British Orienteering has peaked!

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/news/6799/british_orienteering_transgender_policy

'Entry Classes for female competitors are prefixed by “W” and are restricted to those whose biological sex at birth was female.
An Entry Class prefixed by “M” is unrestricted by sex.
Those whose biological sex at birth was not female are only allowed to enter an Entry Class prefixed by “W” if they declare themselves non-competitive..'

There's a reason the TRAs struggle to come up with any arguments.

That seems to be the claim.

If we won't allow cross-dressers in the changing rooms, it obviously means that we are saying women are bad at swimming.

Should add, I have no absolute recognitiion of North, I have to tranafer it to my internal map from OS etc. I had terrible trouble navigating round Clacton when I went to college, as I thought it faced E when it was the same angle as the sea at Dover, SE, and the flipping place is flipping flat. I could walk to Jaywick or Frinton, but away from the sea, nothing. And when men give me directions based on pubs, cannot process them.

I have a fucking tip top sense of direction and stellar map reading skillz.

I haven't RTFT but this is just dense.
Orienteering is to do with map-reading and then reaching the next point as fast as possible.
With sexes can read maps but - get this - men run faster than women. Hence women's world records being slower than men's world records.

I never thought I'd feel the need to explain this to a grown-assed human, but here we are.

I'd agree with this.

DP (female) and I (male) would both agree that I'm the better driver. But that's not true. We're both good drivers. In 25 years of driving, I've had no accidents and she's had one, but it wasn't her fault. If anything, she's probably actually a slightly safer driver than me.

What I am however, is a far more confident driver. I am unbothered by unfamiliar roads, whether big scary motorways or tiny little lanes. I'll happily drive on the other side of the road abroad. I drive on and off the ferry when we visit my brother on the Isle of Wight. And if I fuck up while parallel parking, then I say "Fucked that up didn't I!, and do it again.

DP doesn't like unfamiliar motorways, or little country lanes. She won't drive abroad, and does not want to do the ferry. And if she fucks up while parallel parking, then it embarrasses her immensely and she gets all stressed about re trying it.

And she can get away with it, because all her life she's been able to say "Nope, don't want to do that" and get someone else to do it. Me, previous boyfriends, her Dad. I've never had that option, people would look at me stupid if I said I was scared to do the driving abroad. And so I just have to do it, or it wouldn't get done.

I taught DD to drive last year, and she's not getting away with it. I can't turn DP into a confident driver, but I can sure as shit show DD that you don't just become one as if by magic. You do it, because you have to, and you build that confidence slowly. We're heading to the Isle of Wight this weekend. She's driving onto the ferry, whether it scares her or not.

I've no idea what's right or wrong. But for me I have to turn it in the direction I'm heading or it doesn't make sense to me. In my married life my husband was the driver and I'd have the big map out of France or Spain out beside him, upside down or sideways, telling him where to do. The 'youth' nowadays can't find their way home without their phones .....

I think men tend to not move the map around.

One thing I most certainly know, the difference between a man and a woman. Sadly lacking in some posters on here.

Please please PM me what was said - this thread is hilarious ...

I don't have a copy but it was really long and very muddled and ended with "you all suck!" 😄

The poster just wanted to have a go at "feminists".

Are you drunk?

You use of the term ciswoman suggests you'd have no problem with a woman's class if transwomen were allowed to enter competitively. Hey maybe it was the trans orienteers' inability to read a map that first cracked their egg and let them know they were actually female. Science is awesome!

Or "cis" on here. Cos that's my theory.

Great news OP, common sense slowly coming back into the room after a long fashionable absence.

I think flowers would say that having sex categories for games like tennis is a joke because women have good eyes too, it’s so sexist to pretend we don’t, there is nothing more to tennis than seeing the ball so Case. Closed and let women into the men’s category for Olympic tennis. Yay feminism.
(i think men’s eyesight probably differs from women’s but im ignoring that for the purpose of my hilarious post)

I'm hoping Flowers will come back and join in with the thread because their input was entertaining.

Aside from the "entertaining input" (😄) I've also learnt a lot of interesting things from knowledgeable posters. Great thread!

You could read the two studies I linked to, both of which state that there is no evidence that a sense of direction is an evolutionary or genetic feature. The fact that you cannot map read and your DD can while ‘all the other girls can’t’ does not mean that she has inherited this as a genetic trait from her father. Looking into evolutionary advantages, ie the ‘survival of the fittest’ theory, all men throughout history by default must be adept at map reading and have a good sense of direction if this was necessary to survival. Basic genetics would suggest that they would pass this trait on in the same way as they would pass on their hair colour, not to all offspring but equally likely to male and female offspring. But studies have shown this not to be the case, and further studies have shown repeatedly that an ability to read a map is much more prevalent in men as a result of societal expectation and upbringing.

So just because you don’t happen to believe it doesn’t change the facts - navigation is a learned skill. And by persisting with the theory you can be born with a sense of direction you are contributing to the ongoing belief that women can be naturally poor at it if not born with the correct genetic material. Which disadvantages us all.

Actually I'd say trans women both suffer from and exhibit misogyny.

They suffer from misogyny in that patriarchy devalues, rejects and (perhaps as a psychological result of the first two) often actively hates female humans. This then transfers onto anything that is female-associated or coded.

IMO both homophobia and "Transphobia" - the latter not of course the entirely reasonable statement that trans people are not in fact members of the opposite sex so we shouldn't pretend they are, but the real thing, the base emotional reaction of fear/hated of trans presenting people, especially men presenting as women, because their cross gender presentation is perceived as weird or wrong - are both simply different expressions of underlying sexism and misogyny.

The patriarchal subconcious (which both men and women have as a consequence of living in a patriarchy) believes male trumps female and therefore has the right to power and privilege that female does not, so reacts very strongly to a deliberately feminine male as a traitor to men.

As an analogy, in the 50s and 60s many white musicians playing blues were subject to abuse for playing "black" music. To that degree, despite not being black and so never facing the lifetime of racism that black musicians faced as an unescapable consequence of the immutable colour of their skin, they nevertheless were attacked and devalued because what they did offended racist values.

And yet, while recognising the above, it is ultimately undeniable that to believe in transgender identies one must first believe that there are mental aspects to of being "a woman" or "a man" which are the primary differences between the sexes not just consequences of ones life experiences of being one sex rather than the other. So primary indeed that one can be "really" the other sex based on ones mind alone.

And that also ultimately rests on the patriarchal constructs of the masculine and the feminine mind.

So while one can understand and accomodate the reality of transmisogyny within Feminist analys, ultimately Feminist analysis has to reject the primary existence of trans identies, understanding them as a phenomenon within patriarchy not a challenge from outside it.

Clarifying the above re:homophobia - not suggesting LGB people necessarily have a cross gender social presentation, but that under patriarchy homophobia is at root linked to the idea of someone taking the "wrong" role for their sex.

I can not only read maps, I can refold them perfectly.
Just sayin'😎

I can't help but think FlowersInDenmark reported it themself. More than once. Just to get rid of it.

The Ordnance Survey will (or used to) print you a map with where you live right in the middle, not for free mind, they make you pay for it.
Anyway, twas was very useful after moving house and finding we live on the corners of about 4 different ones!
I like a proper map, spread out on the floor and looking at where everything is in relation to everything else.

Me too. I never realised that Orienteering was so interesting and, seemingly, right up my strasse. I've now been off to Google my local club, there's two, and plan to have a lovely day out, trying it with DD.

@FlirtsWithRhinos could you try saying that again only leaving out the word salad.

Men however they identify can't suffer from misogyny as its literally the hatred of women and girls ergo no man can be the victim of it

I think that's overly simplistic. White people can suffer from anti-black racism either by perception ("she looked black, I thought she was") or by association ("she likes 'black' things or has black friends"), both of which are recognized in the Equality Act 2010. There's also the harm that racism does by diminishing our society to everyone's detriment.

I think @FlirtsWithRhinos makes a good point.

These pathetic trans activist ‘arguments’ make me laugh. It’s all they have got as truth is obviously not on their side.

The above nonsense reminds me of when a man who called himself a woman announced that since ‘transition’ he was no longer able to park.

It just makes them sound pathetic. I can park and tow and reverse a trailer so the tras can stick that in their pipe and smoke it.

I am very pleased that orienteering has seen sense and made a proper women category though.