British Cycling Consultation on Transgender Policy

[lorisparkle]

Thought this might be of interest

www.britishcycling.org.uk/about/article/20201009-British-Cycling-publishes-Transgender-and-Non-Binary-Participation-policy-0

@andyoldlabour

From that Stonewall piece.

"The definition of sex -over medicalised language and should include that it is assigned at birth"

Why woulld you take advice from any organisation which uses incorrect terminology? It should be "observed" not "assigned".

"There is no direct and consistent research to suggest that transgender female individuals (and transgender male individuals) have an athletic advantage in sportand, therefore, the majority of competitive sport policies are discriminatory against this population"

Again this is untrue. There is plenty of scientific evidence, that male bodied people have a distinct advantage when competing in the female category.

Absolutely. Surely an organisation like Stonewall should be checking their facts before producing this kind of rubbish. Or maybe they just don't understand science, in which case they need to stop talking about it or get somebody who does understand to explain it to them.

GonadTheGaul

The big problem, is that Stonewall in particular has been able to unduly influence media, politicians and sporting bodies, using exactly this kind of misinformation.

I suppose my question is how can we stop them spreading this utter rubbish? Why do the media and politicians just blindly believe them, surely they ought to check, and as for sports bodies, haven’t they heard of sports scientists?? It’s so frustrating.

Today’s Woman's Hour was all about cycling. There’s Muslim women on there talking about their barriers to participation and how conservative Muslim women cannot participate if there males present.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000vq76]

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000vq76

We suspected it was going to happen but this article confirms that Emily Bridges is anticipating entering competitive women’s cycling next year.

www.cyclingweekly.com/news/why-is-the-peloton-hiding-its-true-colours

“Having started on the journey of medical transition, Bridges will not be eligible to race as a woman until next year at the earliest. She was dropped from the BC Academy last August, on performance grounds, but none of these hurdles have dimmed her determination to get back racing.

“I definitely want to return to the top level because being able to compete is really important to me – I just love it,” she enthuses.”

“Sporting performance doesn’t need to be linked to gender expression – they’re not related,” she says. “Being yourself is far more important because if you’re not true to who you are, you won’t perform at your best.”

I presume this means they’ll be vying for a place in the Welsh Team for next years Commonwealth Games unless the transgender inclusion policy changes.

“Sporting performance doesn’t need to be linked to gender expression – they’re not related,”

Exactly - stay in the men's category.

I definitely want to return to the top level

Well, that just got easier.

It’s so depressing. The only things potentially stopping EB from cleaning up in women’s cycling are a change of policy or a change of conscience.

“Sporting performance doesn’t need to be linked to gender expression – they’re not related,”

Absolutely, sporting performance is related to sex, nothing to do with gender, gender identity or gender expression, and sex doesn't change.

I'm hoping the IOC review their policy and look at the new scientific evidence which has been piling up over the last year at least, and conclude their policy isn't fit for purpose. If they change it before Tokyo (unfortunately that's unlikely, I think) that would be brilliant, but if they change it after Tokyo, then hopefully other sports bodies will follow suit.

The longer they persist with these female-exclusionary policies in the face of good evidence, the clearer it becomes that they are just systemically misogynist.

Remember this consultation? I looks like the new policy has been sneaked out without any fanfare in the new handbook.
They’ve ignored women’s voices (no surprise), made all recreation cycling open to self-id of gender and in competitive cycling stuck to the now debunked fallacy that reducing testosterone to below 5 will allow fair and safe competition.

www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/media/press/BC_2022_HANDBOOK-Linked.pdf

I have a good friend who works for British cycling, he

• admits that men competing against women is unfair (even with lowering testosterone, but thinks that makes it less unfair🙄)
• sees no reason women and transmem shouldnt train together or cycle together recreationally
• can sort of see why a woman would be uncomfortable to share a changing room with a transwoman but isn't sure what the answer is

He's not high enough up the chain to make the policy but has some contact with the top dogs and has put his opinion in.

Disappointed that he hasn't gone further to protect and advocate for women in the sport but at least he's not all out twaw.

Disappointing that British cycling seems to have gone ahead and implemented a policy that negatively affects so many women to protect the feelings of a handful of men

That’s interesting because someone from the ICU was a signatory to a letter to the IOC saying there are major issues with the IOC policy:

www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/17/iocs-new-transgender-guidance-criticised-as-unfair-towards-female-sport

Not ICU, UCI . Too much Covid discussion.

Not only are British Cycling in the pockets of Stonewall (hence their embedded prejudice against women), Stonewall issued a guide about responding to the consultation in order to ensure that men are able to dominate women's cycling - and it evidently worked.

8edab175-7c39-4b6f-b41f-129a321c6337.filesusr.com/ugd/f19a1f_8d0227b96f5e4e548b57528f9b89466d.pdf?index=true

There's no point having a token women's category if it isn't single sex. What a joke.

The Women's Rights Network have launched a YouTube channel and their first video goes out on Tuesday 8pm as a premiere with live chat.

It counters the claims made by Pippa York, who used to be an elite cyclist called Robert Millar, by presenting the evidence and how it's affecting women and girls' sport.

WRN would love for you to join in on the live premiere or catch up later and comment.

That Stonewall guide is unbelievable!

"These are the lies we would like you to tell".

This is the third tweet down on the British Cycling twitter account this morning.

twitter.com/BritishCycling/status/1484233395584569344?cxt=HHwWgMC4uZqah5kpAAAA

I wonder what they mean by "women" and "female" in this tweet and in the wider campaign?

I think any female women who have dealings with British Cycling know full well about the sexism. They don't give a toss. I'm not the only ride leader who's had enough. I want to keep going for the women on my rides but I know they'll stop turning up if a 'self-ID' 'woman' signs up. I suppose then the rides just end and women lose out

It appears that so long as all impact is dropped on females, and there's never the awful resort of actually having to say 'no' to someone male, it's all ok.

What century is this again?

And I'll just point out the absolute binary sex based thinking underpinning all this while at the same time claiming a belief that male people are women. No one making these rules has the slightest issue identifying who matters and who doesn't.

Thank you FrauFantastic - that looks really interesting. And so sorry Feralgoose for all the women cyclists having to face such intrinsic unfairness and denial of biological facts.
Male supremacy evidently rules British Cycling - shame on them.

@Goatsaregreat

Thank you FrauFantastic - that looks really interesting. And so sorry Feralgoose for all the women cyclists having to face such intrinsic unfairness and denial of biological facts. Male supremacy evidently rules British Cycling - shame on them.

Pleasure! Hope you get to see it and that it helps go towards convincing others of the truth of what a women (and girl) is and how they're affected in sports from grassroots up.