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!

So girls should be punished because adults can’t raise their children properly. Would you say this if it was about any other protected characteristic? People not wanting to lose to Christians, Native Americans, etc?

I’ve got a better opinion of boys and men in general than that PP, from my experience of studying and working in a male dominated field. And re sports specifically, the characteristic of ‘sportsmanship’ is valued by many.

Yes, me too Errol. I deal with a lot of boys and men in a sporting capacity, both as a coach and race organiser and I would say that while of course most want to win - it's competitive sport when all said and done - the majority are accepting of being beaten by a stronger athlete regardless of age or sex.
Yes of course you get a few arseholes, they're everywhere, but I would say the majority of our participants respect a superior performance whoever the athlete is. We don't have a lot of women in our group sadly but we've got a couple who are really strong that come from time to time and the men don't seem to go home feeling emasculated if they've been beaten by a woman.
And if they do, frankly that's their problem and it's not a reason to keep girls and women in their lane.

Male and female performance in athletics will be two overlapping bell curves. At the truly elite end you'll see male records that will be clearly better than the female, but these are set by very unusual individuals with the combination of top 1% natural attributes, opportunity and training.

Below that, in the remaining 99.9%, meaningful and fair mixed sex competition is possible, it just needs to be done deliberately and is a matter for the respective associations.

Obviously having a female division that special males can enter wouldn't make sense at all.

She may be a pig in the bedroom tidying stakes but on the track she's a sportswoman and an inspiration.

My goodness, my daughter was the best player in her childhood cricket team. She was the only female in the team. The lads absolutely loved her and she never felt that they thought she diminished them. It only disbanded last year now they are coming up to 16 years old

I'm surprised you have such a poor opinion of boys.

Of course some are raised to feel that they should be superior to females, but that's bad parenting.

In any event girls are not responsible for the any boy's irrational hurty feelings.

Good for your daughter OP I hope she enjoys the event.