To think this is a clear bit of film that all MP’s should watch, demonstrating why men in women’s sport is ludicrous?

[99doshredballoons]

American and sport based but the implication and consequences are clear.

Hopefully this stays as an AIBU rather than being either deleted or moved to another section.

Biological sex needs to be made a protected characteristic in the EA.

Shocker.

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1141404/aquatics-shelves-open-category-berlin

@Helleofabore letter writing to my governing body (BC) about my disquiet about their inclusion policy. For a long time they were in hoc to inclusion-first, mostly due to the influence of a certain ex-pro who transitioned after retiring. Things started changing in 2020, and then accelerated resulting in the suspension of the existing policy in 2022, triggered by Emily Bridges and a lot of behind the scenes lobbying by ex and current pros, women and men both, including several world champions. The new policy (female and open) was introduced in 2023. This cascaded upwards to the world governing body (UCI) which then cascaded down to all the other national governing bodies (with the exception of the US of course, because, US exceptionalism). Since then we’ve seen many other world and national governing bodies in other sports follow suit - the dominoes are all falling. The last thing we need is politicians sticking their oar in.

What female sports event, advertised as female only, needs to ever include male people? What benefit is this to female athletes?

If an organisation wants to hold a ‘male athlete inclusive’ event, they should make this absolutely clear and if no one but male people enter, so be it. But no event advertised as female only should allow male people. It is actually very simple when you start prioritising female athletes.

@coureur imho BC has big enough problems attracting & then keeping females in competition.

When my DD was on RSRs & Youth racing she was the only girl in her area to go from youth to junior and no surprise as BC put on NO junior girls events, the girls were expected to compete against women.
Which is fine if your Pfeiffer Georgi but not when you re a more regular cyclist.

Sorry for the derail but my DD took up running which has a far more inclusive approach.

I've cycled all my life but i'd never recommend anyone to go near BC.

But i do agree that govt should keep out of running sport.

@99doshredballoons I strongly agree, and I’m sure that when the EA was drafted that was what was meant, as the time ’sex’ automatically implied biological sex, as after all there was no other sort. The rot set in with the concept of ‘legal sex’ introduced by the GRA.

Which does actually raise the question, has anyone reported an event promoter to the EHRC for sex discrimination for allowing males into the women’s category? It seems to me that this meets the classic definition of discrimination on the grounds of a protected characteristic: women are disadvantaged by the organisation’s policy.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you, I took @Dotjones post to be entirely satirical, pointing out that this would be the inevitable eventual result of this type of brainwashing equality. I may be wrong - not uncommon! - and Dot was being serious. Which would make the post very odd indeed…

@Alexandra2001 road cycling has a women problem full stop. We can’t keep women and girls in the sport and as a result there are fewer and fewer races. When races are put on they often get cancelled due to not enough entries and the handful of women who show up end up racing in with the men (who to be fair,
are generally pretty supportive).

it’s a different story in CX though, where we see female fields as big as the mens (sorry, open!). I think that basically road is dying in the U.K for a variety of reasons. Any junior, female or male, who wants to make their name in road is better off going to Belgium. Or just stick with CX or MTB and transfer to road as a senior - it seems to work for lots of pros these days.

So, by the sounds of it we both have written letters to actively seek changes. Great. Where we seem to differ is that I no longer trust sporting federations to make the right decisions to protect female sports. And it seems you do.

I think that just as soon as a new committee gets in it may be convinced and back women go to the beginning. If the law was written in the UK with clarity in the first place, the UK may have been in a different position now regarding sport.

I think relying on law cases and guidance is problematic and open to further interpretation. Law is too, but clear and unambiguous law should be harder to change.

When are female athletes not disadvantaged with the inclusion of male people as ‘female’ people? If female people choose to enter an event with male people registered as female people when there are female only options, fine. Otherwise, when is it to a female person’s benefit to include those male people? Why should this be open to sporting organisations to decide what is in female athletes interest when it is open to campaigning from male people utilising emotionally manipulative philosophical theory to convince rather than biologically proven or modeled evidence?

I guess it is a trust issue and whether someone trusts a sporting body to make the right decision. I don’t recall off the top of my head one world sporting body making this decision in a timely manner before harm was done. Was there? Which one should we trust?

@Helleofabore as you say, it’s a matter of trust. I do trust governing bodies to make the right decisions (after trying all the alternatives admittedly) because at the end of the day they are beholden to their members and ultimately the majority of their members believe in fairness.

You have made me think about unaffiliated promoters though - looking at my local MTB enduro races (Southern Enduro) they have no trans policy (or doping policy🙄). At the end of the day they are a commercial business charging people £60 to race. Thry have customers not members. They list results by gender (not sex) and age. All self-declared of course. Should this be legislated against? Would a female racer who lost a place to a male have a case with the EHRC that this amounts to sex-based discrimination?

At the moment, no if the male presented as a trans woman.

If biological sex was a protected characteristic, then yes I’d expect so.

My opinion is that if it advertised as a single sex event, then yes. The law should be there to protect it and women and girls should have recourse. If it is advertised as a mixed sex event then fine. And if it advertised as mixed sex then they then have to deal with no female competing. That is their commercial decision.

As soon as any place or prize is declared for a ‘woman’ or a ‘female’ then it must be protected under law, in my opinion.

And how successful have those governing bodies been thus far? How many women and girls have already been harmed that you have felt was acceptable while some sporting bodies are still not protecting female sports?

How successful has being ‘beholden’ been so far, when female athletes are feeling threatened to fight or even just to speak up in case they lose their opportunities?

@Helleofabore i think the get out for a lot of these organisations is that they ask you to self-declare your gender, not sex. And then list results by gender, not sex. I don’t see how clarifying the EA to make it explicit that biological sex is a PC would help in this case. Maybe indirect discrimination?

But it is direct discrimination to advertise a female only event and not ensure it is female only. I think the prospect of instant and even historic disqualification if it is discovered that a male has been registered fraudulently may be needed. If there is doubt, it needs to be proven by the athlete and that requires a cheek swab under strict control.

Yes, it is onerous. But it necessary to ensure this. Considering the safety concerns that are becoming apparent for some sports in any case, I imagine organisation’s insurance may also start having to be an issue.

Exactly.

@Helleofabore yep, it is direct discrimination, you’re right, especially if there is no stated policy and it would be a reasonable assumption that female actually meant female. I just checked the rules (such as they are) for the Dirty Reiver which is probably the UK’s biggest unaffiliated bike race. They have three gender (not sex) categories which they call male, female, and open. What a mess.

ah. See. This is also an example of indirect discrimination, maybe. Or maybe I am wrong and it is just double direct discrimination. Because if male people can enter female as well, then male people have 3 categories they can win whereas female people do not have even one that is protected that they can be guaranteed fair competition. Hardly equal opportunity.

Even if female people had the female category guaranteeed as female only (with no performance enhancement ), it is two opportunities for male people and one for female people. That is also not equal opportunity. Open and female is equal because it is unlikely that a female would win open.

Welcome to the bullshit women have to address in every area of life now. Hospitals, sports, prisons, schools, changing areas, toilets, dv centres etc etc etc. This is why it is critical that the EQ act is updated. And why people like kier starmer need to retract statements like 1% of women have penises.

Anyone pretending not to recognise the differences between male and female bodies is foolish. The vast majority of the world recognises these differences that trans activists claim don’t exist / matter.

Which one of these is the male ex-pro footballer? Anyone stupid and stubborn enough to maintain that he could be on the left?

@Dotjones Tell us you're a man without telling us you're a man...

He was rated in the top 400s in the male category, not in the whole USA, but just in COLLEGE swimming.

Yet here he is, talking about his “Olympic dream”.

Nah, sorry mate; if you can’t get anywhere near the top 20 by the time you leave college, you ain’t going to the Olympics as anything other than a spectator.

Which makes you wonder whether this was the real reason he started “transitioning” - he’s was now competitive in the female category, and in with a shot (until those transphobes at world swimming took his dream away).

Boo hoo.

Maybe he should’ve just trained harder when he was with the blokes, rather than trying to steal from females instead.

Trans women should not be taking part in women’s sports they have an unfair advantage over women. Be trans if you want that’s fine but stop trying to encroach on women’s spaces. At this rate women are going to end up getting cancelled we fought hard for the right to vote and now we are having to fight to keep our spaces free of men and if you voice your opinion your a terf and this is just another excuse for men to overrule us and we don’t get our voices heard because what we want doesn’t matter so long as they are happy.

My son is a para swimmer.

He's actually quite good and swims to a good standard. He has dreams of paralympics.

They are classified on how their disability affects their body in the water compared to a AB swimmer. It's all about the science rather than physical presentation iyswim?

I always say how similar male and female sports categories are and that it makes no sense you can suddenly eradicate this because of how someone says they feel or want to dress or want to be called.

It still amazes me that para sport (so those with disabilities) seem to have more protection that sex based sport. Disability is usually the least protected/ considered characteristic.

Seriously?

Yo think 5 year olds should be competing against 30 year olds?

Here we are again. Because there aren’t enough boys football teams for boys to join.

https://bnnbreaking.com/sports/fa-threatens-sanctions-on-west-riding-girls-football-league-for-excluding-boy-player