I was beaten to third place in a running race by a trans woman

[Athleticpotential]

It's a very low key local running race, neither of us are usually contenders, but a combination of circumstances meant the field was such that we finished 3rd and 4th.

The prize is a bottle of cheap wine, it's not about that.

I know her to chat to at races and I like her. It's not common knowledge that she's trans, she enters races as a woman. She is very masculine to look at, but TBH, until recently I thought she was an unfortunate woman, I had no idea.

So in the scheme of things it doesn't matter, but it does....?

Should I "do" anything? What?

In my office there's a man who looks a lot (in terms of his build and so on, I'd of course never ask or even gossip with others) like he might chromosomally be XXY, whatever it is they call that condition, it's I think far more common than what I'd call a genuine intersex condition like Caster Semenya (46 XY). Though this bloke is quite tall even by male standards it's in a kind of gangly, weak-looking kind of way and he seems to have what look like the beginnings of female hips and breasts. Someone like this bloke likely has few to no male advantages and would imo have far more business in a woman's race than either a trans woman or a 46 XY person who might be male in all respects other than the obvious. The existence of people like him could not be less relevant to the question of whether the aforementioned belong in women's sport or not. In all cases you in the end have to go with the best match, and it's not even halfway difficult to ascertain what that is in the trans woman case.

puffyisgood - I don't know how the sporting authorities deal with people with DSD. I would hope that since it's a disorder that each case could be treated on its merits.

We don't know more about the transwoman in the OPs post, but at the back of my mind are men like Lia Thomas or Lauren Hubbard, don't have DSD as far as we know, who spend a few years competing as adult men, aren't getting the results they want as men, and then have a go as women. With the mantra TWAW constantly thrust at us, and cries of transphobe, if someone says that it doesn't look quite fair. Hubbard failed pretty dismally at the Olympics as it happened. I think in the end they might have allowed an extra woman to take up a place on the team. Otherwise a woman who may have been working towards an Olympic place for four years lost out.

Same. I may soon have to consider whether I wish to continue participating in my sport.
The governing body is totally captured. I already know two transwomen who are competing in our local competitions and I'm told there are more.

That’s because he is a student (PhD philosophy student at Florida State)

Well no, obviously that's not an answer, is it - you've just changed the same words around rather than saying what you think they mean.

I can only conclude that you think 'identifying as a woman' means 'identifying as a female person'. Therefore you define woman as 'female person'. (That's the dictionary definition, and you don't seem to be able to add anything to that).

If that's not accurate @Ntsure - I'll copy the question again and see what you think.
What is the thing that women are identifying as - female people?
Feminine people?

The only thing female people have in common is their biology. Not their character, skills, cultural femininity, behaviour, etc.

What is the thing that you think women have in common - the thing that makes them women?

Fuck that! This beardy bloke says

*‘Another option, the one that I embrace, is to let trans women athletes compete in women’s sports – and to just accept the "unfairness" of doing so. Life is not fair, as the old adage goes, and sports are no exception.‘I

with a straight face?

Misogny writ large! Of course, he who has nothing to lose is very kind in giving away female sports.

I could say so much more… but I would be deleted.

We can change our culture. We can support the values of inclusivity, fraternity and healthy and active living. Or we can continue to cling to our worshipful celebration of winning, our glorification of ubiquitous competitive machismo and our obsession with perfect bodies and genetic freaks

yeah… let’s encourage everyone wins a prize vs the millennia old celebration of skill and dedication!

What a load of bollocks that article is. I suspect he has liked the reaction to his misogynistic ramblings of pseudoscience… hasn’t he set his account to private?

‘Another option, the one that I embrace, is to let trans women athletes compete in women’s sports – and to just accept the "unfairness" of doing so. Life is not fair, as the old adage goes, and sports are no exception.

as JKRowling says, if thats the case, Armstrongs medals and records should stand. Life isn’t fair, and so what if he took a few performance enhancing drugs. Men should be more inclusive of those who choose to dope.

yeah, when it’s men losing medals because a fee choose to cheat it’s suddenly different…

@RoaringtoLangClegintheDark You have absolutely nailed it - excellent posts!

In terms of 'no one single thing makes a woman' - well, no, not quite. But for example, over 99.98% of females are born with a uterus. Over 99% of girls begin menstruation on a standard timescale. You could even say that 'the expectation of having a uterus' is universal to all women. It is deliberately misleading to say that the female body is not definable.

i don’t think there’s any one thing they all women have in common besides identifying as a woman.

Nah! I had this discussion tonight between 6 women. We had a couple of things in common, not one of us ‘identified’ as ‘women’. But everyone of us had a body formed around the production of large gametes (whether we did, had, or never actually produced those large gametes due to a medical condition).

You are either showing again your lack of critical thinking ability…

Or that you have outsourced your critical thinking ability to influencers on some social media platform or other and not actually looked at where those people have got their information for credibility…

Or you are willfully spreading misinformation because you have decided to believe that people who are not female should be allowed to change the definition of woman to suit their own needs.

People who believe that males can be ‘women’ are the extreme minority. I know you might believe it is the opposite, that the ‘majority’ believe males can be women but studies show that premise completely falls apart once people realise 85% + (likely much higher) of transitioned males still have a penis.

And yet, here you are throwing around the word ‘transphobic’ because people use the word male to accurately describe a transitioned male’s sex.

So, no. Not one adult human female I know ‘identifies’ as a woman.

If you choose to, that is your choice, but don’t tell anyone else they do.

Just so Ntsure knows which questions I have asked answers for?

If they are a person with such high integrity that they spent a whole afternoon admonishing posters on MN, they should be able to answer this post with absolute honesty.

I think the solution for events like park run is for trans people to be able to quietly go unlisted. This transwoman obviously didn’t think she was ever going to win anything, or care, but also didn’t want to be out. No one would have missed their name being absent from a list. They could easily check their time against both lists if they wanted to.

i agree with @Helleofabore. I do not identify as a woman. I just am a woman.

This is like Humpty Dumpty's thing about Haddock's Eyes in Through The Looking Glass

The distinction between what something is, what its name is, what its called, and what it's name is called.

This whole extra layer of what someone "identifies as" bears no relation to what they are, or what they are called, or indeed how anyone else identifies them. Or who they are.

That's one of the key distinctions. For people here, men/women are what we are. It's just a fact about us, like our height.

For those in the gender field, they seem to have been confused into thinking it's who they are.

So no wonder they're in conflict with feminists, whose entire thing is saying that being a woman shouldn't define who they are.

Sorry you missed out, it's unfair and it sucks. However, it sounds like complaining (locally) would mean "outing" someone who's just trying to live their life. I do feel sympathy towards this individual, I would feel differently if they were a different type of transwoman shouting "look at me" as they stepped up for their bottle of wine or if they were regularly sweeping prizes meant for women.

I don't know what the answer is in this situation, are we saying that someone who's completed a transition, lives as a woman and 'passes' and prefers to keep their personal/ medical history private for obvious reasons can't participate in a local fun run without 'outing' themself?

If you think that is the case then the issue lies with the decision & rule makers, not with this individual who followed the 'rules' so any complaint should be directed at them.

@AltitudeCheck it’s highly unlikely that anyone one “completes a transition”.

it’s just cheating

Sorry you missed out, it's unfair and it sucks. However, it sounds like complaining (locally) would mean "outing" someone who's just trying to live their life. I do feel sympathy towards this individual, I would feel differently if they were a different type of transwoman shouting "look at me" as they stepped up for their bottle of wine or if they were regularly sweeping prizes meant for women.

But that's just what they did. It would have been very easy not to come third and no-one would have been any the wiser.

I don't know what the answer is in this situation, are we saying that someone who's completed a transition, lives as a woman and 'passes' and prefers to keep their personal/ medical history private for obvious reasons can't participate in a local fun run without 'outing' themself?

Someone who is trying to not "out" themselves, be they a trans person or someone in a witness protection programme, is going to have to accept some constraints on their public visibility. "Not being noticed" is something someone has to largely achieve by their own choices.

Not entering a situation where you might end up on a sex-specific podium seems like one of those sensible choices.

In something like a fun-run, it seems like it should be perfectly reasonable for people to choose to take part "unranked" so their name does not get recorded in official results. Meaning it really is "just for fun". That's the sort of thing you can do at that level that you couldn't reasonably do, say, in the Olympic 100m final. There's no real limit to how many people can participate, so having unranked runners is fine.

NecessaryScene - your first paragraph sums up exactly what I was trying to put into words.

A lot of the stated motivation of the GRA2004 was "the state won't make it excessively difficult for you to go under the radar - if you're trying to keep your real sex hidden, we won't inadvertently out you in routine day-to-day ID situations".

What this small lie has warped into in practice is "even if everyone knows what sex you are, and it's perfectly visible and obvious, and you even acknowledge it yourself, we'll insist no-one is allowed to call you out, even when you're unfairly taking places from women due to male advantages."

Well I would email the race director and ask them to clarify the rules on transgender people. They should be accountable for which category people run in. Based on their response I'd go from there.
You don't need explain what has prompted you to email them.

@AltitudeCheck What's wrong with being 'out' a transwomen? Surely that's the solution. Jane is a transwomen who likes running. As Jane is male, Jane ticks the male box when entering races. When the results are posted, Jane will be ranked alongside the other males because Jane is male.

Jane does't have to make any big announcements to anyone on race day. Jane can just turn up and run like anyone else.

I do a fair few running events. I can't imagine a scenario that I would try and remember someone's running number in order to look them up to check their sex afterwards.

However, I might remember the person if I try and race them to the finish line. If I thought the person who was in front of me a women but when I check the results it shows that Jane is male - what difference does it make? I now know Jane is a transwomen. Is that so bad?

But 'Jane' didn't tick the male box. It doesn't matter for a fun run, apart from not getting the acknowledgement of your true place in the race. When it comes to trials for more serious events then yes it does matter.

'Jane' in this case earned 37th place in the correct class.

It doesn't matter for a fun run, apart from not getting the acknowledgement of your true place in the race

so what you’re saying is it doesn’t matter that a woman runs against other women, and gets a correct placing within the race category she has entered.

but it does matter that a man is allowed to run in the womens race and receive womens placement awards.

so mens feelings matter, but womens don’t. Got you.

it’s not that it doesn’t matter, it’s that it matters more that transwomen get what they think matters more than women do.

if it doesn’t matter, transwomen can run in the mens race, or as pp have said their can be a third tick box for those who don’t want to compete in a sexed category.