Daily Telegraph article about transwomen in sport

[HollowTalk]

Anyone seen this? I could only read a bit of it as I don't subscribe to the DT. It sounds like it's a very positive article by a transwoman called Diana Thomas.

The simplest solution for sports is for there to be two categories: women's and open.

Transwomen and transmen could compete alongside men in the open category, as could those with with DSDs like Caster Semenya. This category could also be open to women who want to compete with men.

The women's category would be only for actual women: those who were born female and who are not doping with testosterone.

If this is unacceptable, it's up to those who are affected to sort it out amongst themselves. Perhaps they would prefer there to be further categories, but taking over the women's category is not the solution.

CeCe Teller - mediocre male athlete, now national women's champion

Laurel Hubbard - middle aged transitioner winning women's weightlifting competitions for New Zealand

Kate weatherly - distinctly average downhill bike racer who competed as a bloke one week and 3 weeks later as a woman. Now winning elite women's races.

Do you want me to go on @PumbaasCucumbas because I can do this all day

Over the last few years, hundreds of mediocre male sportspeople have been taking places in elite women's teams.

@DeRigueurMortis

A fundamental flaw in the piece is where the author suggests the sport could be done in a recreational capacity.

This indicates that they haven't grasped the issue at all.

Simply because a sport is being played at an amateur rather than a professional level does not automatically make it any safer for the female competitors nor reduce the advantage the TW (and potentially their team) have.

Many amateur sports are still competition driven and whilst the stakes are lower in a financial sense, the idea that it's ok to deny women the opportunity to participate safely and on a level playing field (forgive the pun) and enjoy the potential to "win" still isn't acceptable.

Precisely. Lots of amateur sports where people really care about their timings and their rankings. Think triathlon, marathons, fell running, cycling, rowing , almost any sport that requires stamina and muscle strength gives a male or "formerly" male body an advantage. Even fairly sedentary sports like golf give an advantage to people with upper body muscle.

Why should women, who lets face it find many more barriers to taking part in competitive sports than many men do , be further disadvantaged when having got to the starting line they find they are standing next to a trans woman who has height, muscle mass, lung capacity and heart function advantage before the whistle has even blown.

Wow! Well colour me naive when you put it like that.

It would just feel a very hollow victory I would think... but then you could say that about any form of cheating and professional sport is blighted by that.

It should certainly feel like a hollow victory, but the failure of everyone else to say or do anything about it enables and encourages those who are deluded (holding the view that their body is the same as a woman's body) and those acting in bad faith (i.e. knowing but not admitting that their body is bigger, stronger and faster than a woman's). The 'TWAW' mantra and associated hysterics have effectively neutralised (and arguably replaced) the social sanction a man in a wig could have once expected if he tried to compete against women.

@Clymene

CeCe Teller - mediocre male athlete, now national women's champion

Laurel Hubbard - middle aged transitioner winning women's weightlifting competitions for New Zealand

Kate weatherly - distinctly average downhill bike racer who competed as a bloke one week and 3 weeks later as a woman. Now winning elite women's races.

Do you want me to go on @PumbaasCucumbas because I can do this all day

Over the last few years, hundreds of mediocre male sportspeople have been taking places in elite women's teams.

Not forgetting Lauren Jeska, who became so angry at being asked to verify their testosterone level that they stabbed three officials. Nice bit of girl power and sisterly solidarity there Lauren.

It's not only professional sport that this affects. Lots of women taking part in amateur sports also care deeply about their ranking, timings etc, and in almost any sport that requires endurance and power such as cycling, fell running, marathon, triathlon et al then a male body with more natural muscle mass, height, lung capacity, heart efficiency will always be at an advantage. Women taking part in many sports often have a harder journey to achieve and participate, so to end up on the starting line next to a trans woman and realise that in the eyes of the law you are physically equal must be the worst slap in the face. Even in fairly sedentary sports like golf upper body strength gives an initial advantage.

I like the idea of two categories of competition entry ie natal women (preferably just called women) and open. SImple and clear. Unambiguous.

Sorry, didn't think my previous post had gone through!!

And you didn't even mention Dr whatever-the-name-is-now in that list.

• Not forgetting Lauren Jeska, who became so angry at being asked to verify their testosterone level that they stabbed three officials. Nice bit of girl power and sisterly solidarity there Lauren.

I wonder if some of the people involved in rugby world are more clued up than might be expected because they know, or know of, Ralph Knibbs?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Knibbs

@thecompletenonsequitur

But having once been male...

Have DT´s doctors told DT that DT´s actually changed sex?

(I know it´s slightly off topic, but I had to write it to stop my eyes rolling).

When DT announced that he was going to transition, I wondered at which point it would become a transphobic act to not see him as a woman. Is this it? (I guess I'm about to find out)

Julie Bindel wrote about DT last year:

"The Telegraph writer’s views about womanhood have certainly evolved over the years. In 1992, Thomas, then a founder of the men’s rights movement, wrote Not Guilty: The Case in Defence of Men, a rant about how feminists have the brass neck to blame men for the terrible things they do to women, rather than themselves. To sum it up, his entire thesis seemed to be “Stop blaming men for the things that nasty women make us do to them!”

In his hey-day as a men’s rights activist, Thomas suggested that one way for men to break out of the “prison of their gender” was to wear women’s clothing. This was at a time when feminists were critiquingthe harmful beauty industry and arguing that femininity– the requirement to trot around in high heels, cake our faces with toxic chemicals and squeeze ourselves into restrictive and uncomfortable clothing – was a tool of our oppression, and an indication of our relative lack of freedom in comparison to that of men. But hey ho, each to their own.

In 1995, Thomas wrote an article in the Telegraph entitled: “If you can’t beat today’s women, then join them,” in which he argued that womanhood is filled with joys and privilege. As an example, he wrote: “A modern girl can play rugby, go to a strip joint, enter any profession and be applauded.” The piece was illustrated with a photograph of Thomas dressed in a flowery dress and holding a handbag."

unherd.com/2019/08/what-women-really-want-youve-got-no-idea/

Was he the one that thought lazer hair removal was worse than childbirth?

Sorry ‘she