More idiocy from Wales

[Chersfrozenface]

Hot on the heels on New Zealand, Wales enters the lists.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68731593

Some selected paragraphs.

"Europe's biggest annual LGBTQ+ multi-sports event will be held in Cardiff in 2027.

The Welsh capital will be the first UK city to host the EuroGames."

"The EuroGames tournament is governed by the European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation and is a "sports for all" event, meaning it is open to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age and skill level.

"Charlotte Galloway, chair of Cardiff Dragons, Wales' first mixed gender LGBTQ+ football club, said all athletes can compete as their "authentic selves".

"People are allowed to identify and play in their authentic gender," she said.

"So that means that trans women can play in the women's category and trans men can play in the men's category - I think it's really important that we're able to do this because there's no other competition that's this big in Europe that allows gender non-conforming people, trans people and non-binary people to compete this way."

Still, it's clear what exactly this is.

And all those women who are fiiiiine with changing and competing with men can participate, knowing what the terms are. After all, it's not the winning that's important, it's the taking part.

I'm sure that the event organisers would have to produce detailed risk assessments to enable the whole event to have insurance cover. I would imagine that if you have not told the truth in your risk assessment, your insurance may not be valid. When I was involved in running sports training and smaller scale competitions, I could not hire any venue without proof of insurance and written risk assessments. How does this work for sports where women might be at physical risk from men who identify as women? Those risks of injury are increasingly being publicised. It isn't as if they're being hidden.

It's also possible in this country (UK) to get insurance for specific sports as an individual competitor. I wonder if anyone has looked into whether individual insurance premiums will have to increase because of risk of injury to women due to the introduction of mixed 'women's' events?

I wonder if flagging up problems related to risk assessment, insurance, and therefore venue hire might be a route to take in challenging any sport in this country which is resisting the idea of returning to women-only training and competition.

"I find this very problematic the more I look at it. Why should female people in the LGBTQ+ community deserve to such unfairness even their grass roots competition"

What is the harm in event organisers setting up an event that is designed for a group of people that includes the T with the LGB. Individuals can decide if the event is something they want to participate in or not. Similarly, I think it should also be permissible for event organisers to run events for the LGB without the T.

Event organiser could also set up an event where categories were based on age, height, weight, hair colour, favourite TV show. They would need insurance and to undertake a risk assessment, but so long as they run the event properly and safely, I can't see why anyone would object.

Because they have set up an event that discriminates against female people. And they call it inclusive.

It doesn’t discriminate against male people, only female. Your analogy of hair colour etc is meaningless in this context. If they made it without a category named ‘women’, and it was just everyone all in together, then as I said up thread that is different.

It's a Knockout springs to mind.
Harmless fun for exhibitionists.

https://eurogames2023.ch/track-field

You can see the results from track and field 2023 and photos of the winners. Weirdly not many Non binary event entries.

It's ok, it will be poorly attended.

Why? Because, the "female" teams will be men mostly and perhaps a complete team of men in the 'female' team.
They won't want to compete against other men because they won't easily win .. So it won't work. Men are inherently competitive and won't want this competition.

Also men will argue they're women so shouldn't be in an open team. Because why... they're "real women", so should get a place on the woman's team and be the only man on the team preferably...you know so as to validate their real wommaness... because other Transwomen aren't the same kind of woman they are. So actually a team full of Transwomen would be their worst nightmare, because they would have to simultaneously say they're actual women, but not if we're all on the same team, then that's not all women....

So it will happen once, fail, and that will be the end of it.

These games have been happening for over 20 years...

It happens annually, except in years when the Gay Games are being held, has done since 1992.

Anyway, one of the stated goals of EuroGames Vienna 2024 is "to increase the number of women and TIN (Trans-, Inter- and Non-binary) athletes.."

Since Trans is named separately, I presume 'women' in this case means actual women.

Quite why a woman would want to pay good money to be beaten by a male competitor and to change with males*, I don't know. A gold star for being an "ally"?

"It doesn’t discriminate against male people, only female. Your analogy of hair colour etc is meaningless in this context. If they made it without a category named ‘women’, and it was just everyone all in together, then as I said up thread that is different"

If they called the category something other than 'women' would you still have an issue with it? If they made the event an all male event, would that still concern you?

My concern is that of having an expectation that all events should be inclusive to all. If an event organiser wanted to create an event that was for females only, I would want them to be able to exclude transwomen. What goes hand in hand with this is event organisers being able to hold events that do include transwomen.

I agree that concerns relating to funding arise here, with potential for the trans inclusive events diluting funds for sex based events. But this is how capitalism works.

Sporting events run by national and international regulatory bodies are a different matter. To have credibility (which any old event organiser doesn't need to have), they need to have well thought out rules that ensure fairness.

I think people with trans identities should be able to participate in sporting events and shouldn't be prevented from setting up and running their own. It is up to individuals (trans and not trans) to decide if they wish to participate.

I don’t think the “they won’t be able to get insurance” angle is grounded in reality. The para games in Wales this year feature wheelchair rugby which is mixed and absolutely brutal. The swim leg of the triathlon isn’t exactly a walk in the park either.

@Brainworm they don’t have categories called ‘women’ and ‘men’. They have ‘female-identifying’, ‘male-identifying’ and ‘non-binary’. So essentially three mixed categories.

If you're a fan at all, you should watch The Assembly on iPlayer - amazing programme made for autism acceptance week where he gets interviewed by an audience of neuro divergent people.

“If they called the category something other than 'women' would you still have an issue with it? If they made the event an all male event, would that still concern you?”

If they made it a completely open category event, would it concern me?

If they made absolutely no reference to having any categories at all, then there is no expectation at all that they are rewarding excellence for specific categories. So while it is still discriminatory, it is not in the realm of having a category for female people that they are then allowing male people to then dominate as well as the other categories.

For instance they have a masters category as well. Will they allow a 25 year old to win that category? No? Why is it then that ONLY the female category is not protected and is deemed ‘inclusive’.

As I said in my first post on this thread, if they had a women’s event but also had a ‘female only’ event and included only female people in that, then that will be appropriate. It provides female people a protected event.

And if it was not about recognising excellence, thus making it truly not ‘important’, they would have not podium positions, they would randomly pick ‘awards’ based on some completely random result and not for the traditional first, second and third. But they don’t. And the categories are rewarding the best performance athletically in each category.

I think there is also a concern that this group keep using the term ‘inclusive’ when the really is that it is not inclusive for female people. Yet, any referencing of this event will be that this is a benchmark in ‘inclusivity’ by other organisations.

And the argument, the female athletes know what to expect before signing up is dismissive because the same thing can be said for any sporting event that still includes some male people into the female event. So why is it appropriate for this event and not for parkrun when parkrun is also just for fun (we are told) and inclusive. Female parkrunners know what they are signing up for too, don’t they?

Why should we be campaigning to have female athletes protected in park run and not at EuroGames?

“I think people with trans identities should be able to participate in sporting events and shouldn't be prevented from setting up and running their own. It is up to individuals (trans and not trans) to decide if they wish to participate.”

Great. That would be the transgender games and it would be absolutely acceptable for them to have it as they wish. Is this the transgender games? Or does it include lesbians and female bisexual people and a category meant to reward excellence for them as female athletes?

@Helleofabore the difference between parkrun and this is that parkrun is a free, community event and for many people is the only possibility of running a regular 5k with other runners. Eurogames is a paid-for event aimed at a very specific demographic (trans people and their allies). I don’t think the two are remotely comparable. Every woman paying to participate in Eurogames is a fully signed up ally and happy to lose to a man. The same cannot be said of your local parkrun.

So you are saying that the eurogames is not for LGB people at all, and never was unless they were allies of trans people? All the way back in 1990s when it first started?

Ok. Park run is free. So let’s then look at other grass level sports which you do pay to be part of. What is the difference with those and eurogames?

@Helleofabore
Just call it the trans + allies games in your head and be done with it. Thats what the rest of us are doing. It's a micky mouse event and as another poster pointed out they rent out kit that competitors might not have which seems very amateur. The event not even competitivefor "all skill levels". The event is going to happen no matter what we say. Let them have a good time and have fun building a space of their own instead of invading our spaces.
They are human beings too, and if they want to build something of their own I'm happy for them. I would be quite surprised if there is a single gender critical lesbian or gay athlete who feels they are missing out by not attending these games. I would imagine more a feeling of relief than jealousy, and I could be completly wrong in my guesses.

The difference between other grassroots sports and Eurogames is that Eurosport is aimed at a very specific demographic. It’s not a grassroots event in the same way that a club 10 or a district swim gala is.

Although having looked at the photos of the winners last year I’m sure the average female county athlete in any discipline would take home a full haul - we’re not talking Diamond League material here.

The categories in the competion are “female-identified”, “male-identified” and “non-binary” so at least they are not pretending that males can be women. They are saying that males can identify as females and they will accept this at face value, much as I accept it when my 3 year old identified as a puppy.

I agree that wheelchair rugby is brutal - I watched an all male British national team in a training competition at the UK Institute of Sport in Sheffield a long while back. It was absolutely terrifying. I knew that there were lots of rules about how teams could be made up of players with different levels of physical impairment but had no idea it was now mixed in terms of sex! Do teams have to include a minimum number of women?

The thing is that a) the insurance for that sport will have been calculated according to actual risk and may have been raised for an added actual or perceived risk to women, and b) it's being called a mixed sport. The powers that be are acknowledging it as such. Even if all sports which included men calling themselves women in women's events renamed themselves accurately as 'mixed', that would be a step forward. It would show the decimation of women's sport.

“Even if all sports which included men calling themselves women in women's events renamed themselves accurately as 'mixed', that would be a step forward. It would show the decimation of women's sport.”

Yes.

Loving the venue last year- SportsHub Wankdorf...

I noticed that but decided not to post it. I've no idea why really. I mean...

In 168 photographs, it looks like there are a maximum of 11 female medalists.

In the results table, in many of the "Women's" competitions, there's only 1st or 2nd place noted, as opposed to far more in the "Men's" competitions. That suggests to me that there were no more than 1 or 2 entrants in those events.

Also, though I haven't counted them, there seem to be fewer "Women's" competitions than "Men"s", which suggests there weren't any entrants at all in some events

It seems likely to me that very few women, or even female identified persons, participate.

Just as we thought- transwomen are not interested in competing against other men.