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.

@NiceGerbil

Just one quick thing -

'maybe the girls in competition with the TW could increase their training to beat the TW'

Why would girls be competing against an adult?

I skimmed yesterday and saw age mentioned but it's a long thread didn't read it.

House. I was just waiting for "If women were serious about sport they would just train harder" to complete my why we should let men compete as women bingo card. I think the world record holding, Olympic medal winners should just push themselves a bit hard to close that 12-15% gap on their male equivalents. I mean some get their times beaten by school boys - the slackers. (Again for the avoidance of doubt sarcasm is being employed in this post).

I’m so sick of the argument that women’s rights and trans rights aren’t in conflict.

For every trans women who is selected to compete as a woman in the Olympics, a natal woman who would otherwise have qualified must be excluded. You cannot have safety, fairness AND inclusivity in women’s sports. You have to choose.

@Runningupthecurtains but TWAW so it's fine if they set new better records to reflect what amazing people they are. Future TW need to have challenging records to beat and only women lose out, so no big deal. Women are a lower order of humans and it's time to accept that men out women us on a whim. The essence of 'women', after all, is just a feeling in a man's head.

I'd recommend women give up on sport, and scholarships, and take rape alarms into non-single sex spaces, or be chaperoned by a man.

I feel fed up too!

@Enough4me
We really should just shut up and shove over shouldn't we? Or better yet shuffle back into the kitchen and pop the dinner on while the men get on with the important stuff.

@Cattenberg
I’m so sick of the argument that women’s rights and trans rights aren’t in conflict.

Does anyone think they aren't in conflict?

I think the only group who don't think rights have to be in conflict are libertarians. They only believe in negative rights (i.e. a right not to be subjected to an action of another person or group), whereas everyone else believes in positive rights (a right to be provided with something through the action of another person or the state).

Libertarians say taxation and the state violates rights and envisage its abolition. Everyone else accepts them (violations, or conflicting rights) as a necessary evil to provide positive rights. I don't think there is very much in non-libertarian political philosophy aside from rights conflicting with other rights and other objectives (like welfare and equality). It's just arguments about the trade-offs.

Does anyone think they aren't in conflict?

The Labour party
Women's and trans rights are not in conflict, says Angela Rayner

Stonewall:
The petition also asks us to acknowledge that there is a conflict between trans rights and ‘sex based women’s rights’. We do not and will not acknowledge this.
www.stonewall.org.uk/node/100426

And everyone else who says TWAW.

@Kosmin - there are still plenty of TRAs and allies wittering on about "rights aren't like pie" and that Trans rights have zero effect on women's rights. Rights absolutely ARE like pie, in that once TW have all the rights to go wherever and do whatever they like, regardless of women's rights to female-only spaces, then women's rights have been subsumed by transrights and we're done for - they have ALL the pie and we have nothing.

And what Oldcrone posted.

I don't think the possibility of regaining a previous performance level by increasing training is particular relevant.

It becomes relevant when people claim things like males who transition can no longer compete or participate with their own sex after transition.

Or even.

’I think it's fair enough to say that this TW can't compete in either male or female contact sports ‘

Because I have yet to see evidence that they cannot compete with other males. Contact or non contact.

Do you have any evidence at all for your statement?

I suppose it would make sense that TW who transitioned pre-puberty, and who have therefore still in essence got a child's body, would not be safe competing in contact sports against men who have been through male puberty.
Where would they compete?
This I do NOT know the answer to, unless it's the not-yet-created Open category.

TW who have been through male puberty should compete in the male or not-yet-created Open category.

TM can compete in the Open category as it would not be safe, in some sports, for them to compete in the male category, and they would be considered to be doping if they tried to compete in the female category.

Of course, this then creates some issues within the Open category...

TW who transitioned pre-puberty, and who have therefore still in essence got a child's body

Do they though? The only example I can think of right now (apart from poor old Jazz) is Nikki de Jaager, who does YouTube makeup videos. Nikkie does look like a beautiful young woman but is just built on such a different scale to your average woman at well over six feet tall.

A male transitioning pre puberty is a difficult one to decide at the moment.

That is why World rugby put the proviso in that their regulations related to those who had benefits from male puberty. Until a way to allow safe and fair participation was developed.

And I think more research is needed because the effects of puberty blockers needs to be fully understood in context for sports.

I agree about Nicky Tutorials. There has also been discussion about whether those with CAIS can offer any insight into how the body is different.

Iirc though, the restrictions are on those who had some virilisation until more is known.

And it has been suggested by some experts that the adult men’s category be renamed and act as an open category.

Georgist

Around 15,000 men have run faster than the women's marathon record, do you not think there are valid physiological differences between men and women which have influenced that fact?

There’s just something so very Year Zero about this drive to chuck everything we know about physiology on the bonfire of progress. We’re only just beginning to understand how vastly different men’s and women’s bodies are, not that this has stopped men historically putting prohibitions and bans on women competing in sports.

It wasn’t complicated when Katherine Schweitzer was manhandled off the course at the Boston Marathon in 1967.

It wasn’t complicated when the IOC foot dragged over all the countries that refused to allow women athletes to compete which was only resolved in 2012.

It wasn’t complicated when the FA banned women’s teams from 1921 to 1971.

It’s not complicated now. No male bodies in women’s sports.

It’s not complicated now. No male bodies in women’s sports

I agree. I think the current guidance again puts females in potential harm. It should be that males without benefit of male puberty should be proved to not have any advantages before discussion of inclusion.

It should never have been forced using the burden of evidence being on exclusion knowing what was already known of males sports performance and physique.

Yep the athletic schedule at the Olympics only became equitable for women and men in 2000. Funny how men weren't clammering to complete as women back in the 60's when there were only a token handful of women's races at the Olympics. Funny how men weren't clammering to compete in women's sports when the prize money was considerably lower than the men's and professionals were only found in a tiny number of sports. Funny how men weren't clammering to compete in women's sport when TV coverage was practically non existent outside of a couple of core events and attendances were pretty much limited to friends and family in many sports.

Weren’t clammering to compete when certain countries were doping their female athletes to the gills and they would have had a closer to ‘fairer’ fight on their hands.

I bet they still aren't clammering in countries in which women's participation is still subject to restrictions.

@MistandMud

TW who transitioned pre-puberty, and who have therefore still in essence got a child's body

Do they though? The only example I can think of right now (apart from poor old Jazz) is Nikki de Jaager, who does YouTube makeup videos. Nikkie does look like a beautiful young woman but is just built on such a different scale to your average woman at well over six feet tall.

Yes, I apologise, that was badly put - they do grow up more than a child, I was thinking too specifically of the fact that their reproductive organs stay like a child's.

The effects of puberty blockers are poorly understood - a good reason to NOT be giving them to all and sundry on demand!! - but I've read that they can cause bone growth restriction as well as bone density reduction. Puberty blocking would also prevent the virilisation of the boys' bodies so they wouldn't achieve the very obvious physical advantages that the male body has after it has been through male puberty.

They don't go through "female puberty" because they don't have the bits to do it. They might get some boob growth, and some figure shape changes, from the female hormones - but they don't get the sexual maturation of the organs because they have the wrong ones for the hormones they're using. This is one of the things that is being realised recently with the boys going for vaginoplasty - they don't have enough tissue to invert, and they may never experience sexual feeling because nothing had a chance to develop.

@Sophoclesthefox

There’s just something so very Year Zero about this drive to chuck everything we know about physiology on the bonfire of progress. We’re only just beginning to understand how vastly different men’s and women’s bodies are, not that this has stopped men historically putting prohibitions and bans on women competing in sports.

It wasn’t complicated when Katherine Schweitzer was manhandled off the course at the Boston Marathon in 1967.

It wasn’t complicated when the IOC foot dragged over all the countries that refused to allow women athletes to compete which was only resolved in 2012.

It wasn’t complicated when the FA banned women’s teams from 1921 to 1971.

It’s not complicated now. No male bodies in women’s sports.

Exactly. Everyone knows what a woman is when they exercise their misogyny.

And I'm pretty sick of these sorts of conversations too. What if we did that? How about doing it this way? What if we reduced this hormone, or increased that one, or divided women's sports into those that men should be able to overrun and those that maybe they shouldn't?

It's the same with toilets. What if the doors were taller? Or the sinks are placed like this? Or you have a GRC? Or you pass?

All these bloody ways to try and dominate women.

It's just relentless. And all this faux, well I'm being quite fair, I'm just trying to decide on an intellectual level, you know, like what is the actual scale we're talking about here?

Do people really believe they can disguise their rank sexism in this way?

Women's sport is about celebrating spectacular female athletes.

Not mediocre men.

The answer is no.

And I'm pretty sick of these sorts of conversations too. What if we did that? How about doing it this way? What if we reduced this hormone, or increased that one, or divided women's sports into those that men should be able to overrun and those that maybe they shouldn't?

And yet still they come.

However, they do bring out links being posted for new readers and a live demonstration of the constant stream of ‘whataboutery’ that we see on other platforms.

It is like a day at the marine park though.

And I'm pretty sick of these sorts of conversations too. What if we did that? How about doing it this way? What if we reduced this hormone, or increased that one, or divided women's sports into those that men should be able to overrun and those that maybe they shouldn't?

It's asking the wrong questions. We should start from the position that female sporting categories are for female people - women and girls who are not doping with testosterone.

The question of how to accommodate in sports those people who have chosen to modify their bodies to resemble those of the opposite sex is nothing to do with women. These people should be campaigning for their own sporting categories or to change the male category to an open category.