Sharron Davies on Woman's Hour today (Wednesday)

[nauticant]

She'll be discussing fareness in sport. Since this is the first time a post-Emma Barnett presenter (Nuala McGovern) will be looking at gender identity ideology, this could be interesting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001n8q3

Sharron was excellent! So articulate and very measured (and yes I noticed the lack of interruption, which is good journal, if nothing else!)

I thought Rosamund Pike was going to come out in support, when she said about the fascinating discussions, but then just referred to the immediately previous speaker re bowel incontinence (who was also fantastic)

I'm really glad she also got the point in about the horrific after effects for the East German girls.

I happened to have R4 on, so listened to WH for the first time in nearly a year. Sharron was absolutely excellent. Nuala kept bringing the discussion back to Sharron's own experiences and Sharron used this to make very pertinent parallels with the terrible effects of testosterone on the bodies of female East German athletes and the benefits that testosterone gives in sport. Towards the end Nuala seemed almost to be apologising for allowing Sharron to speak (which to be fair she did). I'm not sure her quoting Emily Bridges' genocide comparison did the other side of the argument any favours; whilst Sharron was robustly on the side of women and fairness in our sport.

I think the emotional-blackmail angle ('excluding people who are already marginalised', genocide etc) just looks a bit pathetic in the face of Sharron's wall of evidence, stats, and science. Like switching the light on to show a scared kid that the shadow on the wall is a dressing gown, not a monster hiding behind the door.

The London Marathon comes under the governance of WA, not UKA. Transwomen who have been through male puberty are banned by both bodies from competing in the female category.

The problem is far worse in cycling where national and world governing body policies diverge. So transwomen cannot compete in the female category in the British National Championships, but can compete in the Womens Tour, as while this is run by BC, it is done so effectively under "contract" for the UCI, and follows current UCI rules.

BC has taken a leap here and the other national federations in the 'big' cycling nations (France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain) don't really have a history of independence - they just go along with what the UCI does. So it basically comes down to a battle in the UCI between BC and USA Cycling (who are completely captured). The UCI will likely follow the lead of BC (and other sports), and the other federations will all change their rules for domestic competition to follow the UCI (except for USA).

Sharron was fantastic. So clear and knows her stuff inside out. Loved it when she challenged the emotive disinformation. I wonder if Nuala might have been feeling a bit conflicted by the end.

I would have liked Sharron to have had the time to talk about the horrific and graphic abuse women get for speaking out on these issues.

Unfortunately even if the UCI and USA Cycling were to adopt British Cycling's policy it would not really change anything in US Cycling. The vast majority of races there, including all the gravel race series (which are the biggest thing in US cycling at the moment) are unaffiliated and set their own rules.

There's another point she makes in the book - not sure if she made it on the programme:

Transwomen can compete if they reduce their testosterone to certain levels. Even if you accept that those levels remove their natural advantage (it doesn't and they are still way above normal female levels) how do you prove that they are doing it? She mentions in the book how easy it was for doctors in the GDR to game the system by "flushing away" the drugs before drug tests were due. So a transwoman could be under the accepted levels for competition but not the rest of the time, unless they are subject to very regular out of competition testing.

Yet women can be tested for doping at any time.

I'm not sure we know of Nuala's personal view on the issue? but her job as a BBC presenter is to present both sides of an argument, or certainly to counter any given narrative.

https://translucent.org.uk/sharron-davies-unfair-play-the-battle-for-womens-sport-the-untold-facts/

Apparently we are looking at the wrong facts!

Sharron Davies is just so clear and knowledgable in the way she talks. I heard her on the podcast How to Be 60 and where she talked about going to meet the East German swimmer Petra Schneider who beat her at the Olympics, and how those women that were doped (they were just as much victims) are now suffering terrible long term effects.

Sharron is also on the Brendan O’Neill podcast this week if you want a more focussed and longer discussion. Listened this morning. More time so more points made including how male athletes who speak up do not receive the same abuse as women do.

On the other hand, those are the arguments constantly being trotted out (like the “trans athletes are being banned” nonsense), so it gives Sharron the opportunity make a clear rebuttal.

Here is just one of those wrong facts:

In 2022 the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published statistics showing just 0.5% of the population of England and Wales identified as a different gender than their sex assigned at birth. Breaking the stats down further and excluding those who are non-binary, just 48,000 were trans women, and the exact same figure were trans men. In comparison, the ONS report there are 30,420,100 natal females. Simple maths tells us that natal females outnumber trans women by the ratio of six hundred and thirty-three to one.

Basic maths proves trans women will never dominate women’s sports events.

Who knew that the 'winners' in women's sports were actually just picked at random from the whole population?!

This is an argument well-versed by many commentators who are often highly discriminatory against trans people, all of whom fail to mention that testosterone-suppressed trans women athletes have no realistic chance of winning any competition when competing with those whose testosterone levels are in the normal male range.

From that Translucent article. Explaining why Open classes are unfair to trans women. My italics.

I wonder if those three matches have been against natal men, or other trans athletes in the male division?

Maybe they just need to train harder then?

I see one of the wins was against a natal male who has boxed 8 matches professionally and won none of them. I guess promoters will only pitch Patricio against no-hope males?

That's a great analogy Wintertrees

Nuala was putting forward all the usual transactivist points to give Sharron the opportunity to demolish them. She was just doing her job let's not pick on her.

Fair point, but stating that kids who use pronouns that don't match their birth sex are being excluded from school sports just isn't true.

Sharron did have the chance to set her straight, but just hearing a BBC presenter put things like that out there carries a certain amount of weight. Why give such half-baked propaganda airtime?

Open classes being unfair to transwomen gets filed under 'Not my problem '. However, transwomen competing in women's classes being unfair to women is very much my problem.

I ran out of fucks a long time ago.

Who knew that the 'winners' in women's sports were actually just picked at random from the whole population?!

Ha ha! Indeed.

The longer this goes on, the fewer fucks I give. As someone once said here on MN - “If you overreach you topple”. And I think the TRAs have overreached.

What a champion. Well played that woman!