TW racing women in the Para-olympics

[lcakethereforeIam]

I did not know the IPC set it's own conditions

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/cpvymmpyjeko

At least the BBC acknowledged the problems with an ‘inclusive’ approach in this article (which makes a somewhat welcome change):

“Sports scientist Professor Ross Tucker said: "Male advantage is created through development and so it is essentially laid down over years and years of exposure to testosterone. The solution that sport has tried to come up with is to say well if the source of that advantage is testosterone then let's lower it and then the athlete is free to compete.

"But that doesn’t work because there is an asymmetry there because some of the changes that testosterone causes, like the increased muscle mass, increased strength, the shape and size of the skeleton, those changes don’t go away. There are some, like haemoglobin levels, certain elements of the cardiovascular system that may go away.”

"Ultimately, in the seven years in which transgender athletes have been able to compete in the female category, the number of instances in which they have stood out for their sporting results have been very few and far between."

Might have more to do with the fact that Petrillo is almost 20 -30 years older than the other competitors and unlike every other 50 year old woman doesn't have the inconvenience of menopause.

Previous discussion about Petrillo:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4731592-elite-sports-people-speaking-up?page=2&reply=124745654

Oh this is so depressing.

Petrillo said: "This is not a lifestyle choice for me, this is who I am'.

Yes, like his increased muscle mass, height and overall bloody advantage in women's sport...

50 year old male athlete, who becomes too old to compete with the men, takes away a young Italian female Paralympian' s opportunity to take part in the ultimate athletics event. Shame on him.

Christ, they won't even leave disabled women alone.

Interesting that he's Italian when Italy's Prime Minister was so vocal about the male boxer.

I really wish the other women would withdraw in protest but that's easy to say from the sidelines.

When is someone going to actually do something about this?

Right. I don't even know what to say at this point.

I think it’s a good article that clearly sets out the issue. And by including the “counter argument” as to why they should be included it will hopefully illustrate how weak their argument is.

I am so, so sick of this and I am not even a sports fan.

Christ on a bike. They are not even trying to hide it here.

These were my thoughts too.

And, as a matter of interest, who wears dangly earrings with their running gear? Oh, let me see. Someone who needs to convince everyone that they aren't a man? Jeez, what a world.

So this person won in the male category up to 2018.
then started "living as a woman"
started hormones in 2019. So, at the age of 45.
Now, at age 50, is presumably competitive against women athletes who are much younger.

How is this inclusion? It's exclusion, of a woman who has lost her spot on the Italian team.

Fuck me.they're everywhere.

This situation might be a harder sell for the media than poor little Imane who was born a girl and has always been a woman and if you complain you're all racists.

Absolutely makes my blood boil for the XX women who have XY males encroaching on their sport.

Strange how trans men ( women who identify as male) don’t go in for this unsportsmanlike behaviour!

It’s men who cannot win against men who go for women’s categories.

How can they be the first trans Paralympian? We're told trans people have been among us passing successfully for time. So surely plenty of transmen and transwomen have competed already.

This one could win against other men. He just aged out of competition as all athletes do so thought he'd destroy sport for disabled women as his own consolation prize.

Decent men would take up gardening or something.

I'm so fed up of this. Surely something's got to change. Or is women's sport essentially being taken away from us?

Just another cheating fucking man.

I am so sick of them.

All athletes have an identity.
Sport is not played with their identity. it is played with their bodies.

this one is a full on xy with sry everything. What's the new excuse?

Someone please gift him some other midlife crisis. Leave women to enjoy stuff that's theirs.

Under World Para Athletics' rules, a person who is legally recognised as a woman is eligible to compete in the category their impairment qualifies them for.

This is bonkers. We're going to be discriminate according to this physical reality but ignore that physical reality. Despite them both being relevant and significant.

I remember this athlete from
the last Olympics. It is remarkable that they are back again.

Did this runner compete at Tokyo? I remember there was discussion about it but don't recall that they actually qualified.

Para-athletes go through all sorts of complicated testing to ensure they are competing in the right category, and it's sometimes very marginal decisions that put someone in one category or another, making a huge difference to their chances of winning.

But Petrillo can just utter the magic words 'I'm a woman' and swan into female sports.