Shameful short debate on women’s sport in the House of Lords 29th October

[IDareSay]

Excellent question from Dianne Hayter on Olympic sport yesterday but utterly shameful responses from the government spokesperson B Twycross.

With the honourable exceptions of Baronesses Hoey, Meacher, and Jenkin, all the contributions were woefully inadequate and ignorant.

Transcript here

Also available on Parliament TV by going to 2.37pm onwards on House of Lords channel, but it will make you want to throw things at the screen as well as show what a poor speaker Twycross is 🤬

Ironically Hoey is talking sense and Twycross is talking...

She not even read the UN report!

"Baroness Twycross
(Lab)
The sports councils’ guidance [...] found that you cannot easily reconcile inclusion with fairness and safety in [women's] sport; [...] Simply keeping the existing arrangements in sport will not accommodate inclusion and will not serve anyone well."

You cannot have safe amd fair women's sport that includes men, so let's give up safe and fair sport for women.

"will not serve anyone well."

It serves women well!

FFS.

The star that is Baroness Jenkin, responding to Baroness Twycross's statement about more "inclusion" being needed.

"My Lords, is the Minister aware of a United Nations study published in August called Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in Sport? It calculated that, by March this year, over 600 female athletes in more than 400 division events across 29 sports were defeated by trans-identifying men, who took a total of over 890 medals from female athletes. Does the Minister think that this is fair?"

She wasn't aware of the report, she said she'd read it and get back to her in writing.

”it is more straightforward for mens sport”

Too bloody right Baroness, and if you stop prattling on for a minute you might actually work out exactly WHY it is more “straightforward” for mens sports.

Here are a couple of clues

transmen are well aware that they don’t have the bodily strength , testosterone level, heart and lung size, bone length and pelvic formation of male born athletes, attributes which are conferred by both genetic inheritance and male puberty. So transmen, even if they have been elite athletes before transition don’t try to compete in male sports because a) they don’t stand a scooby of winning and b) could end up badly injured.

transwomen however, understand that even if they have been only mediocre athletes before transition, the advantages bestowed by male puberty will a) give them the opportunity to out perform most elite female athletes, with the added advantage that b) if anyone is going to be injured it won’t be them.

I think it was a mistake to use the Olympic boxers as a peg for the important and separate question of whether men should be able to participate in women’s sports.

As I understand it both of these olympic boxers have a DSD. I think that is a different and more complex question than that of mediocre male athletes declaring post puberty that they feel like women and should therefore be allowed in to the women’s competition.

The trans rights lobby like to muddy the waters with references to the very small number of people with DSD - using this group to support their view that gender is assigned at birth. I see that as a red herring.

There should of course be a debate on the risks/impact of individuals with a DSD competing in women’s sport. It is particularly important in contact sports where the physical risk to female athletes is huge. But that debate should be kept separate to the trans debate. I also think that given the potential impact on athletes who will have had no choice about the sex in which they were brought up - and might not have realised until adulthood they had different chromosomes - we need to be sensitive in our approach.

I agree that a broader question would have been better because focussing on Khelif and Lin Yu Ting allowed people to hide behind the IOC.

Both the women who competed in the Olympics were born as women, lived as women and competed as women; neither identified as a different gender from that which they were assigned at birth.

'born as woman' is doing some heavy lifting there. 'Born a woman' does not in this case mean 'born female' , it means socialised as a girl.

It might not be apparent from external features, especially if as a baby an assumption is made based on a visual appraisal of what could be atypical genitalia , which is often what happens in rural areas of countries without good health care provision, but the genes tell the story, and at puberty there will often be appropriate developments which is where the problems start, or unfortunately in some cases - the realisation dawns that the situation can be monetised.

But however hard this is on an individual level , once an athletes sex is confirmed by appropriate and verified testing then that should be the end of the athlete competing as a member of the other sex. I think it appears that the vast majority of female athletes are happy to have their sex verified when they start to compete at a high level, either nationally or internationally. If this was the norm then it would not be worth while for the countries who are presenting DSD athletes with male chromosomes as female to continue to do so.

The word "inclusion," a long with "diversity" have started to remind me a little of the way people use "freedom".

As if they were always good in themselves. More freedom, diversity, and inclusion are always better, like more goodness.

Words like that lead to bad arguments. It's always interesting to ask people to restate without using them, because they have to justify how it will actually make things better.

Exactly. Using the example below.

"Simply keeping the existing arrangements in sport will not accommodate inclusion "

Well perhaps "accommodating inclusion" isn't actually a reasonable thing to do in that context then.

We need more inclusion of women in women's sports and letting in men (who either have a DSD or feel their gender is wrong) will have the opposite effect. I strongly suspect (based on personal experience) that the number of women who walk away will be greater than the number of males added. A net loss for inclusion.

It may well be, but it seems that clear that many sporting organisations (and politicians) DGAS.

Without a doubt.

No apologies for the DM link

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-14020085/Laura-Woods-wades-sports-trans-row-slam-Labour-peers-response-Olympic-gender-tests-boxers-debate-despite-death-threats-unborn-child-spoke-out.html

Thank you Laura 😊

Well my family were considering subscribing to Sky Sports or TNT so it's a no brainer for me.
Thank you Laura for your bravery.
Shame on you Twycross for your ignorance and cowardice.

Ms Woods posted on X: 'By March this year over 600 female athletes in more than 400 events were defeated by trans-identifying males who took a total of 890 medals.'

'"I'm not aware of that report" was the response from @fionatwycross. The report is entitled: "Violence Against Women and Girls in Sport." Why isn't she aware of it?'

Quite.

"The report, which was released in August and presented to the UN, concluded: 'The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males.'

i'm glad they've called it a mixed sex category.

And what the bloody, fucking bollocking hell did they think would happen???

She doesn't care, it's all about "changing society" and "inclusion". She's acknowledged that fair and safe sport for women can't be reconciled with "inclusion" but she clearly thinks that means we must give up fair and safe sport for women, as @NoBinturongsHereMate said.

'Inclusion' is a term straight out of the Ministry of Love, isn't it?

I also think that given the potential impact on athletes who will have had no choice about the sex in which they were brought up - and might not have realised until adulthood they had different chromosomes - we need to be sensitive in our approach.

"I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you. As you can see by your physical development and tests prove, you're actually male. You won't be able to go in the ladies, or play in their teams, from now on. I know that's hard for you, but we can arrange some counselling, to help you get over is"

And it's worth repeating that this conversation will almost always happen long before adulthood. The vast majority of DSDs - especially male DSDs - become apparent at or before puberty.

So the personal impact may well be significsnt and needs sensitive handling, but the impact on established sporting careers is virtually nonexistent.

Thing is people get bad news all the time, although I admit finding out that you're not the sex you thought you were is a bit out of left field, it's not the worst. Not by a long shot. People are also regularly told 'no'. It's something we're all used to hearing, or it should be.