stick to LOL soccerball, this oneâs above your pay grade
Hmmmm.
Having separate male and female competitions is segregation, as is having separate changing rooms and toilets. You agree entirely with segregation on the one hand, but not on the other. You simply cannot have it both ways.
You can only ever really be fair to most. Nothing is fair to all, bar mathematics.
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I think thats a fair enough assessment of it. I dont think it is unreasonable to accept some people wish to be trans and to transition. But it does create a biological advantage for a man transitioning to a woman. I get that their original intention is not going to be the best at sports, but if they were into the sport already, its a hard one to say that they need to essentially give it up now. Much like you, Iâve no solution to offer either. I dont think it is right in a general or sporting sense that some one born male can compete with women, but its a really tough one on the person transitioning to have to give up something at a competitive level that may well have been one thing that helped them get through life.
Its also not hugely frequent either. The fact that there are so many known cases would indicate that these are being highlighted.
Christ it kept going on and onâŚ
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Well yes and no. This happens already. So, say on Sunday the Sonia OâSullivan 10 mile is on in Cobh. There will be a mix of female and male participants with all ages involved. You specify your sex and age group and away you go. Men beat women and women beat men and old are faster than younger etc etc - you find your level. Why not put in two other categories of Trans-male if you are transitioning or have transitioned from a woman to a man and vice-versa for Trans-female. Jobs oxo.
There arenât enough numbers of trans athletes to do that.
British sport was engulfed by its first major transgender row on Tuesday night over plans to let a recently-transitioned cyclist race for gold against the countryâs greatest female Olympian.
Emily Bridges, who on Tuesday was on the verge of being cleared to compete in womenâs events, has applied to enter Saturdayâs National Omnium Championship alongside Laura Kenny.
Bridges, 21, from Wales, was said to be awaiting formal approval from the sportâs world governing body to race five-time Olympic champion Kenny, and other stars of this summerâs Tokyo Games, at the Derby Arena.
News of her appearance on a provisional entry list for the event reignited the debate over whether male-to-female trans athletes should be allowed to compete in womenâs sport.
That was after a major row broke out just over a week ago when Lia Thomas became the first openly trans swimmer to claim victory at the United Statesâ top college championship.
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Like Thomas, Bridges has undergone the required year of hormone-suppression therapy to allow her to compete in womenâs sport.
As recently as last month, she was part of the University of Nottingham menâs team that took bronze in the team pursuit at the British Universitiesâ Championships in Glasgow.
The University of Nottingham Sport Twitter account has since deleted a post celebrating the result.
Sharron Davies, Britainâs 1980 Olympic swimming silver medallist and leading campaigner against trans involvement in womenâs sport, told Telegraph Sport: âOf course, sport must be for all, and Emily has raced in the menâs team for years.
âShe competed with the menâs team very successfully this past year whilst reducing testosterone, so it shows an open and fully inclusive category can work very well without ruining the rights of female athletes to their own category of fair sport.
âThis is wrong and people must start calling it out or lose sport for future generations of young girls.â
Davies was backed by Mara Yamauchi, who finished sixth in the 2008 Olympic marathon.
âWe have categories in sport in order to ensure fair competition and those categories are by sex, by age, by type of disability and by weight,â she said.
âIf we didnât have those categories then the only people who would achieve anything in sport would be the heaviest adult males.â
Davies and Yamauchi both warned the row could end up in court, with the latter arguing taxpayersâ money should not be given to national governing bodies that allowed trans participation in womenâs sport.
Yamauchi also called for the public to boycott the commercial partners of Bridgesâ governing body, British Cycling, and even the athleteâs own personal sponsors.
Bridges â who set a national junior menâs record over 25 miles and was selected in 2019 onto British Cyclingâs senior academy â recently told Cycling Weekly that she had always hoped to be able to compete against women.
âIt was always the plan,â she said. âAfter starting hormone therapy, I didnât want to race in the male category any more than I had to. It sucks, racing as a man when youâre not one. It was quickly apparent that that was the wrong category for me.â
Last year Bridgesâ mother, Sandy, hit out at the âhysteriaâ surrounding her daughter, insisting that she just wanted to be treated fairly. âEmily is not in contravention of any of these rules [around trans participation in sport] so please stop with the bulls**t,â she said.
Welsh Cycling, which is in close contact with Bridges, said on Tuesday she did not wish to comment on her plans to enter this weekendâs national championships.
A spokesman for Kenny did not respond to requests for comment.
Some quite rational responses here from a range of different perspectives to my original post. As I said, Iâm somewhat conflicted by it all, but it is good, reasoned debate on here for the most part. Fair play.
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Yeah, maybe thatâs the case. But itâs a start.
It only takes one in any competition to be unfair to every other participant though.
yeah absolutely. But I suppose the outrage by some, particularly the likes of Sharron Davies who seems to be on a massive crusade against this, seems particularly excessive for an issue that isnt hugely widespread. I dont disagree with it being unfair, but at the same time there are so few of these cases and the coverage each individual is getting is particularly nasty and unfair on that person. They arent doing anything wrong, but are in a fucked up situation that doenst have any easy solution.
This is a bizarre statement.
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Sharron has her own demons with regards to being cheated by a trans.
Sharon Davies is absolutely correct to my mind. I donât think she overstates the case. Just because it currently isnât common makes absolutely zero difference to the fairness of it.
I suspect it may lead to breakaway womenâs organisations, which allow only biological females to compete. Your argument makes something unfair for thousands just to satisfy the personal ambition of a single individual, and as Iâve said above, the only options are to get rid completely of any classification and have open competition in all sports, with no separate prizes, or to go along the chromosome lines.
I donât think the coverage is unfair to an individual. They are entitled and odd to allow personal ambition and vanity to override any legitimate fairness. Happy to deprive a less advantaged person.
Thatâs a good post.
As you said itâs an interesting issue. And there donât seem to be obvious perfect solutions.
I do think the impact on sport is blown out of all proportion at the moment. Itâs one thing to wonder how the impact on womenâs sport should be dealt with. Itâs another thing for people with no interest in NCAA swimming to suddenly be up in arms about a result they didnât care about a couple of weeks ago even though they donât know anyone involved.
And many have legitimate sports concerns. But others are simply anti trans (like @artfoleyâs post which is just a rant against trans people dressed up in the thinnest cloak of faux LGB rights).
Genetics and physical attributes confer advantages on all sorts of people in all sorts of sports. Itâs a gross simplification but tall people (or even people who take growth hormones) arenât excluded from basketball. So there are already in built imbalances but of course they are distorted when someone changes gender and changes their competition.
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I happened to look at her twitter one day, and it was just endless streams of tweets of this. I honestly didnt see anything on her twitter feed other than discussion on this. She seems to be like a public spokesperson for the whole discussion for the last 5 years.
Iâm also not sure what you think my argument is. Iâve already said I dont think it is right that they compete. But there has been absolutely horrendous stuff being done and said to the trans people involved, including Davies who shared personal details of a trans athlete who people on her feed went and sent tweets and letters to them. Theres a way to discuss this to find a solution, but many are being disgusting in the way they go about it.
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