Woman’s Hour now on Trans athletes

[GoodbyePorpoiseSpit]

Discussion now - focused on the benefits /strength of male puberty despite testosterone levels later

Yes! Emma being very frank about the olympics decision to include Laurel Hubbard

PhD researcher making irrelevant point about LH not being very good at weightlifting anyway. Emma B doing a good job of pinning them down to answer the question.

Insane point of view being expressed: the claim that as Laurel won’t win anyway so may as well include her. Embarrassing.

I think Emma is doing well. Just missing that it doesn’t matter if LH wins or loses, she has taken a women’s place. Ooooo, Emma is doing well talking about strength differences

"Not 100% convinced"

She's really not letting the person being interviewed off the hook at all.

I wish they would just come out and say this is about males in female sport

They don’t seem to have invited anyone from the other perspective, Emma Hilton and Sharron Davies for example.

Car crash. Good to hear Emma holding her to account ( interviewee is a trans athletes herself) with data and being quite forensic.

“It doesn’t have to be equal to be fair” and it’s currently “not markedly unfair” oh that’s ok then.

Joanne Harper is an idiot. Their own research and their own argument is that there is not enough evidence to show that transitioning puts trans athletes on the same footing as natal female athletes. And yet, the IOC listened to this person, and fucked over female athletes.

Emma is nailing this!

Emma's interviewing style is actually better for this topic. The PhD researcher is Joanna Harper, starbar66. Her research on transgender athletes has been very influential.

Ah. Joanna Harper..

First time I've heard Emma Barnett really dig deep and she's making the pro-trans PhD woman look very foolish.

"A less than ideal decision but not a mistake"? Hmmm

Joanne Harper is biased and very difficult to listen to. Do they have speech problems?

All the messages they are reading out from listeners are very GC and anti trans athletes in the Olympic.

Interesting editorial decision as usually the messages they select to read out are less so!

I think they were having problems answering. They were tough questions..

This is great.

Emma is asking all the right questions, although she just did allow an odd point through about it being ok because trans women are a tiny minority of the population.

The PhD researcher has said:

• The science is less than ideal, there’s no data on trans athletes.
• Her own paper states that trans women retain a strength advantage over biological women… but she thinks that’s ok because we allow strength advantages in sport. She thinks it doesn’t have to be equal to be unfair. She thinks it’ll be fine in most sports.
• Trans women are a tiny proportion of the population. If it was “fair” Olympics would be 50/50 trans women and biological women. Laurel is just one person so it’s not unfair…
• Laurel will not win. Apparently a Chinese woman will win. (Bold claim!)

All in all, sounds like this scientist wants trans women in the Olympics so we can get data on trans athletes… Cart before horse.

And if one cheat is ok, why are we so against doping? Maybe every country should be allowed one doped athlete?

I've heard Joanne Harper before and they always sound like that

Emma Barnett made it very clear at the end that they'd approached a wide range of people, including current female athletes, female weightlifters, representatives from IOC and British sport bodies, and none had been willing to take part.

Well done Emma, she really put Joanna Harper on the spot. I was worried at the beginning that we were going to get the usual but allowing Joanna to be interviewed and put on the spot was probably more effective than having others against Hubbard's inclusion

JH talks exactly like a person who knows that what they are saying is obviously nonsense, but has to plough on anyway.

@Starbar66

PhD researcher making irrelevant point about LH not being very good at weightlifting anyway. Emma B doing a good job of pinning them down to answer the question.

Not very good but good enough to qualify for the OLYMPICS? It’s the frickin Olympic Games! How is this speaker taken seriously by anyone?

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

Joanne Harper is biased and very difficult to listen to. Do they have speech problems?

I think they have credibility problems, and are having to choose their words carefully. Their own research shows that men retain a physical advantage beyond testosterone. They have rubbished the Loughborough Uni paper for not basing the research on trans athletes (just regular trans people). And yet, they rely on this same research to claim there is nothing to see here, and somehow bamboozled the IOC into agreeing with them. The mind boggles at how bloody idiotic the IOC are to get taken in by this bullshit.