I have just entered my dd for an “Open” competition

[Mumofteenandtween]

Dd competes in a sport. She is bloody good. It is a sport that has been in the news for transwomen competing as women. A year or so ago the categories were changed from “boys” and “girls” to “open” and girls”. Apparently this was terrible. Transwomen can’t compete in the Open category - it would be terribly upsetting and humiliating for them.

Anyway…….she has a series of national level competitions coming up, one of which is on a course that is less than an hour from our house.

Next week a local competition is taking place on that course and, rather conveniently, I am taking her younger sibling to compete. I suggested to her that she also tagged along as it would give her a chance to try out the course.

Except if she competed in the girls race then it would just be miserable for everyone. But then she had a brilliant idea! “Why don’t I enter the Open - I’m allowed - it’s Open.” We checked and indeed she can. Competitive level is just perfect for her and loads of the lads who have entered are also the lads she trains with week in week out so she’ll enjoy hanging out with them.

She is now on the phone to her bestie mate happily telling him they are competing next week. It seems that there is nothing at all humiliating or upsetting about a girl racing in the open - she is actually quite excited!

Good luck to your DD!!

Good on you - & her!
Somehow this sounds like 2 wins in an unfair world - 1 because she can compete against the boys, 2 because somehow it seems like you're beating people who come up with ridiculous new rules.

Why can’t she compete in the girls? I’m confused

Presumably because she's national level, and this is a local thing, so she'd just win easily. And reasonably feels this isn't fair.

So she can, but is exercising discretion and fairness.

Which transwomen in sports don't tend to do.

Go her.

What a lovely young woman your daughter is!

Instead of wiping the floor easily as a national competitor, taking an easy win/medal/glory and possibly discouraging newer, younger and less experienced female competitors shes decided to do a considerate thing - move to where she does not have a huge advantage, faces a meaningful competition and can be part of the day without ruining the fun for everyone else at a small local competition.

I detect a combination of good sportsmanship and the positive side of female socialization - both of which are strangely lacking in certain TRA competitors.

I don’t really understand this. Why would it be miserable for everyone if your daughter competed in the female competition? Is it that she is so good and will win by a distance…?

Well obviously, and it wouldn’t be any sort of competition for her either.

Open competitions really are a win-win solution. I think a lot of the focus on sorting sports out to cease disadvantaging women and girls has been more at the elite level but this case shows how it can be perhaps even more beneficial at the grass roots.

Unlike many adults, OP’s daughter understands that sport is based on the concept of fair play. This means nothing to the men who compete in women’s sports and take women’s prizes. But it means everything to real sports lovers.

Well done, OP, you’ve brought up a champion!

I assume because is the equilvalent of professional and this is amateur and she needs people around her in order to get her times up

a lot of these stagger start times as well so she could be running on her own

and maybe she wants to test herself

I have a nephew who plays cricket and often teams in their league will field women, generally younger women who play to a good standard in the women's game but cannot always get a game near where they live as there are few women's teams.

Thank you OP. At a time when so many transwomen have trashed women's sport in their own interests with governing bodies bending the knee to their demands, what a pleasure to be reminded of what women's sport is really about and the values of most sportswomen.

Good for her and hope she enjoys the competition.

Well done to you and your DD and hope she has a great time 👍

If it's cycling, this is a regular occurrence in our local races, for adults anyway. We are a small race association and don't often get enough women to make women only racing viable, either financially or from a sporting perspective- nobody wants to be one of 3 riders in a race. But we have a couple of really good, high category women locally who race or have raced nationally and internationally who compete with, and not infrequently beat, the local men.
Even before the switch to "open" and "female" British Cycling have always had quite a complex but ultimately fairly reasonable system that categorises adult riders by ability and then determines who can ride in what races. So there have always been some races where women could race with lower category men, and there are some circumstances when U18s and selected U16s are allowed to race with adults. And for the most part it works pretty well, is safe and reasonably fair.I've seen higher category women wipe the floor with lower cat men, because their superior technical skill outweighs the greater physical strength of the men. And even when we do get enough entries for a women only race sometimes the more able women will still choose to compete with the men as it's a better race experience for them.
But the key thing is that it's a one way system - women of the relevant categories can choose to race with men and high level Youth riders who meet very specific criteria may choose to race adults, but an adult can't enter an Under 16 race and an Elite male can't decide he wants to ride against a group of women.
Mixed sex competition is perfectly possible in some sports, provided appropriate ability based criteria and/or handicapping is employed. I'm all for it when it's done properly and with women's consent and full knowledge. The issue is of course when men try to push their way into women's races - there's just no way that even the best women can compete fairly with men who are categorised at similar points in the ability levels as happened in the well publicised cases.
I applaud the OP's DD's decision. It's better for the less experienced girls that she's not there and it's actual better for her too. Much more valuable to her at her stage that she has a challenging race with the boys than that she picks up a few easy ranking points racing against other girls that she can possibly beat without working up a sweat.
This is a good example of how ability based competition should work. Mixed sex competition is not necessarily an intrinsically bad thing for women and girls and I don't think we should have a knee jerk objection to the concept. But it does require sensible rules and participants with integrity. Unfortunately both those things are in short supply in some quarters, but hopefully we're seeing some progress at least.

Yes - some of you have hit the nail on the head - she would win easily and so it would be no fun and no value to her. And unfair on the girls who gamely entered their first ever competition thinking it was just a bit of fun. In the Open she will have to push herself to her absolute limit and still won’t win. (I have seen the competitor list - there are a some very strong boys in it.)

@NPET I would say it is a win/win/win in an unfair world. By entering the open she is helping to legitimise the Open for “people who see themselves as female”. If she is happy to compete in the Open (and others like her are) then the Open becomes a genuine Open and so no one can say that trans women are being excluded from sport.

Please note - she is lovely but she isn’t a saint. She is mainly doing this because it suits her. And her bedroom is an absolutely disgusting pigsty! 😂

Your dd sounds great. And exactly as you say, it is win/win/win.

Part of me hopes no boys will be too devastated losing to a girl.

And if they do then there 3 responses:

It is a bridge. Get over it.

As the TWAW say: train harder.

If you are looking for sympathy, it is between shit and syphilis.

I also wonder about this, I don’t think boys enjoy competing against girls for this reason, they would either be discouraged or teased and decide to not compete. It’s easy for us to say tough titties but we don’t really understand the pressure boys are under to perform, as they are taught early that their value equals their performance. I think it’s reasonable to consider these things rather than treat it as a beat the patriarchy moment

Good God, girls really can’t have anything can they? They’ve got to put boys egos first. Right got it. 🙄

No the OP DD should have to consider this at all. She is making the right decision for her training - she isn’t trying to make a point or anything like that just enter a competition to help further her training for a bigger event.

and boys should understand that while elite male athletes will beat elite female athletes. Elite female stand a chance of beating amateur men.

they seem to grasp it when it comes to age the other way round that young amateur men can take older pros out

a+6,,^^^#2

Good luck to your daughter.
I hope she achieves what she wants and learns a lot about the course and enjoys the competition..

If this pressure is what is causing the problem, then the pressure has to stop, not the girls.

The reason there are currently two categories is because it is considered (realistically proven, but transactivists are currently challenging that) that women can never win against men.

Having a women’s category and an open category opens up opportunities for women and encourages them to do better. Transactivism has brought to the fore, the idea that women don’t need their own category because of physical differences, but simply because they’ve never had the incentive to train as hard as men, or alternatively that the expertise to get women to those levels just didn’t exist.

So if those transactivist arguments are true, then having an open category will give women that incentive they never had. If women start to compete and it is miraculously discovered that transactivist theories are correct, then when women start winning 50:50, then the women’s category can be removed altogether.

More likely it will prove what we already know, that realistically it’s impossible for even the most elite women to ever win (consistently) against the most elite men and having an open competition will still result in an all-male lineup at the top.

And if there really are boys who think girls are so inferior that it’s shameful to win against them, it’s probably a good life lesson for them anyway. Otherwise they’ll go through life resenting it every time a woman beats them in anything. And that is incredibly unhealthy in itself.

Good for your DD. I think I might know what the sport is, very appropriate for her to enter the Open category in these circumstances.