School sports

[AlphaTransWoman]

Do you think it is ever acceptable to force a child assigned male at birth to participate in contact sports at school such as football or rugby. If so do you appreciate the distress this may cause to children born with a male body who have a female gender identity?

"I found sports at school to be painful and humiliating - mostly because I always got picked last for teams.

It felt like a punishment for being male."

This really does point to a strange logic that I cannot make sense of at all. At an all boys school, those picked first were also male - were they rewarded for being male and you punished? Having gone to a mixed school, it was more often the girls picked last, but that's by the by in the logic conversation.

When you decide what factor is influencing an outcome, you need to look at what is different between those with one outcome and the other. Picked first = male, picked last = male, everyone in-between = male. Therefore male is not a factor that is influencing the outcome.

My DH was often picked last, he was tiny for his age, that makes logical sense - do you see the difference?

I would like to see how you drew your conclusion, it points to an interesting conversation on what is happening inside the heads of people who centre their lives around gender.

I believe that all this poster's logic hinges on the advice from their therapist who first suggested they were a 'woman'. Now, the entire history has been written with the framing that they were a girl trapped in a male body.

There is no logic. There is no science behind the belief.

But it is all hinging on this person fully believing that they were a girl being forced to do things that apparently no girl was ever forced to do, or that would not have been expected of them as a girl. It is all in their AMA.

We have repeatedly told this poster just how misogynistic their posts are, and their reply was that some of their stereotypes that they base their belief upon are positive, why were we so angry about someone using 'positive' attribute stereotypes? Needless to say, they cannot accept women's point of view, and keep repeating misogynistic notions and other crap takes over multiple threads.

So, when you reframe it to fit the misogyny, the 'logic' works.

Helle - defo overplayed their hand on this thread….

I think school sport should be optional like orchestra, chess club etc. Not everyone is into it and no one should be forced to do it. A child's health and fitness is a parent's responsibility so that excuse doesn't wash either.

In principle, given how many children in the UK are obese, I can't agree with this.

In practice, it's not clear how much school PE lessons are actually helping to tackle obesity.

That's an appalling take. Everything is ultimately parents responsibility but it doesn't mean we should leave it entirely to them. I agree no one should be forced to do a sport they don't like but finding and encouraging some sort of physical activity is a laudable aim. It might just be walking but it is something.

Personally, I don't believe that's what the therapist said. If there even was a therapist.

I saw that post as an entirely invented appeal to authority.

They don't want to accept women's views as they contradict the fantasy the OP has weaved for themself. Even though, they will, occasionally pretend to.

Like dropping in a, oh, you've given me food for thought here, I hadn't seen it like that. (Probably as a sign of 'submission'. )

And then five seconds later, it's back to the nah I'm going in whatever loo I want, whenever I want, and that's the end of it. In the most fluffy kind of way, obviously.

I don’t agree.

Sport as part of PE is as important to learn as maths and English. Learning the basics of a variety of sports is an important skill. Playing ‘sport’ representing the school or at lunch should be optional. But making sport an optional subject is harmful overall to a child’s health needs. It underpins the study of anatomy which is vital.

What they should be addressing, is why so many kids hate sport so much.

I think statistically many girls start to hate it at the onset of puberty?

Is that which needs exploring. What is contributing to their self consciousness?

Likewise the 'macho' nature around men and sport.

Outdated sexist stereotypes has to be right up there.

And I am not disagreeing that this is also a likely scenario. It seems contrived in many ways, but that could be based on the lack of empathy that was admitted to. It does make motivation hard to judge.

I think only time will tell. I expect that janes prediction could be fulfilled soon too. That there will be another thread soon that will add to the feeling of feminists just being trolled or used as the kind of resource that none of us want to even think of .

OP had some very binary views

That is a massive over generalisation.

I have a lot of thoughts about this.

I saw a comment on here not long ago about PE teachers which made something kind of click into place for me. In my experience a lot of PE teachers will engage with the kids they think are "good at PE" and not with the kids they think are "bad at PE". There seems to be little if any acknowledgement that PE is a school subject just like any other, where teachers should be required to actually teach children and help them to improve their skills. I think the person who made that comment referred specifically to being required to run cross country and hating every minute of it, and nobody ever explaining to them that running is a skill just like any other, and if you do it regularly it will get easier and you will get better at it.

I hated PE in general because I thought I wasn't a sporty kid, because it was something the cool kids were good at and I wasn't cool, or maybe the other way around, that kids who were good at PE were cool so I could never be cool because I wasn't good at PE.

It also didn't help that my parents didn't give a shit about PE. It was the one subject that they couldn't care less about on my school report. They weren't sporty themselves, never have been, and didn't see the value in it. I sometimes wonder, if I had been sporty and had won races or matches, whether they would have been as enthusiastically supportive as they were of my other interests and academic achievements, or whether they would have just nodded in a slightly bemused fashion and said, "That's nice, dear."

I also hated being made to run around in the cold during winter wearing flimsy PE kit, hated having to get changed in the classroom in primary school, and hated being made to shower in front of the other girls after PE in secondary school when I was self-conscious about my developing body. A body I might have been less self conscious about if I had spent more time doing sport and been as fit as a fiddle.

It literally never occurred to me until I was well into adult life that I could choose to do sport, as a means to fitness or even for enjoyment, and that if I put regular effort in, I could even be good at it.

Can I just say I’m more than happy for a puppies and kittens (especially kittens) thread, mainly because I strongly identify with cats because if I could I’d do no work, sleep most of the day, look cute, demand someone feed me and feel no guilt if I ruined your sofa (glares at cat).

Same.

Well obviously now I can’t get on with you Margot as I’m totes territorial. We might need one of those plug in anxiety reducers. Or some catnip.

I don’t see what this has got to do with a gender identity. I hated rugby because I was physically vulnerable (very light weight).

Oh god, 1000% this!

I don't recall that any of my teachers EVER explained the actual rules of netball to me, let alone techniques to improve. Just made me goalie for the good team and sent me to stand at one end of the court.

My poor boys couldn't tell you the first thing about rugby or running technique.

The future borough representation is identified in the first week or so, and then the duffers just have to put the kit on and look they're doing something while the teachers train the team, as far as I can tell.

You know, I know recall being told how to play certain games either. The best sports-related teaching I had was in a lunchtime trampolining club run by the PE teacher. There were about ten of us and technique was very carefully taught so we all improved quite quickly and enjoyed it very much. I absolutely loved trampolining.

Firstly enjoying physical sports and being competitive are not the same thing. I loved playing football but I'm not a particularly competitive person. My tiny wee Nana on the other hand was very much a delicate little flower physically and would have no truck with unladylike pursuits but my word on WI jam day or the judging tent at the village show she was a force to be reckoned with. Her on going battle with her main rival in several of the baking categories would make the most competitive men wince. Grandad, 6'2" miner that he was used to give her a wide birth on show day.

But I suspect where you are really leading to is tell us that TW should be allowed into women's sports, because A) we aren't competitive so it doesn't matter if a group of people with physical advantages are allow to take all the prizes because women's sport is just for fun (shut up and be kind) and B) women who like sport, especially team sports are actually men really anyway, because liking sport is a male attribute, so it's male bodies with female brains v female bodies with male brains so it's just men's sport really because the proper women are at home doing a spot of light embroidery (unless of course they are 'other women' e.g. men).
It's insulting, constrictive and regressive and a steaming great pile of 💩

This is basically a mancentric view of the world - contact sports exist for the benefit of men.

Thank you for your responses. With hindsight, me moaning about bad childhood experiences is not particularly helpful or interesting to this forum, although I'm glad it has led to some helpful discussion in this instance.

It also shows what it can be like to experience gender dysphoria. I tend to blame all sorts of negative experiences on having been being born in the "wrong" sex. It's hard not to do this at an emotional level even where the evidence this is happening is scant.

Back on topic, I have two suggestions which I think are constructive.

Firstly, children should be allowed to choose sporting activity, avoiding contact sports if they do not wish to participate in these. Ideally these choices would not be limited by gender.

Secondly, teachers should work to create an inclusive environment where children are not judged harshly for being bad at sport. They could do this thorough the example they set and by encouraging appropriate behaviour.

Obviously my personal belief is that girls and women are more likely to be caring and inclusive - but I don't think either of my suggestions depend on this so we can agree to differ on that particular point.

I can't understand why any female would be interested in participating in such a thing.

Possibly because you’re not female and have a typically masculine stereotypical view of women.

Women are humans, too, you know - we have our likes and dislikes.

But I suspect you’re a wind up merchant, posting such a view on a feminist forum.

Honestly @AlphaTransWoman when I was being bullied at school and my parents asked if I wanted to move to a local girls' private school I said no because most of the 13 year old girls I knew were horrible. The idea that girls are more caring and inclusive is ludicrous.

@Girlontherailreplacementbusservice

No, I don't think TW should normally be allowed to participate in competitive women's sport. However, if a boy wanted to participate in non-competitive activities with girls, such as walking, dance, aerobics etc, this would be OK.