New guidelines for transgender participation unveiled by UK sports councils

[Highwind]

Reported by the Guardian....

www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/29/new-guidelines-for-transgender-participation-unveiled-by-uk-sports-councils

Evidence indicates it is fair and safe for transgender people to be included within the male category in most sports.

I doubt the TRAs will be happy with that sentence, in fact I can almost hear the building rage as I type.

A follow up Q and A. Bravo Sean Ingle who has been very clear on this and pursued facts, and hasn’t been hampered by the Guardian’s ideological editorialising.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/29/what-does-the-new-transgender-guidance-mean-for-sports-in-uk

On the back of this I can't see any Insurance Company willing to risk insuring sports teams or individuals if males are included in female sport.

Re insurance.

This comes up a lot.

I doubt many if any insurance companies have even thought about it. It's a very slow moving industry in certain lines. No one wants to move first. Rates are derived from the past. And extrapolated. Often societal shifts or even medical legal ones etc if not directly in their line of vision only get picked up after the claims start coming in and there are enough for someone to say hmm what's going on here.

I looked at the insurance policy for a local martial arts club on another thread. Ploughed through the whole thing

Not mentioned at all. Iirc women/ girls was used. Or the participants covered by the policy or something can't quite remember.

If anyone has an update happy to hear it but a few months back anyway that was the content of a policy and I doubt that the insurance industry has cast aside 100s of years of tradition and caution! (And well it's the reinsurers and they definitely don't have their fingers on the pulse unless stuff like motor IE ever changing situation, very high claim volume, very tight margins due to massively competitive marketplace).

I genuinely cannot understand why they don't compete in the male category but under their new female names, female clothes, etc.

We'd soon get used to seeing the odd female name in the list of males.

It may not be an upfront issue in terms of not being able to get insurance, but I reckon they'll use it as an excuse to avoid on paying out on claims if they can.

@Maskless

I genuinely cannot understand why they don't compete in the male category but under their new female names, female clothes, etc.

We'd soon get used to seeing the odd female name in the list of males.

A mixture of reasons.

Male men are often not very 'inclusive'. Eg football massive racism, are there any openly gay premiership footballers yet?

They're a woman so have to play sport with the women.

Likely to have massive advantage and be star player/ win loads of things.

Other reasons around knowing women mainly won't like it but they can't say anything etc.

@GAHgamel

It may not be an upfront issue in terms of not being able to get insurance, but I reckon they'll use it as an excuse to avoid on paying out on claims if they can.

They'd have a fight on their hands if the policy refers to women and not female. I would guess the former is used as docs for this sort of thing don't change often

Also massive press interest hoo-ha. Reputational damage. When it's not paying claims that can impact the reputation across all lines of business. Avoided at all costs. (Literally).

If claims start coming in they will likely cough up and it will be an industry wide sudden effort to update wordings.

@NiceGerbil

PLUS

'The landmark report is highly significant because it comes from UK Sport, Sport England, Sport Wales, SportScotland and Sport Northern Ireland, who between them invest hundreds of millions of pounds in sport each year. '

the Scots govt are going to go bonkers. This is an agreed statement across the whole UK. It's huge.

Oooh looking forward to that!! I couldn’t help say that, now scrolling back up to read the rest! I do wonder to what extent it will open up litigation, in a good way - a woman injured playing against a biological man has a clear case that her club chose inclusive over safety for women and put her at risk. I like the pathways clarity as it forces clubs to stop pretending with nice language about ‘inclusive and fair to everyone’ That would be a huge opening in the US I presume (obviously often a very negative tool there).

If claims start coming in they will likely cough up and it will be an industry wide sudden effort to update wordings.
That’s what happened a bit with pandemic clauses, although some of it in health insurance here was not having paid attention to these clauses so there were errors eg referencing old legislation

Yay - we all knew the earth isn’t flat and was never flat but good to see it in writing

BBC R 4 WH need to get the shadow minister for sport back on air (Alison McGovern I think?) as this goes against her own stated beliefs, and indeed Labour policy, as extracted from her by Emma on that excruciating interview

I do wonder to what extent it will open up litigation, in a good way - a woman injured playing against a biological man has a clear case that her club chose inclusive over safety for women and put her at risk.

The risk assessments are going to be interesting.

Good to see some common sense, finally. As well as decent reporting from Sean, again - he has consistently been fair/balanced on this.

Yes it’s clear they can have inclusion OR safety - and I do hope insurance becomes a factor sooner. I my DD were involved in local clubs, I would certainly be making that point to them: “so, you’ve chosen inclusion over safety. Have you discussed the motivations of that with your insurers? Do you have a statement on liability in the event of an injury?” Etc.

Typo…IF my DD were involved…

And an autocorrect: implications not motivations. I really should have previewed!

What NiceGerbil said about Twitter got me thinking, so I went to check.

I found this Tweet from a radio station for trans people:
uksport SportEngland hmmmm this report…are you going to provide a list of the people you have used for your research? Is filling in a form with leading questions research? Smell a big rat here….

Thing is* the tweet being replied to has been deleted. News of the report’s publication has vanished from the feeds of the bodies that published it. The Guardian haven’t tweeted about it. There’s nothing from Mermaids et al: can only assume sounds of fury will start when someone runs to Twitter after creeping about here to check on the wickedly unpoliced thoughts that women (& sometimes men!) keep expressing here however often they’re woke-scolded & told to educate themselves & Just. Be. Kind.

• The willingness to announce the way they & those they know/Their Side conduct “research” is quite astonishing. Not so much “saying the quiet parts out loud” as bellowing them into a bullhorn.

One has to wonder at the suggestion that one 'possibility' is to hold a 'female only' category.

It's literally the fucking definition of women's sports.

@Thatsjustwhatithink

One has to wonder at the suggestion that one 'possibility' is to hold a 'female only' category.

It's literally the fucking definition of women's sports.

Yes. The inability to just say no to men who demand unreasonable things of women is quite stark.

Hooo bloody Ray!! I mean it is ridiculous that so much time and money has been spent confirming the bleedin fucking obvious but still

I believe when this was discussed before that gendered intelligence were commissioned to do the review. If that is the case (and I note that coverage so far doesn’t say who conducted the independent review) then it’ll be interesting to see how the TRA spin it Abd of course I look forward to stonewalls no doubt nuanced and thoughtful response too

Just reported (poorly) in R4 Today’s 7am headlines. Waiting for the Twitter storm to start in 3. 2. 1…..

I suppose what remains to be seen is if this guidance has any teeth. I mean the Equality Act allows for single sex provision. Yet....

@Maskless

I genuinely cannot understand why they don't compete in the male category but under their new female names, female clothes, etc.

We'd soon get used to seeing the odd female name in the list of males.

The odd one does post transition but it’s not coincidental that you don’t hear about it. In the cases I’m aware of there’s no shouting about how inclusive they are from the athlete, the sport governing body nor Mermaids sport inclusion officer. I wonder why?

FPFW statement

fairplayforwomen.com/new-guidelines-for-transgender-participation-in-sport-in-the-uk/

Are we supposed to be pleased that they finally figured it out?

Why are they passing the buck? Even knowing what they know they still don't want to categorically say no. That will not be easy fir small locally run sports groups relying in.parental involvement and fundraising who can't afford to see their names in the local rags with some daily mail sadface routine.