British Rowing consultation on trans and NB policy

[cakesandchocolate]

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

information with a link to feedback form open to all, not just BR members.
An opportunity to offer opinion on sport inclusion policy going forward

It’s fascinating how people unable to make their points concisely, and who rely on belligerence because they cannot frame a coherent argument, don’t seem to realise that are demonstrating their intellectual inadequacy. It’s the debating equivalent of chucking yourself to the floor and drumming your heels. The toddler may think he’s making his point powerfully, the grown ups know otherwise.

@PermanentTemporary
Do you think some of this new/old misogyny is a reaction to the fact that some women's sport is starting to gain traction? I know that some football fans (mostly male but some female, sadly) just hate the idea of the England Lionesses doing so well, England Women in the Six Nations, etc. They resent every column inch or second of TV exposure. Some people are very invested in the hierarchy - men's sport important, women's not so much - and if the world starts to take women's sport more seriously, the natural order is upended.

It's possible. Based on my personal experience... there are men who are genuinely solid allies to womens sport and I've met quite a few of them. There are some though who quietly resent that they have to pretend to take womens sport seriously - I think they assume most men feel like them and they could be right. I've met a lot of them too.

It definitely is. If women’s sport is a joke… male humans are happy to just scoff at it. But if it’s a real thing - with prestige and money and such like - then it can’t just be left to female people.

Not when the advantages of male biology make it possible to rise to the top over those useless female people. Surely this could only improve things…

Misogyny is the turd-that-won’t-flush of society.

Maurice Green is 5'9" so should be allowed to run against women? seems legit.

cutewallpaper.org/21/maurice-greene/253493036323220323415330.jpg

There is definitely a strand of thought that we should be delighted these excellent athletes even want to join us in our weakened events. That their participation makes women's sport intrinsically more worthwhile. That is pure misogyny.

On the sealioning… one of the side effects of seeing it in effect all over FWR regularly is that I’ve realised that my bloody STBXH sealions me in real life all the time. He’s relentless and belligerent as he calmly and quietly follows me around/won’t leave me alone ‘just asking questions’ and then plays the victim when I get upset or angry with him.

Now, at least, I have a word to describe and explain this particular form of abuse. Because it is abusive behaviour. And being able to recognise it as such is so helpful to me when I have to deal with the fucker.

Well that makes him the same height as me and I've just look and he is only a year younger than me so I reckon it would be a fair race. I mean his fastest time was 9.79 seconds and no woman has ever run under 10 seconds but I'm sure that was just because they haven't really tried because loads of women are 5'9" or taller.

Yay! So Mark hasn't been totally useless, then.

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@PermanentTemporary
They do assume other men are just pretending to like women's sport and respect women athletes.
They're baffled as to what the appeal of women's sport could possibly be (apart from skimpy clothing). Why wouldn't you want to watch the fastest runners, or the best footballers, they ask. I see it as using a different machine. It's like Lewis Hamilton in a F1 car beating the lap times of Lewis Hamilton in a stock car. The driver is just as good but the machine is less streamlined and less powerful - because it's a stock car. They also underestimate the value of seeing yourself represented and IMO fundamentally do not grasp the appeal of sport for many - it's in the competition. Sounds like a bizarre thing to say about sports fans, but I think it's true of some.

Wheelchair rugby league allows able bodied participants as well so perhaps we should let all men into women's sports. I mean most para sports have dozens of categories to ensure fairness, but let's ignore them because they don't fit your warped agenda.

The driver is just as good but the machine is less streamlined and less powerful

Can we change the comparison to an F1 car and a flying car?

I like the pp's point that the reason our bodies aren't so perfectly adapted to athletics as men's is to accommodate our superpower of being able to gestate new humans. I'm not sure we point that out enough. It isn't that our bodies are weaker or not as good as men's - far from it. Women's bodies are utterly incredible.

In our hypothetical car race, the flying car has extra weight and bulk in the wings, and won't have a chance around the track against an F1 car. But that doesn't make the flying car less good than the F1 car. It's a flying car! (and even if the flying car never does fly, either through choice or due to a mechanical issue - it's still super-cool that it's designed as a flying car. )

But there's really not much point or interest in racing the F1 car and the flying car round a track against each other. Not even if you draw a pair of wings on the F1 car...

Interestingly, the responses to the male cheats winning women's awards in cycling etc have generated furious responses from thousands of men under sports articles in the Times, Telegraph etc. I am assuming that many of them will be what we call more "right wing" men, yet their instinctive sense of fairness, understanding of facts, science and sport generates furious responses. The majority comment on the threat to the integrity of women's sport.

That is good. Very good indeed.

Why oh why is anybody trying to argue with Mark!

@JanesLittleGirl dont think we are, we're trying to have a conversation despite the noise.

Are you a rower yourself or another sport? I was hoping BR would follow the example of British Triathlon and I'll make that point in my response.

Perfect

Yup, I liked it too. Although - on a second reading, isn't this analogy also making the case that if you wanted to watch cars race round a track all the F1 cars should race against each other? That would be like having an Open Category, which is what was proposed in the article by Jon Pike cited earlier. The one in which he states, in his conclusion, that "It is possible to argue, coherently, for the abolition of female sport."

Then, if you wanted to compare the performance of flying cars you should do so based on their flight characteristics, rather than their ability to race round a track. I mean, who wants to watch car/planes taxying around the airport, right? Or alternatively you could just look at and admire flying cars whilst parked up somewhere on the ground and that's cool too? I'm not altogether sure this analogy works for all waves of feminists. It's still good, though.

Regarding your earlier post about wheelchair rugby - if you want fairness, you do need dozens of categories. Actually, more like hundreds and thousands. It soon gets impractical. But by not doing this, you must accept that fairness isn't what it's all about. And if you go back to what it was originally about, back in the days of first and second wave feminism, it was about men having leisure, while woman kept the hearth and home, and women not taking part in any sport in any significant numbers, and being excluded and segregated. In the olden days, the fight was against men keeping women out. Seems that the tables have turned.

I think you have fundamentally miss understood something if you think women are trying to stop men doing sport because they aren't they are trying to stop them from doing women's sport.

@MrsOvertonsWindow
Yup. The gender doping examples we keep hearing about are increasing support for women's single sex sport.

I deliberately didn't make it an airplane (which just taxis around) but a flying car: which still drives really well, and can have an exciting race on the ground against other flying cars. But isn't quite as specialised for going round a track as an F1 car.

Lots of people are very interested in watching women's sports - it's just as awe-inspiring and brilliant as men's sport.

We don't and can't have pregnancy as a sport. That's just silly

Women absolutely aren't trying to exclude anyone from sports at any level - not men, not Trans people.

We just want to keep a category which is only for women, so that women can compete meaningfully. Why should women dedicate their life to training in their sport - to be the best they can possibly be - just to have someone cheat and take away any chance they have to win on the day? It's exactly the same as doping, which is banned.

A doped male athlete is the fastest of all. Are you suggesting we remove all restrictions and have a single open category where only doped male athletes have a chance of winning? Personally, I think that would be a bit shit.

Open category + protected women's category (no doping allowed for anyone) is fine by me, and gives access to everyone. Oh, and both categories should also have prize money, training opportunities etc - that's about fair access and opportunity.

It's true that professional Trans athletes may need to decide whether to delay taking hormones, and then may choose to retire earlier than they would like from top-level professional sports - balancing up how hormones will affect their chances competing. Much like professional women athletes may need to decide whether to delay having children, and then choose to retire earlier than they would like from top-level professional sports - balancing up how pregnancy will affect their chances competing (both during the pregnancy and also the permanent changes it makes to your body). Being a professional athlete impacts every part of your life.

At recreational levels, athletes should still compete in the fair categories. Less might depend on results, but it's still important to the competitors that recreational sports is fair. All athletes must accept that their life choices will affect their performance - whether that's taking hormones, getting pregnant, or having some drinks with friends - and that's ok.

Mark

You have had posters patiently discuss this with you and link you to research across multiple threads now. Your posts still come across as a men’s rights activist would post.

Do you have anything of positive note to contribute about women’s rowing?

Otherwise, I recommend maybe going back to read the previous threads you have been on where you have tried to regurgitate weak arguments about needing thousands of categories because you don’t understand the purpose of sport and you don’t understand feminism, it’s intention or it’s history, while holding entrenched prejudicial views on feminism.

I am happy to repost the studies and the posts explaining where your misrepresentations of feminism are wrong. I can simply cut and paste since it seems you are saying the same things here as you did last time.

That sounds like a recipe for harm right there. So a pubescent male who has experienced all the benefits of starting puberty can still be rowing in a female team? Just because the panel needs no evidence and that male rower “looks like” he hasn’t gone through puberty yet?

That seems to be discriminatory to me. I know some shorter men that didn’t even start gaining muscle mass until 17/18, still much stronger than girls of equal age though!

And if that male rower then goes through puberty (either a late puberty or detranisitioned or the treatment ceased being effective, what then? They are told they are no longer welcome?

@Helleofabore - absolutely. I find it so odd. I do wonder who writes these policies. The guidance makes talking to kids exploring gender identity sound like a minefield, but the policies seem set up to make the situation more distressing for a child. Most kids take their cues from adults. If adults tell them consistently that the right category for them is the open one, wouldn't that be clearer? 'I'm a trans girl, I row in the open races' shouldn't be a distressing or threatening explanation to make.

“It's true that professional Trans athletes may need to decide whether to delay taking hormones, and then may choose to retire earlier than they would like from top-level professional sports - balancing up how hormones will affect their chances competing. Much like professional women athletes may need to decide whether to delay having children, and then choose to retire earlier than they would like from top-level professional sports - balancing up how pregnancy will affect their chances competing (both during the pregnancy and also the permanent changes it makes to your body). Being a professional athlete impacts every part of your life.”

It is remarkable isn’t it. That women need to make such choices and balance their desire to have children with sport.

Whereas male athletes now don’t have to make such a choice to make performance limiting decisions, such as deliberately losing muscle mass (and it is known that can be regained through training) to ‘shape’ their bodies and take hormones. They get to extend their sports career.

Even into their 40s and 50s! They can still compete at Olympic level whereas the vast majority of women are perimenopausal by then and cannot compete.