Martina Navratilova to front BBC1 transgender athletes doc

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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.

As research is unnecessary because we already know why men and women are segregated for sport i can only surmise this is research carried out purely to ensure trans women can have women's sport handed to them on a plate.

It was pretty evident in the programme that it's bleeding obvious that there is a whacking great male advantage and it will be near impossible to cloud this. Showing Martina's testosterone level next to the requirement for athletes with a trans identity spoke huge volumes. Which I think is why they didn't bother trying to push the message of 'there is no advantage' and just hammed the 'it's about being kind and women giving up sporting achievement and equality gracefully in order to indulge sad men'. Which is appallingly sexist, and I'll bring gin and sandwiches when we start the inevitable demonstrations women are going to have to organise against the many massive issues at the moment removing women's rights, but shows they know there is no real argument but appeal to women's socialisation. And continue to distort the word 'kind' to mean 'surrender your boundaries and your own interests'. Which is a bastardisation of the word removing any positivity from it. 'Kind' does not mean 'enable' or 'indulge' or 'doormat'.

I do wonder fondly what the male atheletes' response would be if told they had to drop their testosterone to be inclusive to women who wanted to compete with them. I don't think it would be broadcastable.

Not sure Owl was watching the same documentary as everyone else.

I just saw the title of that article "If Martina Navratilova can change her mind on trans athletes, so can sport" and assumed that Martina had been bullied into recanting following the programme.

"through her talks with trans women, Navratilova seemed to gain a deeper understanding of the impact this toxic debate has, and says she has gained a deeper level of empathy."

Unlike Owl, who doesn't show any consideration for women.

"In the documentary she realises that competing in sport is about so much more than just the elite levels. For many, sport is simply a form of exercise, socialisation, a chance to participate in something they enjoy. Not allowing trans women to join in with other women is therefore not only cruel, but another way to push trans people out of public life."

Patronising of Owl towards a top sportswoman who, of course, understands about sport being for everyone, not just the elite. Again, Owl shows no consideration for women, just transwomen. Owl doesn't care how many women are pushed out of sport or public life.

"That Navratilova finally came to the conclusion that trans women should be included at all levels of sport is hugely positive."

Did anyone see this bit of the programme? I must have missed it. Or was Owl really watching a different programme?

"It offers hope that we can focus this debate on understanding based on empathy and a willingness to learn."

Let's start with you, Owl. You could start by understanding that women are actual human beings with rights. This important fact seems to have passed you by. Are you willing to learn by listening to women?

It's like selective reading of the EA2010. Otherwise known as deliberate misinformation repeated enough in the hope it becomes assumed knowledge and is acted on. Otherwise known as deception.

The Psychopath Test is quite a good book looking at this kind of personality and ethics.

I do wonder fondly what the male atheletes' response would be if told they had to drop their testosterone to be inclusive to women who wanted to compete with them. I don't think it would be broadcastable.

We should start a campaign for that. Glossy website, documentary...the whole nine yards.

It's important that transmen don't suffer erasure in men's sports and men should do whatever is necessary to accommodate this.

I don't want it to be but I do feel like Women's sport is dead.

I don't think it will be. I suspect that if suddenly there is a flood of trans people in womens' sport, winning, it will create quite a backlash. And at a certain point among the women competing, they will simply refuse to compete at all or look to separate events that are woman run.

It might be interesting to see the fall-out if they tried to qualify for a Paralympic categorisation on the basis of sex...

But whatever happens, if it gets that bad I think it will rebalance. That's assuming we still have elite sports in the long term which I have doubts about anyway TBH.

'Kind' does not mean 'enable' or 'indulge' or 'doormat'.

Nor does it mean "always do what a person or interest group thinks would be best for them."

It's a type of argument that is dangerous and it needs to be brought up whenever and wherever we encounter it.

The "hormones made me cry at Disney films" was pretty pathetic. Martina's face at that gem was a picture.

It was shocking. I had no idea that the trans person who advised the IOC is one of these weirdos who actually define 'gender' based on ridiculous sex stereotypes.
I can't get over it. Here we are in 2019, the BBC is showing a documentary about whether it's fair to let some males compete in women's sports, and the programme doesn't feature any women's voices apart from a brief segment with Sharron Davies, just interviews with various males in skirts, and the final thought is that maybe Martina Navratilova just needs to 'evolve'.
I think she was bullied into making this documentary so that she can do Wimbledon without too much controversy. I doubt we will see her as a pundit after this year's coverage.

I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than watch a Disney film.

I watched it last night and my thoughts were that Martina does feel deeply committed to the trans community and want to do the right thing by them, but she also knows what's fair and what isn't and that there's a contradiction there. She knows through experience that even as World No 1 she wouldn't have had a chance against a 100th ranked trans woman, and she knows that that isn't fair.

It was very much about the trans woman perspectives (and they weren't all the same), although Sharron Davis' contribution was brief but powerful. She knows that she had Olympic Gold stolen from her by a woman beefed up with testosterone and is sticking her neck out to prevent that happening, in an even more deceptive way, to the current generation of female athletes.

The Sociology Professor really, really annoyed me and I hope that there was a bit of edited footage of Martina pointing out that is 'society' is made up of people with real, sexed bodies. And that only as a man could you sit there and say that women's sport will look very different in 10 years time but, hey, that's evolution.

Also, yes there need to be more research but until that's completed, it's vital that we maintain the status quo of sex segregated categories.

LordProfFekko is that because they make you cry ?

Yes. Yes. Yes I would cry if I had to sit through a Disney film. Mansize Kleenex.

Ellis Cashmore, like all many effeminate gays seem to be, is a misogynist. His tweets are (were? I've been banned) full of vitriol about women.

I think it was a good programme. However, i wonder if having two women apparently conducting the research will be used to help undermine any results.

That said, Id like to think many people have been peaked by this.

I've watched the programme now. And the thread was very interesting reading.

I did think it was odd how the point of the programme was supposedly to show how is unfair to have transwomen compete in women's sports but then at the end it seemed to be about making people feel included. To me I would have liked her to push back more on what people were saying I guess.

On another note do people actually call people cis? I mean I get that some of these transgender/non binary etc (not sure if I'm saying the right thing not up to date with it all!) Do but surely no one else does. I'd never say cis

I've seen cis written by people who think they're doing the right thing & using the latest terminology.
Probably such people say it as well.

Purported that's exactly my thought about the programme, that the timing of it, a week before Wimbledon, was no coincidence.

"On another note do people actually call people cis?"

No, definitely no!
I work in a client based fitness sector, and I have never heard anyone amongst hundreds of clients and other people down gyms and fitness centres refer to person as "cis".
If I heard someone saying this, I would play dumb and ask them what they meant.
Give me five minutes on air to explain what the differences between sex based sports are, and I would totally destroy the transgender argument.
This whole thing makes me so angry, it could be down to male testosterone, or it could be down to my sense of fairness, that female sport has to be protected.

"Ellis Cashmore, like all many effeminate gays seem to be, is a misogynist. His tweets are (were? I've been banned) full of vitriol about women."

I witnessed that in my last workplace, where a couple of young, gay guys would be quite disparaging towards the "older" female workers, trying to shock them, swearing loudly in front of them, talking openly about gay sexual practices, deliberately trying to shock them.
Not pleasant at all.

As suspected bbc editing might have been a bit heavy handed

mobile.twitter.com/Martina/status/1144732460401537025

^ That’s a good tweet from Martina.

Just a tangential point on language of ‘women’s sport needs to evolve’ - at no point has ‘evolve’ or ‘evolution’ ever meant ‘to put on ‘womanly’ lipstick and skirts and take opposite-sex hormones and maybe have cosmetic surgery to make new sexy woman’s breasts while leaving your male sex organs intact, or having radical but ultimately cosmetically-intended surgery to make your external genital area look more ‘female’, and possibly also to create a passive cavity in the body so it can be fucked by a penis’.

I’m not a scientist and happy to be corrected but my understanding is that no individual organism can evolve during a single lifespan.

Evolutionary change is based on changes in the genetic makeup of populations over generations of time. Populations, not individual organisms, evolve.

The genetic basis of evolution and the requirements of multiple generations to do this at population level do make evolution a laughably ironic metaphor when used by people who seem to be deeply impressed by the significance of humans making cosmetic surface alterations or embellishments to an otherwise unchanged physical entity. It’s complete crap.

And public discussion on tv is in a pretty dangerous, science-denying, politically unchallengeable place when people can talk like this and it’s just accepted without question.

Would the BBC ever let creationists talk about evolution from their beliefs unchallenged like this? No fucking way- and nor should they.

Anyway I found this link which was interesting:
evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a5

I do wonder fondly what the male atheletes' response would be if told they had to drop their testosterone to be inclusive to women who wanted to compete with them. I don't think it would be

This is so true.

And I agree 100% with Ova’s response:

We should start a campaign for that. Glossy website, documentary...the whole nine yards. It's important that transmen don't suffer erasure in men's sports and men should do whatever is necessary to accommodate this.

It’s really depressing to consider but I am beginning to believe that until this begins to inconvenience men, nothing will be done about it. As soon as it does inconvenience and affect men, we’ll be very quickly back to believing in biology and facts again.

oops poor cut n pasting from me in the first quote above... but you get the gist.

Love that link chatty.

One of the most profoundly spiritual experiences I've ever had was right at the end of Prof Brian's show where he talk about how the universe started/ might end... he just got to a point where we can't explain any more and said "that's enough" and all the lights went out. But everything else was backed to the hilt with science.

This whole mess is a full on mish mash appropriating mix up of semantics, ideology and theory, where those who follow and promote the ideology are developing a supermarket brand of vegan kefir out of rain water and telling everyone it will save the planet.

The Guardian are printing actual fake news but because it's the Guardian the wokerati will believe it.

Academia is in meltdown; an academic friend was telling me that some are so scared of being associated with anyone or thing mildly "T*rfy that they're angsting over sharing platforms to discuss topics completely unrelated to the debate, simply because the other academic is a " bit t-rfy."

Don't even get me started on schools and yp.

The whole this is a shit show.

Btw, I have an actual diagnosis of Disney Allergy.

Another rebuttal