Transwomen in womens sport: advice sought..

[TraumatisedinTwickenham]

I’ve name changed as this may be outing.

As a hobby I play a team sport. I play for a womens team in a womens league.
We played against a team recently which had two trans women in the tram. Both well over 6 ft and faster, stronger than the women on my team.

They were both in the ladies changing room before the game. I wasn’t changing as I had arrived already in my sports gear but there are open showers in there and I certainty wouldn’t have felt comfortable showering in knowing that there was a trans woman in the space.

I’m really quite traumatised about it. I thought a womens league was inherently a single sex league but this doesn’t seem to be the case here. I have thought about going to the governing body of the sport but noticed that their website has an interview with the club for which the team we played represents as part of LGBTQ+ history month.

Incidentally, both of the trans people were very pleasant friendly people, not that this is really relevant, why wouldn’t they be. But it doesn’t change the fact that anyone who has been through male puberty has an undeniable advantage over women. I just don’t think that they should be participating in a womens team in a womens league but don’t know what the actual legal position is.

I was really upset (unexpectedly so) during the game and now half my own team thinks I’m a bigot..

I just don’t know what to do.

And I’ve apologised. I was trying not to use ‘exclude’ again, because I felt it was inflammatory but landed on something much worse

@PlayerOneReady

So sorry OP I don’t have any advice but you aren’t bigoted for feeling this way - I would feel exactly the same.

Me too.

I hate the fact that you are feeling bad for thinking how unfair it was.

@titchy

This is not PE and I don't need a note from my mum to leave

.

Sharks wrote:

"They also have no biological advantage against other women so it's fine for them to play in the women's team."

Eh? Of course they do!

Of course I’m not saying it’s compulsory to participate. And if you want to organise yourselves to cleanse your club of trans people, then that is legal and your prerogative.

Excluding male players from female sport is hardly comparable to ethnic cleansing. Shame on you

They also have no biological advantage against other women so it's fine for them to play in the women's team."

Are you ok because you don't seem to understand basic biology? Men have huge biological advantages and as transwomen are also male they share these advantages.

FFS. Why is this such a hard concept for some people to grasp?

If you include transwomen in Women's sport you exclude women, directly by males taking places from females and indirectly because some women will be uncomfortable with the notion of mixed sex sport (for whatever reason) and will just stop playing.

Sport organisations need to full consent of women before they start changing their Inclusion Policies at the behest of lobby groups training administrators at head office.
But women are never ever asked.

*Sharks wrote:

"They also have no biological advantage against other women so it's fine for them to play in the women's team."

Eh? Of course they do!*

I agree - read my whole post in context: I was pointing out the contrast between attitudes to transwomen in sport and transmen in sport.

I hate the fact that you are feeling bad for thinking how unfair it was.

Yes, also deeply sorry for the OP here, who not only has the distress of the original problem, and those male people just by their presence have caused distress - which the OP has protected them from, not wanting to hurt their feelings or upset them. Where neither of them apparently have considered the feelings of the females involved, or feel any responsibility to do so.

But also having been afraid to voice her concerns and now having to deal, on a thread asking for support with this, people making it clear that females with any problems with forced mix sex take overs of their hobbies have no right to protest and can either silently put the needs of the male first or go away.

And be scolded for being insufficiently accepting and tolerant of the very special needs of male people which always trump those of any female.

And yet people are baffled that some females' response to this is less than politely male-centred and nurturing. The inequality, double standards and sexism of thinking visible in people speaking for all this continues to drop my jaw on a daily basis. It's just currently so downright righteous to be so prejudiced and discriminatory against females. In a way they would call all sorts of names and be horrified by if you tried to apply their own standards and thinking and terms towards male people. Two TW important enough to overturn an entire team, present and future for, and end female only access. But a woman upset? It's only one. Doesn't matter. What's the prob with excluding some females? They're the wrong sort anyway.

I agree - read my whole post in context: I was pointing out the contrast between attitudes to transwomen in sport and transmen in sport.

Apologies for thinking that you held the delusional view that male sports.people have no advantage over female sports people
Of course transmem have no extra advantage as like women they have female bodies.

@sharksarecool

I don't think anyone has an issue with trans men who aren't on testosterone continuing to play on womens teams!

But it's such a double standard!

Because:
"Transwomen are women, and therefore find it massively upsetting and triggering to play sport in the men's. They also have no biological advantage against other women so it's fine for them to play in the women's team. And mens/womens sport should definitely be organised based on how people feel rather than biology."

BUT:
"Transmen are men, and yet they somehow don't find it upsetting or triggering to play sport in the women's team. And it would be wrong to exclude them from the women's team, because all of a sudden we've decided that even though they feel like a man, biology does matter after all. And maybe they might be unsafe playing on the men's team, or not strong enough to cope, even though we agree that males have absolutely no advantage over females in sport."

To clarify, I would never ever seek to exclude a transman from women's sport. It's just drives me nuts that they try to have it both ways.

Sharks is entirely correct here.

But also having been afraid to voice her concerns and now having to deal, on a thread asking for support with this, people making it clear that females with any problems with forced mix sex take overs of their hobbies have no right to protest and can either silently put the needs of the male first or go away.

Oh no, Artichoke, she's not allowed to go away, either!

I play hockey, I wouldn't want to play against trans women - I deliberately don't play mixed hockey because I am small and don't particularly like being barged out of the way by men who are that much stronger than I am.

My mistake.

Is there some kind of feelings/protected characteristics/personalityectomy that can be applied to inconvenient females so they provide the required servicing without anything getting in the way of the service users?

I mean, I know the female people thought they were just turning up to their relaxation, their me time, their hobby, but obvs that's not permitted now that males are here with needs.

OP, I'm dealing with a not dissimilar situation in my sport (football) where the league I play in has asked for teams to comment on whether they would be happy to include transgender players.

Our coach asked for our opinions and several players responded publicly that they were happy to play with transgender players. Many other players did not respond publicly, though may have done so privately (with either opinion). I wrote to the coach with some of the recently published research and guidance. I found the Sports Councils guidance incredibly helpful. It states quite clearly that you cannot balance safety, fairness and inclusion and sports bodies need to decide which one of these they are prioritising. They can choose inclusion, but they can be under no illusions that they are sacrificing safety and fairness to do so.

The coach had the approach that everyone had to agree for him to agree, and I am absolutely on the same page. You cannot give away someone else's rights. I wrote a two page explanation of recent research, the impingement on other protected rights (disability and religion) and the importance of sport to women. He used that as our response to the league. We wait to see what happens next. If you DM me I am happy to share that with you.

To the posters saying it doesn't matter and its only low level, I can only presume you've never played team sports. Every single game at every level matters, why else would you play? I've played lots of mixed football and several years ago I played regularly against a transwoman in the women's game and I don't think most young women have any conception of the physical differences between males and females. This is the hill I die on, I'm prepared to lose friends and I will quit if I have to, but not before I've fought for women's sports.

Of course I’m not saying it’s compulsory to participate. And if you want to organise yourselves to cleanse your club of trans people, then that is legal and your prerogative.
Look at you carefully selecting highly emotive and incorrect words to try and make you sound right- ‘cleanse’? It’s quite probably a club that fields women’s and men’s teams, I don’t know any that don’t unless you go back to my days at an all girls school. There’s no ‘cleansing’ involved here, just pointing out there’s a different team for you where women won’t be at risk. And no we won’t force our female players to shower in front of you. See, how other people can use strong words too? Or do you I think it’s only convincing when you do?

Well, you know, it's like how female people have to "date" (a euphemism for shag) transwomen if the transwoman wants them.

After you've demanded that female people dispense sex without any regard to whether they're getting any pleasure from it, expecting female people to populate a hockey team for you to play against is small change.

@Truthlikeness great post, this part in particular-

It states quite clearly that you cannot balance safety, fairness and inclusion and sports bodies need to decide which one of these they are prioritising. They can choose inclusion, but they can be under no illusions that they are sacrificing safety and fairness to do so.

I hope the league takes on board the evidence you have given them.

[quote Waitwhat23]@Truthlikeness great post, this part in particular-

It states quite clearly that you cannot balance safety, fairness and inclusion and sports bodies need to decide which one of these they are prioritising. They can choose inclusion, but they can be under no illusions that they are sacrificing safety and fairness to do so.

I hope the league takes on board the evidence you have given them.[/quote]
Thanks. I should clarify that I have absolutely no issues playing with a transmen, assuming they have not taken testosterone, which is a banned substance (unless your body produces it naturally...)

Each club can't have it's own rules! If one says ok max 2 TW as another says 4 then the 2 max club will not see it as fair.

If the existing mixed rules are adopted by one club and not enough then they can't play as different rules!

If one tweaks women rules and another doesn't same issue.

The idea of participants voting is just not how it works. Sports rules must be very clear, unambiguous, and apply across the board.

Athletes come up through clubs and onto national international etc. So every female hockey player in the world needs a say? Well that's not going to work!

I was thinking about what would happen if DS suddenly felt feminine and decided to play with a girls football team and against other girls. He would crush them completely.

But then I realised that DS would never do that. He already plays in the top team and against other brilliant boy footballers. The boys who would enjoy it are the ones who never made it with the other boys.

England hockey are a joke. Their policy before the sports council stuff was that TW must be included and I’m paraphrasing but not by much ‘it would be feasible that a person can live and work as a man but on game day decide they are a woman and be accepted onto the team and into the female facilities’ ya know the ones that 13 y/o girls are using. After we asked some tricky questions they were stumped and couldn’t answer so directed us to Sports England. They are now currently reviewing their policy and welcome input. The best thing we can do is tell them how we want things to be.

By the way - I’ve played mixed hockey and it’s shit for the women. Men hog the ball, women get injured FAR more frequently than single sex games and are playing against men who aerial the ball all fucking game which is terrifying. I don’t WANT to play mixed sex hockey with even less safeguards than there are now thanks!

Athletes come up through clubs and onto national international etc. So every female hockey player in the world needs a say? Well that's not going to work!

Why not? The government regularly runs public consultation. It would have been a perfectly doable for England Hockey to consult all of its registered clubs - which in turn could have consulted their own players - to get a picture of women's attitudes. But they didn't. Instead they got lobbied by GIRES and changed the regulations to allow transwomen into female sport.

It's still perfectly legal and reasonable for individual clubs to decide that, even though England Hockey allow transwomen to compete in the women's game, that they as a club won't allow TW onto the women's team or into their changing rooms. It's also perfectly reasonable for an individual player to decide that they don't want to play on or against a team with transwomen, and move to a lower team or different club.

This is another example where a perfectly aok option is available but it is not the option taken.

There are mixed teams. Ok they would have to decide how to count the females. Where to change. Yes.

But that's not what's wanted. It's the women's team and mixed sex communal changing.

Any male knows that has a high probability of pissing off / upsetting one or more women /girls on their team. Obviously.

So why is that the one taken when an alternative mixed is available? That shows zero empathy with or care about the female teammates.

Prisons we're told it's about safety so why when in separate wing etc are there calls to put in main population as that's discrimatory? To the point that one was supported by an org in taking it to court? That's not just about safety then.

The WiSpa thing I mean whether anyone view is dodgy or not. There was men women and a mixed spa. Law there was male can go in any. Why not use the mixed? In that spa.. Males have a choice of 3. With men women or both. And females have no option just for them.

This comes up over and over and doesn't seem to me to be consistent with the aim (everyone is told) of quietly getting on with life.