Question Time right now!

[Seeingadistance]

Prof Robert Winston has just stated very clearly that it is not possible to change sex.

In relation to freedom of speech and Kathleen Stock.

That's exactly it NiceGerbil

I doubt there are any trans woman who are trying to get pregnant, for example.

What about the high profile TW in the UK, Jessica Alvez, who is travelling to Brazil to get a uterus implant, with a view to becoming pregnant afterwards?

I don't think Hubbard should have competed. But I do question the scale of the problem. I was responding to the claim the women's sports were being overrun.

Have you encountered many transwomen in your competitions?

This is a bullshit argument Georgist
Doesn’t matter how many transwomen any individual has encountered or not. Of course any man can be individually lovely but not all will be. Whatever gender feelings men have or don’t have, men remain male all their lives with unchangeable biological advantages over women. Because sexism and misogyny and homophobia are also real, most men are also given social privileges over women. Many women are brought up to respond to that hierarchy either overtly, or just by growing up as women in a social environment that is still geared towards male advantage.

It’s not about how many transwomen an individual female player encounters then, is it? Because at any time that could change. Because the fact that a man could enter spaces in which women are vulnerable and undressed will be enough to deter women who know they are at greater risk if they are physically vulnerable within a mixed sex environment.

Because the fact that a man could excel within women’s sports just by possessing a male body and competing or training in that sport will be enough to deter women who know they are going to be unable to win against make physical advantage in their chosen sport.

So what matters whether the rules of whichever sport would allow men to compete against women. What matters is if men are allowed in by whoever runs the training ground, sports club, or whoever defines the rules which decide the winners in female sports competitions.
What matters is if whoever decides the rules which decide on who gets development investment as a player, or whoever decides on the rules which allow men into the girls and women changing room (or not), says it’s OK to allow men in to access these things.

What matters is that women want and deserve genuinely single-sex sports because these offer women fair competitions, fair prizes, fair sports development opportunities. Women also deserve to be able to rely on accessing single-sex safe and private places like changing rooms. These are necessary to allow all women to access sport and to play sport at every level. Women also deserve not to have their well founded concerns constantly minimised about these things.

Why should men be able to come in and ruin single sex sports for women and girls, just to allow men to validate themselves around how they feel about themselves compared to other men? Feeling different from others of your sex isn’t enough to actually change sex. Nothing we can do as humans is enough to change sex. We all have to come to terms with that.

Men can play sports against men. Women against women. Single sex sports (like single-sex spaces such as toilets) are already inherently ‘gender neutral’. Anyone can express their feelings about gender however they like while playing in their single sex sport. (Or while using a single sex facility or whatever). If other sports players, or other users of the single-sex facility then try to police anyone else’s non-stereotypical gender expression in a single-sex sporting environment, then that’s where governing bodies/facilities management/wider sports player culture should step in. Because the root of objections to gender nonconformity are in sexism and homophobia. Neither of which deserve a place in sport.

Neither of which should ever be the basis on which official policies and decisions affecting single sex sports are made. And women, like everyone else, don’t have to have been already burgled to know that it’s best to fit a lock on the doors into their home, do they?

I’m really pleased that Robert Winston spoke out again on this topic - he has an excellent platform to do this as both a Labour peer and a research biologist and fertility doctor. Thank you to him!

Indeed. Men are something like four times more likely to commit suicide than women. Does that mean that men are more suicidal? Not necessarily there are other factors at play such as men tend to use methods with a greater chance of success than women (hanging vs overdose for example).

Males also have poorer impulse control, are more violent (and this can include towards themselves, as well as towards others - add that to the lack of control) and mature (psychologically) later than females. All of these contribute to increased suicide risk, too.

why can't someone who is trans compete with their biological sex?

They can. They don't want to. A professional male athlete's career can be lengthened by decades if he competes against women. As far as I am aware it is (up to now) only trans identifying men (ie TW) who are demanding to compete as their chosen gender.

I agree with your points. As I said, I don't think Hubbard should have competed. But I do question the scale of the problem. I was responding to the claim the women's sports were being overrun.

Have you encountered many transwomen in your competitions?

The numbers are steadily increasing - once one has succeeded in playing the system, others join them. It isn't just the sports success, it's also motivated by misogyny. Some men like the opportunity to beat women - often physically. You may have read about this:

www.attacktheback.com/transgender-mma-fighter-fallon-fox-breaks-opponents-skull/

Once a precedent has been set, it opens a floodgate - and it is worse than unfair. It is downright dangerous for women.

The numbers are steadily increasing - once one has succeeded in playing the system, others join them. It isn't just the sports success, it's also motivated by misogyny. Some men like the opportunity to beat women - often physically. You may have read about this:

There is also a very powerful financial reason. There are several examples of transwomen taking professional team spots from women. In Argentina there is at least one transwoman who is competing in a top female football team, there are transwomen professional volleyball players and professional cyclists. These are people who wouldn't find professional spots in the men's games but are now depriving women of the opportunity to make a living at the sport they love

But I do question the scale of the problem. I was responding to the claim the women's sports were being overrun.

This again misses a couple of points. Why is it ever acceptable that a male takes the opportunity from a female competitor? Ever? Even one?

Would the poster questioning this say the same about an able bodied person entering a Paralympic category? What about an adult competing in the under 12s? Or a 20 year old in a over 60 category?

Secondly, it only takes one person who has had the advantage of male puberty to dominate the female category. As we have seen from Rio where three people who have the benefit of testosterone driven puberty won one event. And in their ridiculousness the OIC simply changed the rules for those events so we then had an athlete change event a matter of weeks before the Olympics and still collect a medal and has gone on to set world records since. Records that may take decades for a female athlete to break.

But even if you are taking about non elite level. Let’s look at county level cricket and a male transitioner who set female county cricket records while still competing in the male category that same year. On the pitch with males was very less than stellar. On the pitch with females with shorter boundaries, lighter bats, smaller balls and slower bowling and throwing, set blazing records. And took ‘women’s cricketer of the year’ award.

Or in the USA, the girls missing out on college spots because of boys running in their races (boys who have not even had hormone treatment at that stage, just social transition).

Or the ‘she folds them like deck chairs’ rugby player who also broke their coaches foot playing against females. If you’d like I can post the studies about female brain structure done by Swansea uni to ascertain what potential damage was being done to female’s in rugby tackles. And follow that up with the dementia information coming from all rugby players (males included).

Every example here is well documented. They have happened already. It is not make believe.

It simply does not have to happen ‘at scale’ to harm girls and women.

There is also a very powerful financial reason.

There certainly are. The prize for the top women's player at Wimbledon is over a million pounds (and prizes below that are not to be sniffed at either).

But I do question the scale of the problem. I was responding to the claim the women's sports were being overrun.

One man in a women's rugby team makes it dangerous for all women in any team playing against them. One man in the women's changing room destroys the privacy and dignity of all women wanting to get changed in their. On man going to the Olympics have knocked every women in that sport down a level, denying them sporting opportunities, scholarships and sponsorships. One man always winning the top medal and girls looking to sport think 'why bother?' and turn away.

@Georgist OK! The next question do you think all transwomen have been using male spaces until recently?

Actually, one of the groups I feel sorry for are the, uhhh, historic trans community.

The two trans people I know have been quietly living unremarkably as the opposite gender for decades. It wouldn't occur to either of them to go and strip naked in a female changing room. They would be mortified, both because they recognise it would cause distress, and because they still struggle with gender dysphoria.

They're a very different group from the, uhhh, out and proud transwomen all over twitter. Who brag about their 'lady penis' and want to show it off. Who seem to court controversy and enjoy the shock and upset. Who want to trick lesbians into sleeping with them for the thrill of it.

Both are very different again from the sexual perverts who exploit self-ID to gain access to female spaces.

They're all people with penises who want access to female spaces. But they're very different. The latter two groups are a danger to women. They should not be allowed access. The first is not. The difficulty is it's impossible to distinguish one subset of people with penises from another until too late.

It's not only women who lose out by self-ID and the more aggressive forms of trans activism. It's trans people like my friends, too.

I feel very sorry for your friends Motorina. I think you are right. They are being incredibly damaged by all TRAs talking about lady penises and and by all the incidents of perverts using self ID (WiSpa, Loundoun School, Baby Kardashian, etc, etc, etc).
I completely understand that they just want to get in with their lives.

But what can we do about it? Vulnerable women and girls need to be protected. How can we separate one penis person from another?

I do question the scale of the problem. I was responding to the claim the women's sports were being overrun
Look again at what I said - I said female sport was becoming a travesty, not that it was overrun. The whole problem is it doesn't take enough male participants to overrun a sport for it to be unfair, dangerous and to turn women away from sport. Part of the whole slight of hand trick is that we aren't allowed to ask if there will be any male bodied competitors so a) no-one knows the actual scale (Hubbard wasn't the only TW competing as woman in Tokyo - there was at least one other - a Canadian archer and probably two members of the Chinese basketball team).
B) the knowledge that there could be a male bodied person on the other team or in the changing room is enough for some women to be deterred from sport.
C) so what if it is only a handful of TW and it only affects a handful of women? Why should even one women be disadvantaged? Why is that fair or acceptable? Where is the line drawn? Oh it's just the Parkrun rankings? It's only a small local race? It's just a university scholarship? A world record? A gold medal? A million pound prize? A broken nose? A broken leg? A broken neck? What level of disadvantage crosses the line?

Vulnerable women and girls need to be protected. How can we separate one penis person from another?

This is the kernel of the issue. The original logic behind single-sex facilities was never because "all men are rapists, abusers and sexual predators" but because some are and it is impossible to tell which before it is too late, so keeping facilities where women and girls are at their most vulnerable as single-sex is a rational and proportionate way to provide some protection.

The vast majority of males who are excluded from female-only facilities are good, kind and harmless so obviously this is also true of those males who identify with/dress according to female gender. However, that isn't the point. The point is that no one can tell until it is too late.

If there are any exceptions whatsoever, then however you word the policy, the practical outcome is that the facilities are open to "all females, plus males who particularly want to" and you can be 100% certain that those males who are dangerous will find a way to use the exception.

Yes, I agree. The reality of where we are now is that single sex facilities have to stay 100% single sex, for all the reasons you've said. That's particularly true where people are vulnerable (prisons, hospitals) or are unable to leave (prisons, hospitals...)

I just feel sorry for my friends.

Not just ‘vulnerable’ women and girls. What about dignity? What about just feeling comfortable in your own skin? I am incredible short sighted - so in a gym changing room/shower (outs just have glass sides/door) - I don’t exactly parade about naked but for the love of god, I need to feel safe when I am virtually naked, in a gloomily lit underground room with very few other people in there.

*Incredibly short sighted - (yes I’m also incredible)

If you are saying some men (transwomen) have the right to use female spaces then it is not really a question of how do you distinguish good from bad. You are saying the bad are just as entitled to use that space as the good. The transwomen rapist who gets off on making women uncomfortable is just as entitled to use that space as the old-style post-op transsexual.

But it isn't just about safety, surely we are entitled to privacy and modesty? My daughters have never seen their father's naked body and I doubt he has seen theirs since they grew out of nappies and stopped needing supervised baths. Why then should they have to change in front of random other men or see a strange male's naked body?
We're not Victorian prudes but like to maintain some personal dignity and modesty.

In hospitals dignity and respect are drummed into all staff. Positioning patients on our examination table if the blanket briefly exposes them we apologise and many older women will respond "oh I'm too old to care" but we care and give that respect to everyone.

So why should we be denied that in the changing room at the gym or the pool or wherever?

You are free to request a female doctor in the UK. You don't have a right not to be a called a bigot, even if that term isn't justified
@Georgist
You are indeed entitled to ask for a female doctor and we are told that hospital wards are sex segregated but women in hospitals are being labelled as bigots for complaining that there is a man being treated in the ward or that the female Dr if in fact a man. Because men can be women too.

"NHS ‘gaslighting patients’ on female only wards | Mumsnet" www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4367520-NHS-gaslighting-patients-on-female-only-wards

When "being a bigot" translates to "refusing to accept a male bodied person when a female HCP has been requested specifically" then it's not bigotry.
If one ASKS for a female HCP, then one should GET a female HCP, not a TW.

Talking sport ... the trans woman who recently choked out the biological woman during their fight. Why is a man with the massive biological advantage of being a man fighting a woman. It's wrong.

[quote Runningupthecurtains]You are free to request a female doctor in the UK. You don't have a right not to be a called a bigot, even if that term isn't justified
@Georgist
You are indeed entitled to ask for a female doctor and we are told that hospital wards are sex segregated but women in hospitals are being labelled as bigots for complaining that there is a man being treated in the ward or that the female Dr if in fact a man. Because men can be women too.

"NHS ‘gaslighting patients’ on female only wards | Mumsnet" www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4367520-NHS-gaslighting-patients-on-female-only-wards[/quote]
The gaslighting is appalling - particularly as it often involves very elderly patients who are worried that they may be developing dementia (even when they aren't). They are being told that they can't trust their own eyes and ears - effectively as one lady put it to me once "becoming old dafties".

This is terrifying for people. Many genuinely believe that they are "going mad". They are vulnerable in so many ways.

@REDHERO

Talking sport ... the trans woman who recently choked out the biological woman during their fight. Why is a man with the massive biological advantage of being a man fighting a woman. It's wrong.

The TW martial arts competitors seem to use much more force than is necessary - and then they brag about it.

Bigotry means intolerance of other people's idea and opinions. An example of bigotry is someone insisting that an elderly woman requesting a female HCP must accept a man because they believe TWAW.

@ChattyLion

I’m really pleased that Robert Winston spoke out again on this topic - he has an excellent platform to do this as both a Labour peer and a research biologist and fertility doctor. Thank you to him!

He was clear and to the point and correct. He has and will continue to receive abuse for this.

The woman student that waffled on about feeling safe made no sense and all and was allowed to speak several times as was the waffling labour politician.