Gone back to check.
Transcribing the presenter's words to Natalie the TW, literally without even acknowledging to Nic that the interview was over:
Presente: Listening to that is Natalie Washington from Pride sports, which aims to improve access to sport for LGBT+ people. Thank you very much for joining me Natalie, I mean what do you make of that? Sounds pretty dehumanising, that it's about sex not about feelings.
Natalie: Yes, I think this is the danger that we see when this topic is talked about a lot is that we find trans people, trans bodies, people of whatever gender they are, are yeah, are being dehumanised. And the rhetoric around this, it's dangerous sometimes. It means that we are talking about body parts, we're talking about people as scientific specimens. We're talking about people is if they're a few cells in a petri dish rather than a living breathing human being with thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams. And what we're talking about her, you know, for me Laurel Hubbard competing in the Olympics in immensely inspiring and there are young trans people out there, older trans people out there seeing this and thinking 'wow somebody like me has got onto the global stage and has acheived their hopes and dreams and maybe I can as well.' And when we talk about sport, um, you know, at the elite level of course, it's about minute gains it's about getting your body to that peak level where you can compete at the highest level and of everybody there is doing that. But what it's also about is showing our rich society for all it is, it's showing inspirational figures for children to look up to and think 'I can be like them' It's showing, it's giving people an opportunity to fully participate in the society that they're part of and I think that often gets missed from when we talk about this.
Presenter: And whilst obviously there are huge strides being made in terms of respresentation and in terms of what sport can mean to people and to make it more inclusive and accessible, ultimately, sport, there are winners and there losers, and for that there have to be rules, their rules of engagement. And for that, that means that has to be a sense of fairness and this is where I think people struggle is where in this spectrum, should sports sit, between on one end, fairness, and the other, inclusion. I mean do you have any sympathy with that view?
Natalie: I mean, absolutely yeah, sport has to be fair, you know. Particularly of course at the elite level, we're talking about it's people's livelihoods, you know, it's very very important that we have you know that we do the utmost to make sure that everyone's competing on as much of a level playing field as possible. Er, now of course, there's lots of ways that sport is unfair, you know, some people are able to throw a lot more money at their training than other people can, sone people have innate biological advantages because of the way their bodies have developed irrespective of whether they're trans or not, so we try to make sport a level playing field as possible and at the moment we have a set of rules which have been based upon scientific evidence that has been, er, you know, looked at by people far cleverer than I to understand you, this is a level that we've said is acceptable for now. And that'll continue to be looked at and we're talking about now this is a hot topic. There's no way that the people responsible for making these rules are not going to be held to account to make sure those rules are right. Er, and it'll continue to be looked at, but at the moment the understanding we have is that people competing at an elite level, provided they follow the rules which are set in place which you are quite rigorous, and you know I've had personal experience of following these rules, even to compete at a grass roots level in sport. Very rigorous, very difficult and we, we have come to a conclusion that that's fair and I think what we need to be doing is accepting that the science at the moment is telling us that and that you know, celebrating the achievements of people that are acheiving what they're doing right now under the rules set that we have.
Presenter: The problem here does seem to be that there's an idea that one id-e-ology or one set of rules will fit all. Of course, all sports for example are different and there is for example in teams sports, in contact sports there's an element of safety that needs to be considered here as well. Not just fairness or inclusion or accessibility, it's also the safety of the competitors. Should the rules be different from sport to sport. Or does that just confuse the whole thing even further?
Natalie: Yeah, I mean it's a fascinating question because obviously in an ideal world, you'd want absolute cobsistency across the board. You know, that would be simplest. But even now, sports have different rules from one sport to another. Again, even aside from around trans people. So at the moment, sports go agead and make their own rules. I think depending on the type of sport it may well be that we make differentvrules dependingbon the types of bodies that may compete, and of course, this is a problem that exists even outside of the realm of trans identity. You know, there's a lot of debate for example in rugby at youth levels about different sized bodies, people that have developed at different speeds, is it safe for them to compete with each other. So, we have to follow the science, we have to follow the experts, but when those experts make a judgemebt we have to go with that. Um, I think..
Presenter: Interesting, I think we're going to have to leave it there for the moment, but really interesting, thank you very much for your insights, Natalie Washington from Pride Sports, thank you.
Natalie: Thank you.