it’s really none of my business to dig into their rational, nor to try to change their minds or challenge them on the matter.

Interesting. Not trying to be confrontational but why not? I can’t think of a perfect example that won’t have holes picked in it at 1am, but suppose they were arguing that [eg ethnic group] should be banned from [some activity] would you leave that unchallenged?

It’s on us all to challenge and support. Even if you still think (back to TG sport) on balance that bans are still the right option, it’s on us all to realise there is a flip side and if others don’t then help them to realise too.

I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone who joined the women’s forum agrees with the article. It’s a forum for people who identify as women, and you access it by selecting she/her pronouns, so on the way in there’s an implicit agreement that what makes someone a man or a woman is their identity rather than their sex.

I absolutely don’t think I should have read-only access to be able to find out.

I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone who joined the women’s forum agrees with the article.

You’re yet another man thinking he knows how women think, benos. I’d be surprised. 😉

Read back through the posts of the rare women who’ve ventured into the very male space that is this thread. Then you have two partners; mine and Alpin’s who have been competetive sportswomen who don’t agree.

I’ve read through 9 pages of philosophical debate so perhaps it’s time to get practical.

I’ve been involved in sporting clubs from the age of 13. They’ve all been mixed and thankfully on the whole they’ve been pretty inclusive compared with society at large. Madame was president of the MTB club for a while. It’s all been very easy to manage on a practical level: women whether straigth, bi’ or lesbian in one changing room/showers, men whether straight, bi’ or homosexual in another. Religion tends to condition attitudes to gender; in that its never been an isue I can only assume self exclusion by those not happy with the rules in the various pools, gyms or club houses which respect the laws of the land. We’ve had muslim club members in the tri club but none who turn up in traditional dress.

What I wouldn’t want to have to manage is a person with male physical characteristics – let’s be blunt; genitals, in those collective female enviroments. This applies to grass roots sport, not just the elite. It doesn’t matter how they self-identify it oversteps the mark of written and unwritten rules and laws. Are all of you men who are so keen on absolute inclusion if it means your female partner comes home talking about the well-endowed 215lb self-identifying trans woman naked in the women’s showers.

Solutions: rebuild all fascilities with individual showers; ban stripping off in showers, people must shower clothed (this is the case in the showers children can access at our local pool already – both women’s and men’s). But that doesn’t address how the ciswomen feel about having what looks like a bloke in their gym/swim class.

It’s the stuff the DailyMail and Express thrive on (see the article I linked about blacking out windows at the demand of muslims above). IMO it would reinforce the prejudices of those already holding them and turn people tolerant up to that point anti trans. The step too far for the normally indifferent or tolerant majority.

@chevychase the reason you don’t have read access is quite simple. If it could be read by everyone then you can guarantee that someone would post on here to start off the discussion outside of the women only forum.

You claims of free speech don’t work as it’s a private platform. You even know this, your claims of human rights is absolutely pathetic.

Believe it or not my wife watches the news, reads the papers, spends hours on her phone and has views on all sorts of subjects which she sometimes expresses. I just asked an initially non-loaded question on the subject which promted an opinion and a brief conversation around the comparison with being up against doped athletes. When I went on to talk about the opinions being expressed here she lost interest and went back to horsey things on her phone. 🙂 She has a fairly low opinon of STW probably because I get her to read the things that are off the wall or outrageous enough to be funny.

a brief conversation around the comparison with being up against doped athletes.

Not the same thing though, and doesn’t answer the question.

Doping is blatant outright cheating, with as far as I can see no societal and human benefit to anyone other than the blatant cheat.

And yes, I’m aware that there is potential for a state sponsored TG cheating program and the same at individual level, I’d be naive to deny it. But deal with that, not by othering a whole community who just want to feel welcome.

If it is necessary and proportionate then yes. A blanket ban to address an issue that isn’t occurring – then no.

When I say not occurring I don’t mean at all. I mean – if for example a gym has no issues, and a TG person is using the gym and facilities without concerns, then there’s no need to bring in a ban.

If there are issues, address them; but again I’d suggest they are the issues with an individual, not with the concept. Practically the solution may end up being the same, if for no other reason than path of least resistance but that isn’t the same as saying at the first hint of concern, bring in a ban. Necessary and proportionate.

I would argue that when women’s groups are demanding it

I’d argue whether the biased and most vocal at either end of the argument are the best judges.

thanks for noting that. I agree with a lot of the ‘other side’s’ arguments and concerns too. I’m not naive and some of the pro-trans lobby disgusts me as much as the anti-trans. Stuff like the issues Rainper has highlighted, while I don’t agree with all their views (far from!) on that I do. Necessary and proportionate.

That’s why I picked up last night, that expecting the diametrically opposed to reach a compromise solution is just wired to the moon.

I hesitate to liken it, but conceptually the issue is the same to me, even if the subject is degrees more important (YMMV, let’s not argue on that) but would the equal rights movement in America in the 60’s have achieved what it did if on one hand you had the white supremacists and KKK, and the other MLK and Malcolm X and…..and then in the middle those with no particular chip in the game going ‘well, I’m neither black nor a white supremacist so I don’t have an opinion’. It’s your job to listen to the arguments from both sides and help to find the solution, because you don’t have an opinion.

(I also idly wonder what the SM would have been like if it had existed at the time in Montgomery, AL – I bet there would have been a lot of common sense science on display there too 😉 )

@drac

@chevychase the reason you don’t have read access is quite simple. If it could be read by everyone then you can guarantee that someone would post on here to start off the discussion outside of the women only forum.

So what?  The woman’s forum is a so-called ‘safe space’.  Nobody has to post or respond (or read even, if they don’t want to) outside of that.

And I’ve already voiced what @convert said.  Single-sex spaces tend towards toxic IMO.  Certainly did in male-only spaces.  There’s no reason women’s won’t do the same.

Can’t help that mountain biking is a sausage fest.   The words used on this forum isn’t causal in that.

It’s certainly a much safer space than old mens clubs.   Or women’s clubs, as is now de-rigueur.

A challenge for anyone who’s mentioned Rosa Parks, “separate but equal”, or the American civil rights movement:

Can you explain why women’s sports (or spaces, services etc) should be likened to racial segregation and not of one the many kinds of unequal treatment our society embraces, such as disabled people’s parking spaces?

What makes women’s sports comparable to the kind of unequal treatment in which the more powerful imposed a disadvantage on the less powerful in order to maintain that disparity?

What makes women’s sports not comparable to the kind of unequal treatment in which a just society facilitates the less advantages to participate more equally?

A challenge for anyone who’s mentioned Rosa Parks, “separate but equal”, or the American civil rights movement:

Can you explain why women’s sports (or spaces, services etc) should be likened to racial segregation and not of one the many kinds of unequal treatment our society embraces, such as disabled people’s parking spaces?

I didn’t liken it to that – I actually said it wasn’t the same but used it as an example everyone knows to illustrate why leaving it to those at either end of the argument is not how you find compromises or balanced solutions, and that you can’t just say ‘well I’m neither black nor KKK so nothing to do with me’ – you need those without a chip in the game to weigh stuff up.

It really shouldn’t be complicated. Just compete in the sex category you were born in. Not everything in life needs to be a big warm cuddly hug, things are tough and challenging, you don’t always get what you want.

MrsMC is a Guide leader, and when they opened up to anyone identifying as female (I guess I’ve phrased that wrong) there was an outcry in the press, Mumsnet went insane, everyone was going to withdraw their cis daughters from the movement.

As far as she is aware, there’s been no trans girls join the movement up to at least county level. Nor a rush of hormonally challenged predatory cis males hoping to share a tent.

I can see the logistics of a biologically intact* M-F trans at a Guide camp needing to be addressed, but I’m sure that can be managed pragmatically

*please educate what the correct term is!

I guess I’ve phrased that wrong

Open the argument that female = sex whereas woman or girl = gender. I’d have used ‘identifying as a woman/girl’ as you used trans girls later.

Re * – not sure myself – I’d probably say pre-transition or more directly presurgery, but in the case of younger TG people social transitioning is the only option anyway so a pre-(social)-transition transgirl would be…… a boy with gender dysphoria I guess. IDK, and the Oracle’s on holiday this week.

Ok, but as the huge majority of those that don’t have any skin in the game think it’s unfair, where does that leave us?

fwiw I think that any lady’s opinion, whether competing or not, needs to be taken into consideration. And that includes the opinions of trans woman obviously, not just those that play sport

it’s probably been said numerous times before on this thread, but as far as I can see this is an issue that impacts only a small minority of the trans population. I’d be interested to see how many trans folks actually care about this particular issue, or, given they probably face enough day to day challenges and discrimination anyways, see this as just another stick for folks to bash them with, and wish the whole issue would just go away

@politecameraaction Presumably you’re not arguing that women’s sports, spaces and services do not address a real issue, i.e. that they are in fact unjustified unequal treatment?

It’s good to have another cis female add to this – thanks.

(back to OP, what’s most important, inclusivity or competition)

That needs expanding imo – it’s not inclusivity or competition – I thought it was inclusivity vs ‘fairness’ in competition. You can still have competition even if fairness has taken a knock.

As I put many pages ago though – beyond this debate, I think my view on life in general is that competition is valued too highly as the end result of ‘sport’ – though I appreciate the very definition of sport includes competition so its maybe the word is wrong. I was once a pretty handy pointy end athlete – pulled GB kit on a few times, was coached and got a bit of sponsorship etc. It was a motivating factor in my life for sure and was almost an expectation of where I should take my physical activity at the time as someone with that aptitude. Looking back on it now in hindsight I’m not convinced – was it really all that? Would I have been happier being more inclined to using my physical talents to go nice places, do good things like I do now. Maybe that’s just a middle aged person talking, who knows. But overall imo this whole debate is triggered because we value the concept of competition too highly. With competition comes the need to find a way to do it fairly – it’s all bobbins – some people are just taller, stronger, have better natural VO2 max etc. Reduce the focus on competition and how much it matters in society (be that spending your recreational time doing it, or spending your recreational time watching other people doing it for your entertainment) and this problem goes away.