Trans woman’s victory in female snooker sparks fairness row (Times, 2 Sep)

[BettyFilous]

Another day, another mediocre male taking a woman’s prize in women’s sport.

A transgender snooker player’s victory in a women’s competition has triggered fresh debate about fairness in sport.

Jamie Hunter, 25, became the first transgender woman to win a women’s ranking tournament on Sunday by beating Rebecca Kenna 4-1 at the US Women’s Open in Seattle.

snip

Hunter, 25, from Wigan, Greater Manchester, responded: “If Maria is upset, it is disheartening and saddening, but I’m there to help grow [the sport] not ruin it. I want the tour to prosper. 🙄

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6c08649c-29ea-11ed-a830-74a6c8fbb722?shareToken=b718d32e7db506e5bf707834f039c760

Rebecca - congratulations on your win! Sorry to hear you were cheated out of your prize money.

Unsurprisingly you're entirely wrong.

Jamie was shit when playing against men. Now playing against women, Jamie is winning all the prizes

Re: the horse does the work

I have been involved in horse racing for many years. I think the consensus would be that many males have more upper body strength than females, and that the weight distribution is probably more effective. As the females gain early access to training facilities, quite a lot of this advantage is negated.

OTOH , many trainers would say that female riders ‘ get more out of a horse’, they tend to ‘listen ‘ to what the horse is doing, communicating through its action. They work with the horse and persuade it to go, rather than attempting to dominate .
Of course, the bitter resentment and sexism amongst many, many male jockeys tends to negate this advantage.

Very well said. You have summed it all up entirely logically and clearly. The fact that this point even needs to be made makes me wonder how it can be that so much of normal society is twisting themselves up in ridiculous mind games to justify an alternative reality which denies the blatantly obvious.

Horses definitely don't do all the work, that was not the the point I was trying to make. But riding is a skill sport and the shared effort with the horse evens out the physical disparity between human males and females enough to make it meaningful for them to compete. Males still have all the physical strength advantages but when sat on a horse they become less important. And I think there are advantages to female physiology when riding, particularly dressage where hip width and flexibility can impact one's ability to absorb the movements and sit in a balanced way. I can ride the wide, powerfully moving horse we have better than my DH can... his hips are not wide enough to sit straight on her and his lower back and hips are not flexible enough to absorb the movement of her back. He can wrestle with her better than me but you don't get the same quality of work when you wrestle it out of them.

Horse racing is a different ball game really and not what I think of when I say equestrianism BUT the female jockeys DO do well now they are allowed the opportunity. So I think the playing field is probably even enough for meaningful competition over there in horse racing space too.

To me it's an interesting discussion and I could go on. But what is relevant here is that mixed sex competition HAS evolved in horse sports (I really need to look Into the actual history here). It HASN'T happened in snooker despite the competition being Open and women being allowed to compete. This tells me that there is too much male advantage (whatever features that manifests from) for meaningful competition in snooker. However strange that may seem to some. Therefore a female category is needed and if it exists then it should exclude transwomen on account of them being male.

The point is also that it has denied an actual woman a place and a win.
Even if you think that a biological male has no advantage in games like snooker, they are still taking the place of a woman, winning their prize money, sponsorship deals and so on.

Men do not belong in women's sports.
Ever.

"I've never heard anything so stupid. Could it be that this person is just better at snooker? Well done Jamie Hunter - good for you."

Yeah, looks like he is better What about him and his circumstances make that the case do you think?

Breasts get in the way when playing snooker, and being shorter (including having shorter arms) is a disadvantage. I get that some women are tall and flat-chested, of course, but on average there will be a disadvantage for women vs men.

"Where there is no advantage to be gained by being male, it's great when sport is mixed sex."

There's usually a big advantage to being male, even if it's not obvious 🙄

No male person has tried to play a championship game on one of those premenstrual days when you can't make a cup of tea for bashing the spoon off things or walk through a door without knocking an elbow because your whole body has gone wobbly and wrong either.

No, you’re completely bananas.

HTH.

"average taller, greater grip strength, larger hand span & larger 'wing span' for reach"

Seems to be stretching a bit, pardon the pun. Most of these would be dependent on height not male characteristics etc. Surely snooker is a game of skill not strength and the predominant characteristic of great players is obsessive practice and signular focus, rather than grip strength?

So, you don't think that faster twitch muscles and strength would be handy at all? Not even for maintaining the power through the trajectory of the shot?

You don't think that a larger hand span helps to position over awkward shots and generally a proportionally longer arms are of advantage?

www.open-science-repository.com/correlative-study-of-wingspan-armspan-length-and-body-length-in-students-of-segi-university-malaysia.html

So if being male isn't an advantage, why has no woman ever got anywhere in the "open" category? Not trying hard enough?

I literally can't think of a reason why you can't. I will join you if you get in maybe we should all apply

The physical differences between men and women do make a difference in snooker. As PP have said, male hand size, height and arm reach gives them an advantage over women. I think arm muscle strength also comes into it. My younger brother and I used to play snooker on a 6ft table at home. Once when we were teenagers (maybe me 16/17 and him 14/15), we went to the leisure centre together to play on a full size table. Neither of us had done this before. I struggled to strike the cue ball with enough strength to get it to the other end of the table and he, being two years younger, at the time not massively taller than me and not someone who worked out, had no problem.

So walkden you think that Jamie suddenly developed a singular focus and obsessive practice regimen in the last 2 years that propelled Jamie from being a hobby player to the elites in so little time? Amazing when Jamie was transitioning in that period too. Same old same old, biological women and girls just don't try hard enough eh especially all those women who've been competing at a higher level than Jamie for years but didn't win any elite tournaments.

According to actual woman's professional reanne Evans, barriers in snooker are mental rather than physical.

"She believes mental strength rather than physical power is the key factor which sets men apart from the women.

"It can be an advantage if you have cue power but there are a lot of men out there who haven't got a lot of cue power, like [Hong Kong's world ranked number seven] Marco Fu compared to [world number five] Shaun Murphy," she added

Such a physically demanding game snooker. I can see that the outrage stems from that rather than any sort or prejudice or bigotry.

Again Jamie's own words in August 2021 from the snooker site posted up thread. "Until this year, cue sports was just a hobby, something I done once, maybe twice a week, but now finding out about the Women’s snooker tour, I believe that will change.”
Yes definitely reflects years of dedication and focus...oh wait no it doesn't!
We hear this over and over again how men who played sport irregularly as a hobby are suddenly catapulted to elite levels when they discover they are women. (The Canadian archer had never picked up a bow a few years before going to the Olympics). Those really are magic words! All sports people should try to say the magic words to boost their career to unimaginable new heights. I wonder if there's a special incantation or potion needed...bit of eyeshadow, lipstick, a bra and stir it about?

Yes we're definitely all bigots and prejudiced for wondering how amateur hobbiests can suddenly win elite titles.

Walkden

And female athletes also say that about their other sports too!

When it has been proven there is male advantage. So what if a female snooker player wants to play down the differences. There are many females willing to do this to their detriment, we have seen them do it.

There is evidence that males have proportionally longer arms. There is evidence of all sorts of advantages.

You can choose to ignore that evidence, or you can produce your evidence links that says there is no physical advantage.

Yes. From skateboarders to archers. It is quite amazing.

True. I was thinking about horse riding and how fantastic it is when women win high profile events when competing against men, or mixed relay races because it's good to see women and men working together. But I wouldn't advocate for mixed sports generally where, as you say, there is an advantage to being male.

If there was no advantage to being male in snooker we would already be seeing women reaching semi-finals and finals of the OPEN competitions. And winning.

We don't have to understand the particulars of the advantage... it is evidenced by the results.

I'm 100% sure that if there wasn't a male advantage at least a large handful of passionate and dedicated women would have made an impact, would have demanded to be allowed to play with and beaten the men fair and square. Equestrianism is not a mixed sex sport by accident. It happened because women demanded the right to try and then could beat the men in large enough numbers to demonstrate meaningful competition.

A female snooker player can say there's no advantage if she likes. I disagree with her too.

"A female snooker player can say there's no advantage if she likes. I disagree with her too.".

But she didn't say there was no advantage it was " mental strength. ". So a "hobby" player playing in local leagues is never going to catch up with professional men who have practised for 8 hours a day for years.

Reanne Evans has come close to beating male professionals in the past. If a man who didn't even play snooker were to discount the judgement of a 12 time champion he would be accused of mansplaining.