Martina Navratilova to front BBC1 transgender athletes doc

[EweSurname]

I knew she was making a documentary but I didn't know it was for the BBC. Bit wary now of what she'll be allowed to say.

www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broadcasting/navratilova-to-front-bbc1-transgender-athletes-doc/5139862.article#.XOav7YCjPkg.twitter

The tennis star and gay rights campaigner is to front Brook Lapping’s 60-minute doc Trans Athletes: A Fair Playing Field?, which will air next month.

In February, Navratilova was roundly criticised by trans and equality activists for stating that allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sporting tournaments was “insane and cheating”. She subsequently said she would do more research on the matter.

For the doc, Navratilova will speak with the athletes, scientists and sporting officials at the forefront of the debate, including former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, who said in March that transgender athletes could “ruin women’s sport”.

She will also meet trans medical physicist and former runner Joanna Harper, who will explain how her run times dropped by more than 10% following her transition.

Shit, shit, shit.

They clearly did not do enough, by far.

The sports physios got a small part in the middle.

Martina seemed confused, no female athletes taking part, all the usual suspects - Joanna Haper, random transgenger athletes giving their point of view.

I am now cancelling my BBC licence

Wow, that philosophy article. Even as it is laying out what it thinks is an injustice it is going to great lengths to say, repeatedly, that it didn't disagree with anything around the idea of transgenderism or about transgendered persons. Which seems to imply that if it had asked those kinds of questions it would have been out of line.

Transgenderism is acceptable and transraciality isnt because some stereotypes are acceptable and others aren’t.

If you said you were Jewish because you were ‘careful with money’ or black because you ‘have natural rhythm’ people would call you out on your racism, but it’s okay to say you are a woman because the most difficult choice you face each day is ‘what to wear’.

When the first big burly special woman in lipstick wins an important medal peak transing will sweep across the nation.

I realise its hard to come to terms with how misogynistic and self serving society has become, but here we are. There isn't going to be any mass change.
When its all over people will pretend nothing happened, and if it did it wasn't their fault, just as they have done every other time crowds have gone along with awful ideas and done terrible things.

So the takeaway from this is that when it comes to women’s sports we are no longer interested in fairness for females. We are only interested in increasing opportunities for mediocre entitled males with no integrity or principles.

Martina knows it's not fair - this was her visceral, gut reaction when she first entered the debate. She as been brow-beaten by sob stories - yet no sob stories, no interviews, from the women & girls who will be - are being - ousted from sports by biological males taking their places, their scholarships.

Sharon Davies was good and knows her stuff - but a v short segment for someone so knowledgeable. I'm pretty sure we spent more time watching Martina playing golf than listening to Sharron.

I think we can kiss goodbye to women's sports - that was the BBC grooming the nation into inclusivity of males into women's sports. Because, oh poor men, they want to be women, they identify as women, therefore they are women, therefore they should compete with women.

Plus - why spend so much time on the motor sports? That's not really a matter of physical strength - just a very notable bastion of male dominated sport. I guess it's because the very photogenic transwoman was willing to be interviewed...

Notable, too, that they said "it's all men, and one woman" - unfortunately the "one woman" was born and raised a male - and entered the sport as a male. So really not doing women's sport any favours at all - in fact - as far as females are concerned - its going bloody backwards.

I actually think it was good, in that what was on screen made an impact rather than the words.
So the football player being referred to as a woman, and referring to themselves as such, would have made people who are not so familiar with these issues as most of the posters here think wtf!? Most people do not think a man can simply change his clothes and hair and claim to be an actual woman.
I think as someone mentioned up thread, that she did a bit of a Louis Theroux, being very reasonable and kind, while letting the pictures do the talking. I think that overall it was good, maybe the best she’d get from the BBC but worth doing anyway to get the message out to more people.
She had a hard time with her expression when talking to Helen Belcher I think, she looked very uncomfortable. HB can be quite intimidating it looks like. Let’s not slate Martina for the program not being as direct and uncompromising as we would like, we need to play the long game here and she is doing good work.

Yeah, motor sports is odd since men and women compete together anyway.

Motor sports aren’t a test of speed or strength anyway, unless you have to get out and push.

I suppose I'd better watch the programme, just so I know what it's like, but I'm not looking forward to it from what I'm reading here.

There's a couple I know who travel all over the country to watch the Women's Cricket and I asked what they would think if transwomen were on the teams (they know what TW are). They looked horrified then sad and said they'd have to stop going to matches because it wouldn't be worth it, it would spoil the game because women's cricket is different and that's what the like about it.

They said they'd still watch men's cricket if it was relatively local but they wouldn't bother to travel and stay overnight like they do for women's cricket.

What really pisses me off is that transwomen will kill off women's sport and then to rub salt into the wound the public will blame women for "letting it happen"

Pity not to hear from Dr Nic and Fair Play for Women. The Loughborough scientists did a good job, though

Don't forget how tightly groups like TransMediaWatch (Belcher, who was on the programme) try to control exactly who does and does not get to appear on things. Olly Lambert, who made the film that Stella O'Malley presented for Channel 4 a while back, described it in detail at the "Woke News" meeting that Meghan Murphy also spoke at in May - video here - his segment starts about 49 minutes in.

It would be utterly fascinating to hear the same "what went on behind the scenes" stuff from the makers of that BBC film, wouldn't it.

Transwomen could go into equestrian sports. Men and women compete agianst each other, because like racing cars, the horse is the most important factor.

I find it hard to believe that Loughborough would even get funding for their research if there was a chance that they might find that men and women ARE biologically different and that transwomen DO have an advantage.

TemporaryPermanent and Goosefoot
Yeah I know, but I half-think he was actually trying to emphasize how restricted speech is on this topic. Jesse Singal (the guy who wrote that) is usually pretty good on the gender debate - I'd recommend following him. He is (or at least was) aiming his arguments at the woke liberal left, and he's much less sceptical than I am of the idea of gender identity, but nevertheless he's one of the only American journalists writing about this critically. His habit of bending over backwards to appease them didn't stop him getting roasted alive when he wrote an article for the Atlantic about the dubiousness of the affirmative approach.

Plus - why spend so much time on the motor sports? That's not really a matter of physical strength - just a very notable bastion of male dominated sport.

That's not true, actually. I used to know a woman who raced seriously (sponsor etc) in a lower level who told me women would never reach the elite levels men race in because of our necks.

Apparently it's all about G force. The faster you go the worse the strain on your neck. Men's necks can endure far more pressure.

Men's necks can endure far more pressure.
Was reading this out and DH said 'Brass necks'.

I still think it’s great that Martina spoke up on this.

review by Carole Midgley in today’s Times 2.

“She reached no firm conclusion over whether it is fair to allow trans-women to compete in female sports, saying it was impossible to make any meaningful rules until more research is done (this seemed right)”

“I don’t understand why she didn’t then tell him that she had actually played against a trans-woman, Renée Richards, in 1977. Navratilova was young, No 2 in the world at the time, and played Richards in a women’s doubles match at the US Open when the latter was 43 and out of practice. It was a narrow victory for Navratilova and her partner. As a male player Richards was barely in the top 100, but almost outplayed the soon-to-be female world No 1. This felt like a stand-out point. In ten years’ time women’s sport will look different, Cashmore said. I think he’s right.”

From Twitter:

If you would like to make a complaint about the BBC's documentary about trans athletes presented by Martina Navratilova, an outspoken critic of trans women participating in women's sport, and featuring Sharron Davis (same with bells on), here is a link.

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/

Underneath from Sharon Davies:

And if you like to make a complain to the bbc about not showing all the broken hearted young girls losing out on their dreams of sporting success & scholarships to trans athletes (young males not under going any hormone treatment what do so ever just self ID’ing) please do so 2

I’m not sure I agree with all the nay sayers. Martina deserves a massive thank you for doing this. The doc was not perfect but it was the best thing I’ve seen on tv so far about this subject in that the presenter was clearly sceptical of some of the talking heads and said out loud that she didn’t think it was fair and that she wouldn’t use of the word cis. She even talked honestly about her friend and coach Renee Richards superior (male) sporting powers. She was brave to attempt this and would have been constrained by BBC conventions and by the production team. Given those constraints I think this was an effective doc. It certainly reached a wide audience and has peaked many people as evidenced by twitter.

As for the parade of idiots including Ellis Cashmore and that lawyer woman who wanted women to be nicer (!) I think you underestimate a general audience. Yes, there are people who are taken in by this but sometimes the best thing you can do when you want people to understand a problem is to give certain people enough rope. It’s one reason the IRA never tried to assassinate Ian Paisley. He was SO much more useful to their cause alive and speaking his nonsense out loud than he would have been dead. Not that I’m advocating violence, obviously, just an analogy. Though we do seem to have ended up with Boris so maybe there’s a flaw in that theory...

I think Martina probably did what she could under the constraints of the very pro trans BBC but I suspect she is also conflicted because of her history of supporting the LGBT in particular her former coach (a TW).

I actually think Sharron Davies 'gets it' a bit better than Martina, probably due to her experiences with the East Germans in the 80s.

I think Martinas face showed her real thoughts and feelings about this...of course the narrative was controlled by the filmmakers...very weak ending but there were some gems and the case was not made for TW inclusion. Good that she refused to name us as CIS

“She reached no firm conclusion over whether it is fair to allow trans-women to compete in female sports, saying it was impossible to make any meaningful rules until more research is done (this seemed right)”

This looks ridiculous because the answer is clear to anyone with any sense but it's tactically smart. Any proper study will prove that men's and women's sporting capabilities are different enough for transitioning not to bridge the gap. By calling for research it says "we gender critical people are reasonable" and invites the trans activists to choose from:
a) TWAW so any research is transphobic;
b) yes, let's have proper research; or
c) sounds good in theory but [a load of flannel to obstruct proper research].

Get this debate into the public domain and it will let people in general see what the gender identity ideology looks like.

I agree with you nauticant and wrapped

Martina has used this opportunity cleverly and with strategy in mind. Any real kicking over the traces would have resulted in the Beeb not having any of it.

Why was Belcher interviewed?

And what was the relevance of Harper crying at Disney films - is it a marker of womanhood, or evidence that men become weaker after 'transitioning'?! I find it disturbing that this person advises the IOC.