Guardian article on women in sport - Holy Moley - concludes that there is a debate!

[MacaroonMama]

Read it! Impressed. Will link in next comment.

www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/jul/22/current-impasse-transgender-athletes

Bloody hell of this article has made it into the Guardian the tide really is turning.

^ if

Wow for the Guardian that's pretty balanced! That's 2 articles recently from them that have shown more balance. I particularly liked this bit;

a guiding principle surely has to be that anyone who transitions does not leap from being bog-average to world beater in a year.

Sean Ingle has always been about fairness in sport, writes about doping cases with his hands tied, and would probably write better about this if he was given freer rein but I imagine his editor won’t allow it. Note lack of ability to comment. That’s not a surprise.

Still not fair, even if they do reduce the testosterone limits to 2.5 nmol. No female athlete is allowed to dope with testosterone for several years and then knock it off to take part in women's sports.

Women have 44% less upper body strength “providing men an advantage for sports like boxing, weightlifting and skiing”, say the academics, while muscle mass differences lead to “decreased trunk and lower body strength by 64% and 72% respectively in women

That... just that ALL THE TIME!!! It measurably, indisputably starts in the womb FFS! AND HAS BEEN KNOWN FOR DECADES.

Why did I spend years learning and teaching about human physiology and sport /exericse adaptations? Why the fuck did I waste my time, my passion, my money, effort, brain space?

It might have been better if Sean Ingle had asked the question "why is women's sport even being debated in this context"?

What is needed is a third category.

No man can ever be a woman and no woman can ever be a man.

It still doesn’t take account of the legacy differences from having testosterone through puberty - height, lung capacity, heart capacity, skeletal advantages etc.

And even more amazingly, LOJ has publicly said that scrutiny on change is a Good Thing: "One of the big faults at the moment in this whole debate is the lack of scrutiny".

Well, ok, he made the comment relating to BoJo becoming PM, not male-born people competing in female sports.

...But I can't think of any reason why he'd specifically object to transparent and open investigation of other things that have the potential to dramatically change life for the wider population, like, say male-born people competing in female sports. Right Owen?

Owen?

The other important point is that this debate must be had. No longer can men tell women, such as Martina Navratilova, that when they stick up for a separate women’s sport category that they are ignorant or prejudiced. Such comments carry a pungent whiff of misogyny from the bad old days – when women were told to know their place, and kept on the margins of sport.

Bloody hell! We've only been waiting how many years, for this to be acknowledged?!

No longer can men tell women, such as Martina Navratilova, that when they stick up for a separate women’s sport category that they are ignorant or prejudiced. Such comments carry a pungent whiff of misogyny from the bad old days – when women were told to know their place, and kept on the margins of sport.

Except that we are being told to know our place because men are already pushing women out of the way in certain sports.

Right Owen? Owen?

And Mimmymum/Helen. Where’s the twitter thread and screenshots calling us transphobic for our observations on Hubbard? Or Yaniv? Funny how selective they can be isn’t it...Has LOJ written or tweeted anything about the homophobia at the National Theatre?

It still doesn’t take account of the legacy differences from having testosterone through puberty - height, lung capacity, heart capacity, skeletal advantages etc. If they use ALL scienethey wouldn't need to include ANYTHING about the additional differences conferred by puberty. Physical differences, potential adaptations etc are measurable in the womb! Quite generic, but definitely there.

I had a study in mind.. but for the life of me can't remember who or where. And there was a post yesterday that referenced another - I posted wailing on that one too

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3643572-Male-born-athletes-have-genetic-advantage-before-birth?msgid=88708551

"But when it comes to the science, a new academics paper in the BMJ Journal of Ethics argues that elite transgender women do maintain an advantage when they transition – and that the current International Olympic Committee policies create what they call an “intolerable unfairness” such as height, weight, or socio-economic advantages, which is less pronounced."

Bravo!!

No longer can men tell women, such as Martina Navratilova, that when they stick up for a separate women’s sport category that they are ignorant or prejudiced.

and yet The Guardian has done precisely that.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/17/martina-navratilova-criticised-over-cheating-trans-women-comments

www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/20/lgbt-group-drops-martina-navratilova-over-transgender-comments

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/28/martina-navratilova-trans-athletes-sport-bbc-documentary

In the last one, The Guardian later amended the title "The headline on this article was amended on 29 June 2019 to more accurately represent the article and reflect that Navratilova has since said she did not change her mind".

twitter.com/seaningle/status/1153239189842026498

Sean Ingle
@seaningle
Thanks for yr comments, appreciate it. Hard to fit it all in 900 words and plenty I missed out (should have said Asher-Smith would have not just be beaten by Coleman but thousands of other men, hence emphasising the need for women’s category). On your specific point ...
... I should have made it clear is that is where I suspect we will end up, from speaking to several very senior decision makers in sport, including those on IOC consensus panel. But right now IOC or sports federations playing hot potato with the issue

There is also no solution that will satisfy those who insist women’s sport needs to be protected, and others who believe gender identification trumps everything.

It's absurd that 'gender identity' has ever come into this issue. Gender identity is about what's going on in your head. We have separate women's sports because women's bodies are different from men's bodies, not because women's brains are different from men's brains.

Oh dear LOJ's head will explode.

Oh please OldCrone DFOD!

Stop talking common and scientific sense - you know it literally kills people. Why go out of your way to be so cruel?

FFS!

Fnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Not bad, but spends a lot of time dancing around the idea that there’s any other sensible way to segregate sport other than male and female

I got the impression that he might have more to say on this topic, but it was the editorial policy rather than the word limit acting as the most significant constraint...

The Guardian /Observer seems to be shifting a bit.

This from yesterday:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/snp-failure-to-defend-abused-politicians-belies-its-caring-image

The Guardian/Observer talking about a "The vulnerable will be those who suffer most in the war on women we can see unfolding".

No insight into their own part on this war on women of course.

But a sign of a shift maybe.

I suspect that the more likely explanation is that blue-haired ninnies don't pay for their news and so The Guardian is going cap in hand to the terfs with disposable income instead.

If they do too much the guardian US is going to tantrum again.

"Hubbard is a transgender athlete, who as a male named Gavin did not make a ripple on the international stage until becoming calling himself a woman in her his mid‑30s. Now, though, Hubbard is a realistic contender for an Olympic medal and creating a tsunami of protests from women who fear she know that he has an unfair advantage because of the residual benefits of being a male."

Enough obfuscating language already!