British Rowing launches updated trans policy

[WookeyHole]

www.britishrowing.org/2022/09/british-rowing-announces-revised-trans-and-non-binary-inclusion-competition-policy-and-procedures/

I was made aware of this yesterday. I would be interested in the opinions on this from those more knowledgable than me, especially with regards to changing rooms.

I think women's competitions will be restricted by a testosterone limit. Other events are normally open rather than Men's so available to all.

This! And after the eminently sensible approach by FINA is out there ready to adapt, too - there's no excuse for British Rowing's shoddy effort.

Does British Rowing have a policy in regards to trans women being cox-less?

Thank you Sharron and @fairplayforwomen for all your efforts to expose and fight this nonsense.

Yes, thanks to Sharron and FPFW I've just seen this on Twitter. So angry. My teens row. The training is hard and physical size a big factor. I've spent some time responding to the consultation as in the link in OP.

One thing I don't understand is the child policy. As far as I know, children can't start rowing until 13yo. Most will start puberty before or soon after that. So saying boys can row with girls until puberty doesn't make much sense. Unless they are effectively encouraging puberty blocking drugs??
And there is no policy for 'trans' from puberty to 16yo.

And the changing room issue is very important for girls.

Rowing does have a bit of an image problem in that it is regarded as very white and middle class and public school. This policy will not exactly encourage any more girls to take up the sport so will become more male too.

At the moment the only GB rower voicing support for this is the womens lightweight Imogen Grant.

Average weight cannot exceed 57kg for womens lightweight boats. This is pretty impossible to maintain even for teenage girls. For lightweight men it is 70kg average.

Therefore it’s easy for Imogen to be inclusive. Men are highly unlikely to weigh less than 57kg and they will not threaten her place on the GB womens lightweight team.

"unlikely", you say, but I'm sure there are plenty of TW's out there who identify as small women. after all, what really is a kilogram, any kind of metric measure dates back to, what, probably the sumerians &/or babylonians, hardly the most modern or enlightened of societies, no doubt steeped in most if not all of the most pernicious forms of misogyny and transphobia... the tyranny of the weighing scales feels like a relatively easy target to me for anyone who's capable of denying the sex binary.

I think the metric system was the invention of the wicked, white, colonialist French thanks to their belief in rational, scientific, enlightenment values. Bigots!

Perhaps they will claim The Big K lost far more weight than anyone realised before the switch from the reference model to Fancy Science. (And that, extending that “logic” further, at the time the French were coming over all creative/metric, a litre was bigger & water was heavier.)

I’m somewhat confused as the chair of British rowing is very much TW do not belong in the woman’s category

twitter.com/markxdavies/status/1577972728862212099?s=46&t=jvZrsVChX_9ROCzqEseVxQ

Why even consider it? Bodies, not identities, play sport. No men in women's sport. Ever.

This! As if it actually needed bloody saying.

I was a rower. I think this policy is ridiculous.

Oddly, rowing is one of the power sports that has a smaller differential in sexes than some others - the differential is nothing like as big as eg in punch strength in boxing. I am not a sports physiology expert but perhaps because in rowing's total body use people can compensate for one area of weakness with a stronger area. I'm reminded of Michael Dillon, thr first British transman I think to take testosterone to transition, who rowed as Laura Dillon and then went on to stroke the Trinity College Dublin men's crew in the late 40s. No idea what their results were. Strokes don't have to be the

But I think of all the experiences I've had in women's, mixed and all-comers crews. I've rowed and where possible I've competed in them all. The denial of the reality of women's bodies that this represents and the denial of what we do in boats makes me FURIOUS. It's not an improvement on the sexism I used to experience. It's an extension of it.

Strokes don't have to be the strongest, that should say.

FFS - why are people denying basic science here? I just don’t understand.

This isn’t just about testosterone!!

Why is testosterone the only thing being focused on?

Why is science and biology being denied?

5nmol is still almost 3 times the average female and double the upper range for women.. abive which any women would be likely to be experiencing symptoms that would prevent them from competing in sporting activities.

Absolutely. One can only guess...

There is a feedback form is anyone feels like commenting on the policy:
Trans and Non-Binary Inclusion Competition Policy and Procedures Feedback Form

I used to row and this is the first time I have seen anyone comment on self-id on Facebook. Good to see quite a few ex-GB rowers calling this out for the BS it is.

Thanks for posting the link Longlive - I've commented as much as they will let us.

A few points I made -

• they have been ahead of World Rowing in creating an open class and I'm really pleased that they've done this
• therefore it makes no sense to say that eligibility for the Women's class has to conform with World rowing - they can make their own decisions
• that the policy refers to 'gender identity at birth' which is not defined in their glossary, and that they seem to be indicating that babies have a gender identity which is crazy not true
• that they may be right that events could be open at junior level [i personally think only under about 10 but whatever] but that if you're going to say that an event is for girls/women, it should be for girls/women
• and that this policy reminds me unpleasantly of the old days in rowing when the kit was all designed for men and women's bodies weren't supposed to be there.

I've just read some FB comments. Phew. Some really intelligent and straightforward comments from people who've dedicated years of their lives to the sport. I have some hope that it's worth weighing in on this.

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
If you are a transwoman
You're living the dream

Wonder what my Great Aunt would have made have all this? Back in the second decade of the 20th Century she successfully campaigned for women to be allowed to have non-fixed seats in their boats, like the men had.

Thanks for sharing your points. I am planning on sitting down today and work through my response (articulate my utter exasperation)

Good for you. My points are quite personal. I've deliberately not gone into the detail of the testosterone levels argument as they only give 500 words per 'principle' (their principles not mine). I did manage to say that women's bodies are about other things than a hormone level, particularly when thinking about rowing. To be fair to them, 5nmol is a low level for any male person to reach and only a few women would ever be over that level (I have PCOS so could be one of them). It is arbitrary though. I also dislike the idea that 'recreational' rowing should be entirely self identified as it creates an upwards pressure from crews that are rowing recreationally and then decide they want to compete, and find they have to oust one of their members because of hormone levels?

I note that any male person who has had genital reassignment surgery can compete as a woman with no further questions. Again this idea that a woman is basically defined by having a fuckable indentation, rather than a whole female body which functions in its own way. But they are refusing to hear any of that.

It's all this. There are so many points to make. I get your point about allowing self-id in recreational rowing, and how it causes problems when coming up to serious competition, but it also excludes a girl / woman who could have developed to become a serious competitor from even knowing their potential.

To me, it's just cheating. Someone is competing in a category that is not for them, it doesn't matter if some women are better than some men. I could identify being a blind rower by closing my eyes, it doesn't mean that I deserve a space in crew set up for those with limited sight. Probably a clumsy analogy...
It makes a mockery of drug testing. I have been tested twice and there I was worrying about drinking too much caffeine and someone could step into my seat with the weight of male puberty behind them and all the advantages it gives them and be fine.

I need to work on my articulation!