International Olympic Committee announcement today! Will it be regarding female sports?

[Helleofabore]

The IOC is making an announcement today. Here is the Youtube link for the live stream.

15.15 UK time. Let's hope it is the speculated announcement that they have decided to exclude any male person who has undergone androgenisation at puberty.

https://t.co/rm06rZDB0u

And lots of deleted comments giving the impression that the majority are against the IOC decision. 🙄

Yes, and the power dynamics are so different.

When my elderly father was unwell, he much preferred female nurses.

Whereas it's very unusual I think for a vulnerable woman to prefer to have male carers.

Just plonking this here too.

IS INCLUSIVE ALWAYS ‘INCLUSIVE’

A good explainer from Jon Pike.

https://x.com/sportseenuk/status/1978358073887502530?s=46

Jon points out that there is no pressure at all on Paralympic Events to make them inclusive to able bodied people and people would be rightly uncomfortable with pressure to include able bodied people who have limited their abilities in Paralympic events.

He poses the question why female events have been singled out to allow a group of male people who have limited their abilities to access the protected events for female athletes.

That's an interesting one, I was more thinking a lot of men wouldn't actually be that comfortable with sharing a ward with a transman.

BBC website: "The women's category of Olympic sports will be limited to biological females from 2028".

Time-traveller from 2016: "What the FUCK???

Someone needs to tell Sian we all have limits - of one sort or another.

The women's category will be "limited" to women. In other news - water is wet.

Reading through the X debates and the newspapers and it's like the SCJ - years where women fight to be heard over louder and more important men, where they suffer by men using them, where the evidence of harm against women builds and builds and builds, until finally a decision is made.

And then everyone starts discussing it as though it's an episode of Strictly and their opinion and phone in vote is somehow contributing to a decision yet to be made.

I suppose, to be fair, men with DSDs have been a problem for women's sport long before the trans nonsense raised its head.

But the good news is this takes care of both issues.

She is being told in no uncertain terms by thousands of sensible and moderate comments on her post. Of course she won't read them, but it's good to see the pushback she's getting.

It's also going to be interesting in Australia.

Australia is a nation with a huge investment in sport as its self-image (even though many Australians are like Americans - fat & inactive) but wit legislation (as Sall Grover points out) which requires all Australians to lie about the evidence of their eyes in terms of biological sex.

So a nation where mediocre men start to declare they were "born in the wrong body" and so need to compete as women will not be able to send these cheaters to the Olympics. It'll be interesting ...

Let's hope the IOC policy causes a trickle down to all levels of sports & recreation.

I agree it is going to be interesting in Australia.

I posted this in a reply upthread:

The 2032 Olympics is being held in Brisbane! I suspect the pressure now will be on the current federal government to reverse the changes that Julia Gillard was instrumental in making to the sex-discrimination Act. Because after the debacle of Victoria and the Commonwealth Games embarrassment, the governments don’t want to have an issue with the running of the Olympics.

I am hoping this announcement will force this change (or probably better labelled as reversion back) to the SDA.

I'm sure the policy has to trickle down to lower levels.
Lots of sports bodies have gone actual females only in women's categories. The IOC really couldn't do much else.

Zero point in countries supporting males who won't be able to compete.

And Parma, I don't have one family member or friend who supports male inclusion in female sports in Australia even now, after Hubbard. The discussions are bonkers and I suspect the support for male inclusion in female sport has very little support but media such as the ABC and SBS seem to be fully engaged in supporting this. I have been so very disappointed in the ABC and SBS.

I have to be very careful about discussing this in my family (some of whom are in Australia, although very far from sporty). I have some younger family members who are dedicated TRAs and/or trans themselves, or the ridiculous non-binary (aka. I'm speshul). Luckily, we are a generally non-sporty family, except for me. And I can tell them about how difficult lifting weights is for women and how even novice boys outlift me at my gym.

And apologies @Helleofabore for missing your post upthread. I'm skimming when I should be writing something else...

Blimey. No worries. I am similarly skimming when I should be working too.

Ross Tucker podcast on the announcement

https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/female-only-womens-sport-the-ioc-announces-new-policy/id1461719225?i=1000757548147

We need Martine Croxall reading that out on repeat.

Yes, that too. And many men have reported being mortified at having to share "gender neutral" (mixed sex) toilets.

The paralympics is a great example.
Every rational person regards the concept of non disabled athletes wanting to participate in the paralympics as ridiculous and a silly argument that could never happen. And yet there's a long well documented history of non disabled athletes cheating by feigning disability to participate and win. Probably the biggest example is the Spanish basketball team in the 2000 Sydney Paralympics where none of the 12 team members were disabled in any way. They took gold of course. At one point the coach had to tell the team to dial it back a bit so the cheating wouldn't be so obvious. It was a massive scandal.
This is exactly the same as men wanting to cheat in women's sports to get the glory. It is exactly the same mentality. If I cheat I can win, who cares about the consequences on the other athletes who aren't cheating? I get what I want.
The swab tests they have to undergo anyway for doping testing, so if you have to give 2 swabs or 3 what's the difference. It's less invasive than blood tests, and blood tests have to be given when it's policy. That's part of high level competition.
One last thing. The whole reason high level athletes have to give swabs and blood tests for doping testing is because doping happens. Some people will do anything to win, or get what they want. Be it a gold medal, or to watch women undress. To deny this happens in humans is to ignore reality. There's decades of documented evidence of individuals, teams, and even nations cheating at Olympic level sports.
In today's society I'm amazed that there ISN'T a campaign for non disabled athletes to compete in the paralympics. It's no more ridiculous than the campaign for men to win at women's sports, and there no shortage of empty headed virtue signalling useful idiots cheering that on. Why should the paralympics be immune to the same vapid stupidity?
If you're an utterly useless male why not combine the two? Compete in the women's paralympics for your sport, because that's the only way men like that can achieve anything. If you're going to cheat, cheat in every single way you can all at the same time. You might even win a medal if you're lucky!

I've just listened to the press conference, and apart from the journalist from The Australian, the questions were borderline hostile & often quite suspicious.

Don't people stop to think: Hmmm, if we include men, maybe this excludes women." or "Gosh, this offers fairness to women's sports." ie think about this policy from the POV of women.

Instead, the sub-text of most questions was "What about t'menz???"

It really did come across that way with some.

Tracy Holmes was a classic. But then again, her question, which has appeared many times in activist rebuttal in the past day, got an excellent answer. So, I hope that she takes that on board... but I doubt it.

I would love a few journalists to start asking questions about this.

What do you say to the women you exclude, when you include men?

Hydrodynamic was the word you were looking for 😀I think half an hour might be overstating it but it can take a good 10-15 minutes to put on a tech suit until you've got the hang of it. They are expensive, delicate, and eye-wateringly tight.