Government pressures sports bodies to ban men competing in women's sport

[MrsOvertonsWindow]

The Telegraph reports that the Culture Secretary, Michele Donelan is convening a meeting later this month where she'll warn sporting governing bodies that elite and competitive women’s sport “must be reserved for people born of the female sex”. "This does not include people who were born male and may have taken puberty blockers to suppress testosterone, but nonetheless retain their natural physical advantages".

They quote a government source as stating:
“But in a sporting context, this issue is underpinned by scientific evidence. She is determined and has a plan to tackle it – not only for athletes, but event organisers, fans, and the future integrity of domestic and international sport.”
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www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/01/14/government-crack-trans-athletes-competing-female-sports/

This is a good start but it is double think again. The government accepts that trans women are not women for elite sporting purposes and that is based on scientific evidence. But for all other situations (lower level sport and everything else) they consider that trans women are women as there is no evidence to refute that?!

Watching with interest. How about grassroots though? This is where those sports professionals start out.

Agree that the grassroots issue is key BUT once the mediocre males know that grassroots is no longer a route through for cheating and elite sport is using evidence / fact based language rather than gaslighting calls for women to be kind and submit to men's demands then just maybe this will spread to the grassroots. I noticed that the creation of an open category was mentioned as a possible solution?

That's a good start though - she is my MP; I will write to her about this (I write to her quite frequently 😆)

Not true. Some men like to play grassroots women’s sport as it’s turns them from being shit to having super powers.

"Elite and competitive women's sport" might suggest two different things. Elite sport is obviously competitive. So competitive sport must be referring to leagues amd competitions at the grass roots level. ? Though that's the telegraph's wording rather than a direct quote.

It’s a start

All the deliberate mangling of language is what's caused a lot of this problem.

Biological sex is the only definition we need.

It's immutable.

Well yes it is a start. Annoying we have to keep fighting for fairness though.

The FA trans inclusion policy for football still allows self ID at under 16 level and supports cross dressing males to coach women/girls (and access the changing rooms and showers). These policies need to change.

It's exhausting that women have to be "grateful" for a government that's presided and funded so much of this shit show to finally wake up and stand up for women's rights to safe and fair sport. But that's where we are so I'll watch with interest and some hope.

I wonder what will happen with matches between English and Scottish teams if the GRR goes through.

I suppose it depends on the rules of the body organising the competition match.

But if the Lionesses stay solely biologically female and get beaten by a side containing transwomen (other descriptors are available), well, that will be interesting.

Cycling still has Self-id despite them pulling their last trans policy. You can self identify your gender when you sign up for a race licence so in theory any man or boy can enter the womens races, trans or not.

Let's hope cycling attends the meeting and get to explain how cycling men magically become women

They attended the last meeting with Nadine Dorries. Nothing changed after that.

This 100%. I hope 'competitive' is interpreted as broadly as it needs to be.

I play grassroots team sport. At grassroots level, teams, no player "has all the tools" and teams are a mixture of eg very fast young players with limited understanding of tactics, older but slower players with excellent tactical play, players who are neither fast nor tactical but can hit the ball really hard. That means that a player on my team with good tactical awareness will by definition be slower or weaker - because if they had the tactics and the speed they would probably play at a higher level. That's how grassroots sport works. Therefore, if a transwoman were to play, in order to slot in at the "right level", they would most likely be the fastest and strongest player on the pitch while also having the least skill and tactical awareness, which is just bloody dangerous for everyone else on the pitch. That's why it's dangerous for transwomen to play women's sport at any and every level.

What I have seen in my sport (football) is transwomen playing in the lower-level unaffiliated leagues, because leagues affiliated with the FA have some (if admittedly, fairly limited) rules around transgender participation and lower leagues often operate on self ID. This makes it even more dangerous and unfair as you have women with very limited experience going up against far stronger and more experienced males who should be playing several leagues above, if you judged them just on their performance.

It’s fantastic news, grass roots next.