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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Emily Bridges claims there is no advantage in sport

134 replies

miri1985 · 26/05/2022 19:57

Maybe someone else can explain it to me because as someone who has never been involved with sport at a high level, I don't understand the point if you claim not to be able to beat your rivals, I mean isn't that the point of high level sport? If you're not competitive, what is the point in competing? Wouldn't you just do it for fun otherwise than put your body through high level competition? In a previous interview didn't Emily Bridges state that the aim was to be competitive again?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10857133/Emily-Bridges-determined-prove-boasts-no-advantage-trans-woman-cyclist.html

"In her first interview since, Bridges told DIVA magazine it was wrong to say that trans women in sport retain inherent advantages and claimed to be able to prove it.

'I understand how you'd come to this conclusion because a lot of people still view trans women as men with male anatomies and physiologies,' she said.

'But hormone replacement therapy has such a massive effect. The aerobic performance difference is gone after about four months.

'There are studies going on for trans women in sport. I'm doing one and the performance drop-off that I've seen is massive'."

OP posts:
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YetAnotherSpartacus · 27/05/2022 10:16

It was a very good article indeed!

Somanysocks · 27/05/2022 10:24

I find male entitlement so unfeminine.

Googlecanthelpme · 27/05/2022 10:28

Am so bored of these people.

It is like they have a mental block on reality. They want to deny the biological and scientific facts we have been working with for decades.

Live like a woman if you wish, call yourself Emily, wear a sandwich board and ring a bell declaring your pronouns if you want, fine. But stop fucking arguing and dismissing with basic fact.

They are no different to flat earthers - absolute morons arguing with what is basic primary level science.

I can’t take anyone seriously when they deny fact. The sky is green and the grass is blue.
Its either gaslighting or mental illness.

AND what glory is there being number one when your advantage is so distinct there is no question over winning? Imagine celebrating your victory over a class of 6 year olds at Sports Day. Embarrassing

zanahoria · 27/05/2022 10:28

"An objective study really wouldn't be objective would it."

It could only prove low testosterone males have the same ability as females

I doubt that it would but do not even want to let them define the argument

viques · 27/05/2022 10:33

ErrolTheDragon · 27/05/2022 10:08

“Sport acts as a microcosm to the rest of society, so with the patriarchal structure that exists in the rest of society, that's intensified in sport.”

Emily should think about that a bit more.

Emily has inadvertently hit the nail on the head. If women were better represented on Sports governing bodies, or heaven forfend, were in the majority on Sports Governing bodies the world would end then this issue wouldn’t arise. It is the patriarchal nature of society assuming that women will be kind and step aside that is largely the issue.

“ Item 24 on the agenda, Men competing in women’s sports? Nonsense. Next. ”

Googlecanthelpme · 27/05/2022 10:33

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

NecessaryScene · 27/05/2022 10:36

An objective study really wouldn't be objective would it. Besides it's not needed.

As someone from World Athletics put it:

'World Athletics has in fact done a longitudinal study comparing performance of biologically female and biologically male athletes, which we call the world records.’

Oblomov22 · 27/05/2022 10:57

Do they expect us to swallow this nonsense? We are intelligent women here and we want to see facts figures and evidence. None of which they can ever supply.

SamphirethePogoingStickerist · 27/05/2022 11:03

Emily is entirely wrong. Emily has a vested interest and in Emily's world 1 second is massive.

There REALLY doesn't need to be any more research done n this. We know the answer. Further research will embroider round the edges, look for more confounding variable and call them proof - which is what Emily and others relay upon. Not the body of evidence but the anomalies.

thecritic.co.uk/the-flawed-science-of-trans-inclusion-in-womens-sport/

“Sport acts as a microcosm to the rest of society, so with the patriarchal structure that exists in the rest of society, that's intensified in sport.”

Yes, Emily is quite correct. And more and more people are seeing just how wrong it is to include transwomen in female sports. Manly because every single one of us has lifelong experience of the differences in male and female strength, speed etc.

Every day, every interaction we have, the differences are obvious. No violence or competition required.

Franca123 · 27/05/2022 11:03

This stuff makes me feel like I'm going insane. Who are the people who support this? I thought we all disliked cheaters? This is cheating plain and simple.

SunThroughTheCloudsAt6am · 27/05/2022 11:14

It doesn't matter though does it. I'm the same height as my 11 year old, doesn't mean I can compete in kids competitions.

Women's sport is for women, not men who've taken drugs/hormones which they claim weaken them.

It's total mis-direction.

puffyisgood · 27/05/2022 11:27

Emily does the trans cause no favours by being so dogmatic & making such patently untrue blanket statements. If I were Emily, I’d argue it along the following lines. It’d be painfully self-serving, but there’d be nothing new there, and would throw a few of her trans sisters under a bus in the process but, hey, all’s fair in competition, right?:

(a) Local/low level individual sports – ban TW from competition [prizes, accolades, etc] since monitoring of T levels etc isn’t really possible, but pull out all of the stops [maybe in terms of specific funding] to encourage participation; also in team sports very actively encourage the playing of friendly matches etc by part/full trans teams against any all-natal women’s teams whose members unanimously agree to it by anonymous ballot.

(b) ‘Extreme contact’ sports whose very existence, at least in its current form, is under at least mild threat because of concerns about safety, particularly head injuries [e.g. boxing, rugby] – accept that such safety concerns mean that pitting natal women against competitors with potentially vastly greater body mass is a no-no, ban all TW.

[c] Any remaining sports where height or weight is likely to confer an intolerable advantage [e.g. rowing, weightlifting, possibly basketball, etc] – ban all TW.

[d] Other top level sport – permit TW subject to robust testing of T levels etc.

I personally wouldn’t agree with any of the above, I personally, for the reasons that are well rehearsed on here & elsewhere, prefer zero tolerance at any level in any sport [with a few minor exceptions such as ultra-long distance running etc].

But coming out and arguing, as Emily does. that any TW who so much as slips a packet of contraceptive pills into her handbag is reduced to a quivering wreck of excessive femininity who can barely muster the strength to tie the laces on a pair of trainers, just doesn’t cut it.

Dreikanter · 27/05/2022 11:34

Some interesting replies to the road.cc Twitter comment:

Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges insists she has no advantage over rivals “We're the current punching bag in the culture war,” says 21 year old in interview with DIVA magazine

twitter.com/roadcc/status/1529906048802476034?s=21&t=CXan3KXwEAaRlIAtIDDGcw

Emily isn’t ‘the punching bag in a culture war’. Emily’s now the tank parked on the lawn of women’s sport.

ErrolTheDragon · 27/05/2022 11:43

It's so tedious and self-serving. It's surely obvious that sports are divided in the first place because humans are dimorphic - so, by sex not 'gender'. How masculine or feminine you are is completely irrelevant. There are many conditions which impair a person's sporting performance. We don't let males with other conditions compete in women's sports - and we don't allow women with conditions which impair them to compete in the wrong age class eg veterans or kids to compensate.

Dreikanter · 27/05/2022 11:44

[d] Other top level sport – permit TW subject to robust testing of T levels etc.

I absolutely disagree with this - because as PPs have continually pointed out, male bodies advantages over female bodies encompasses way more than just testosterone levels.

SantiMakesMeLaugh · 27/05/2022 12:01

It’s well known that it depends on the sport.

athletics and the 100m it’s obvious it makes a difference.
Archery, not at all.

So far all the discussions I have seen around that subjects have concentrated on the sports where physical strength doesn’t matter that much to prove it doesn’t matter for all sports. It’s wrong and they know it.
There are lots of talk about how some TW still dont automatically win eg powerlifting. Forgetting that it might just be that they are just nit good at it but might well still get a better place than if they had competed as a man.

fwiw there are sports like gymnastics where being a TW wouldn’t help at all and would put them at a disadvantage. Interestingly, you don’t see TW in hose sports.

ControversialOpening · 27/05/2022 12:07

Archery, not at all

This is incorrect.

ControversialOpening · 27/05/2022 12:17

Emaley should try a different approach.
If Emaley went with the “I am a woman inside, therefore my body is a woman’s body, therefore when I win it’s fair” we would all disagree, of course, but it’s an argument about stuff that’s kind of metaphysical and hard to disprove.
Going with the ‘I have a blokes body but it doesn’t give me an advantage’ is so obviously untrue that even TRAs find it hard to support without outright lies.

Emaley needs to have a long hard rethink - and to stay away from bike racing while doing it.

Fenlandia · 27/05/2022 12:28

For such an unheard voice, Emily is certainly getting this 'poor me' narrative into a lot of mainstream outlets. Does anyone know the last time someone who was on the cover of Diva got this much attention?

zanahoria · 27/05/2022 12:31

Emily is bravely fighting patriarchal structures by destroying women's sports

Artichokeleaves · 27/05/2022 12:39

Like hell is Bridges doing anything about patriarchial structures, Bridges is merely throwing any word salad that they think might work on other people as justification for Bridges getting what Bridges wants without the faintest conscience or regard for what Bridges does to others in the process.

Because if you stripped down the word salad it's plain indefensible, and the fact that Bridges is busy getting all this air time and poor me messaging out there is patriarchial structures in action. Bridges can't 'bravely fight' anything when it's actually them busy doing it!

Less bravery, more really fantastic entitlement and misogyny.

Noisyprat · 27/05/2022 12:51

ALL sport should be segregated by sex end of. There should be no 'well it doesn't matter in this sport' because generally it will. Archery good example, how does being stronger with a wider arm span NOT help in archery? just a ridiculous statement.

It all went wrong when it was assumed that trans women should just be allowed in. It should have been stopped before they were let in and then us women should have just let them go off and have their fun trying to prove there was no advantage because actually they can't prove that without cheating because there is always an advantage.

Besides, lets not forget, trans women are taking drugs. Regardless of what these drugs are doing, even if they are 'reducing' their ability, they are still taking drugs and expecting to compete in high level competition. I wonder what would happen if transmen taking 'T' did confer a massive advantage and start beating men. Well I don't need to wonder do I because we all know what would happen....

Mandodari · 27/05/2022 12:59

The level of self pity and entitlement displayed by Emily us astounding. If Emily wants to be taken seriously as a woman, Emily should look to people like Martina Navratilova, Lee Miller, Ida Lovelace or Rosalind Franklin as role models instead of modelling themselves on Verruca Salts.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 27/05/2022 13:19

viques · 27/05/2022 09:19

Emily Bridges was a promising young cyclist tipped for gold at the Paris Olympics. Emily was on the male elite squad, offered training camps, physio, equipment, psychological support, nutritional advice etc etc, only a limited number of cyclists, male or female , get places on this programme. Emily got injured, which was sad, but let’s face it, lots of athletes get injuries career damaging, comes with the job, and for most it sadly means early retirement from the sport they love. But luckily Emily had a get out of jail card ! Historically Emily is on record as saying they had already wanted to transition but had decided to postpone transition until after Paris ( so Emily had been perfectly prepared to continue to race as a male , and to receive funding and support on the male elite squad in order to qualify and compete as a male in Paris) but post injury Emily’s times and performance meant they were dropped from the male elite squad. So tadaaa! Emily played her trump card and brought forward their transition, thus ,potentially, bumping a female squad member from the elite squad. Emily still wants that medal don’t they?

Emily is sturdy, well over six foot tall , and is rarely photographed with female cyclists. I see Emily has decided that a bit of make up and soft focus photography is going to support their claim that having been through male puberty is no advantage whatsoever and that denying Emily her chance of success is just mean. Sorry Emily, hiding behind expertly applied makeup doesn’t make you any less of a cheat.

So as soon as Emily was dropped by the male squad, Emily brought forward their "transition" and sped over to the women's squad enabled by the useful idiots in British Cycling who are now having to dig themselves out of the havoc they've inflicted on women's cycling Angry

Artichokeleaves · 27/05/2022 14:09

Female sports: a retirement ground for males to enjoy. After all, it was only serving females. Not like it was doing anything important.