastination, charity shopping or biscuit eating, really. I need something to aspire to

A few months back, a trans Mumsnet poster suggested we lobby to make ‘ducking under a bar’ a sport.