Trans athlete wins in female swimming race

[bonfireheart]

www.lbc.co.uk/news/female-swimmers-transgender-lia-thomas-podium-protest-atlanta-result/

Don't know how true this story is but wonder if the public reaction to stuff like this will become more common.

That was a glorious interview.

JHB did a great job of pointing out the contradictions and ridiculousness of it all.

• So if transwomen are women but you can apply single sex exemptions to sport, you are saying that it's ok to exclude some women from competing against other women

• so if a woman is an adult human female and a transwomen, men are women, and a woman is...well, there's no such thing

• don't you think it's odd that you, a man, are telling me, a woman, what a woman is

I mean, do these politicians actually seriously believe that a transwomen is a women? Because if they do, I don't want them in charge of drafting new legislation!

On the STV website(I can't do links yet):
Ron de Santis, Governor of the state of Florida, has not recognised Lia Thomas as the winner of the weekend swimming championships and has proclaimed Emma the true winner. He has a great deal to say about the matter .

@RockaLock

That was a glorious interview.

JHB did a great job of pointing out the contradictions and ridiculousness of it all.

• So if transwomen are women but you can apply single sex exemptions to sport, you are saying that it's ok to exclude some women from competing against other women

• so if a woman is an adult human female and a transwomen, men are women, and a woman is...well, there's no such thing

• don't you think it's odd that you, a man, are telling me, a woman, what a woman is

I mean, do these politicians actually seriously believe that a transwomen is a women? Because if they do, I don't want them in charge of drafting new legislation!

This is an excellent point.

If they cannot even pin down a basic understanding of language and the need for clarity and distinction then no, they have no business going anywhere near law and God help us with the economy.

The trouble with people like James Murray and the labour party is they want to say TWAW, but they don't want it to be unpicked. They can't.

They want to say yes they're women, but they can still be excluded.

And they don't want it to go any further than that sentence.

Because, James, saying TWAW is not just a soundbite.

It has to be analysed.

And of course, don't forget, you absolute numpty, that any man, any single man, including every predator in the country can be one.

The definition of a woman is absolutely anyone. But we can exclude some of them?

You want less heat, and a conversation, so let's hear it, on what basis will you exclude these 'women'?

Sick to death of all this pussyfooting around and not acknowledging the implications of what's being said.

Let's hear it.

Who are you excluding, how are you doing it and what is the collective word for that group??

Respectful? You first, mate. Try to respect women, and women's rights, and have the decency to try to figure out why women refuse to calm down dear about this.

No-one ever asks a politician to define a man, do they.

I know it's maybe not so much of an issue for men in terms of safety or sports, and the TRA movement seems to be all about the transwomen anyway, but the question should still be asked at the same time; what is the definition of a man.

And if the answer is "adult human males and transmen" then the logical conclusion of this must surely be that men are perfectly fine with women transmen wandering around their changing rooms and using urinals next to them.

I mean, it would never happen because the number of women who'd want to do that must be vanishingly small, but I'm sure that most (decent) men wouldn't be comfortable with that idea at all. I know my DH wouldn't, anyway!

Oh, and also for transmen to have equal inheritance rights in all those estates that automatically go down the male line, even if there is an elder daughter. But I think we all know which men would be considered "real" men there, don't we.

I think I'm just love with Julia Hartley Brewer after that interview.

The democratic supreme court justice nominee can't define women as she's not a biologist.
Soon to be part of the highest legal body in the USA.
This is far from over:

twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1506451123674173443?t=Z6SoQu4F9JY_kwOfPgGqzg&s=19

@PermanentTemporary

Florida abortion law bans abortions after 15 weeks - signed by Ronnie boy.

You see that's what is so infuriating. The forced paring.

Abortion law is based on beliefs. Everyone has them. They do not depend on facts. They wholly depend upon someones response to facts around the termination of pregnancy. Laws about abortion rights stem from those beliefs. Many people think that 24 weeks is too late into a pregnancy to abort 'on a whim' / aka because the woman wants to. That is their belief. They are entitleed to it and I am entitled to fight them should they want to change it here in Great Britain.

Knowing that humans come in 2 sexes is a fact. It requires no belief. It simply is. There are no laws stating this, it is simply biology.

So I can understand the very same facts about abortion and disagree with Ron de Santis whilst sharing with his logical take on sexed bodies. That doesn't make me a right wing fascist, nazi, nasty person.

If the word women includes men, then we need a new word for women as an anatomically same group, for times when the definition is needed, e.g. women's healthcare.

Far simpler for TW to remain TW in name and definition, leaving women to continue to mean women.

TRAs eould of course try to lay claim to any new word we came up with. They are already trying with 'female'. They don't want to acknowledge any differences between us.

[quote MalagaNights]The democratic supreme court justice nominee can't define women as she's not a biologist.
Soon to be part of the highest legal body in the USA.
This is far from over:

twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1506451123674173443?t=Z6SoQu4F9JY_kwOfPgGqzg&s=19[/quote]
AAAAARRRRGH! Why are people being so ridiculous??!!

@ScreamingMeMe

TRAs eould of course try to lay claim to any new word we came up with. They are already trying with 'female'. They don't want to acknowledge any differences between us.

Yep if we say OK woman now means female and some male adult humans so when we need to distinguish the word 'fewosher' (random just invented word consisting of parts of female, woman, she and her but it doesn't matter what the word is, it could be anything) means natal woman there would be push back and insistence the TW are fewosher too. We have to be kind and inclusive and most importantly we have to put up and shut up.

In a nutshell:

thousands of undergrad students repeat long known physiological and biological tests every fucking year... becaue the results are known, can be demonstrated by even the most lacklustre of students, checked against an enormous library of previous data and discussed in detail by every member of every sport science department.

Please cite one study which determines how much of the performance difference between men and women is due to biological differences between the sexes. I'm out of academia, but I can look it up on scihub.

Which completely contradicts everything else you have deigned to post. you DO know that there are physiological differences between the sexes that have an effect of performance!

I didn't contradict myself. I just said gymnastics and dance are different for men and women. I didn't say that men and women aren't capable of doing the same gymnastics and dance routines.

You are literally an idiot.

What alec said

@AlecTrevelyan006

You are literally an idiot.

🤣🤣🤣

@AlecTrevelyan006

You are literally an idiot.

I'm struggling to comprehend that anyone can be that idiotic. I mean, aren't they doing this deliberately? Is it genuinely possible to be this moronic or is it a wind up...?

I am out of academia

No shit, Sherlock!

@greasyshoes look upthread. There is a lovely poster, used by sport science teachers from GCSE garde upwards. It has all sorts of % difference data in it!

@loopycurtains he will come back and say "But how much of that is down to sociological factors? Has anyone measured that?"

He will consider that a Gotcha! - again.

And I will repeat, not with any large cohorts as it is not physically possible to do in a way that would get past Ethics (think about how you would remove sociological input for one cohort!).

I will also repeat the hint about twin studies. But @greasyshoes won't acknowledge that, again!

It is tedious, he has a very small circle of query, and yet remains persistent!

He's just trying to derail.

I've been looking at Lia Thomas conversations on Twitter (I know, I shouldn't) and saw this:

'the stat of her placing in the 400s was when she was competing in the men’s division while she was transitioning. before her transition she was placing first in men’s leagues. she’s just a good swimmer'

I instinctively think this is bunkum, but I looked on Wikipedia (yes, I know, not exactly peer-reviewed etc etc but I'm not a scientist and can't read hard data).

It looks as if Thomas's performance/ranking has suffered from the transition process:

'during her freshman year [Thomas] recorded a time of 8 minutes and 57.55 seconds in the 1,000-yard freestyle that ranked as the sixth-fastest national men's time, as well as 500-yard freestyle and 1,650-yard freestyle times ranked within the national top 100… During the 2018–2019 season, Thomas recorded the top university men's team times in the 500 free, 1000 free, and 1650 free.

'She began transitioning using hormone replacement therapy in May 2019… Her time for the 500 freestyle is over 15 seconds slower than her personal bests before medically transitioning. Thomas's event progression peaked in 2019 for distance swimming, with a drop in times during the 2021–22 season.'

BUT then it says 'Her event progression for sprint swimming reflected a dip at the start of 2021–22 season before returning to near-lifetime bests in the 100 free and a lifetime personal best in the 50 free in 2021.'
So does this mean Thomas had a dip in performance while actually transitioning, but now is getting back to previous – male – form?

I think it is a Dolphins leaving earth scenario myself. Douglas Adams really knew how to create lines that lived on and on.

@DameHelena I am currently pondering looking for footage of Will to compare to Lia. I want to see if the swimming action, not it's effectiveness, its action are the same. The foot kicks, arm shapes etc. because they won't change, they are physically set by the body.

I suspect, from what I have seen of footage of Lia, that I will see far less foot action - that has already been noted by many but I would like to see the Will comparator.

And some quite robust evidence shows that hormones don't do much in a short space of time and are not universally effective at reducing perfomance anyway!

This one is an easy read, doesn't have any nasty figures and stats to argue over. It has pros and cons mentioned in the same blunt and factual manner and actually discusses transmen too!

www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trans-women-retain-athletic-edge-after-year-hormone-therapy-study-n1252764