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@godder said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
Would be lovely if it could happen but most sports with gendered divisions are gendered by international rules, so open competitions can't be sanctioned by the local bodies unless their international body allows for it. NZRU aren't going down this pathway unless the IRB go there. Likewise for FIFA etc. Seems remarkably unlikely to happen in any of our lifetimes.
Also says to transwomen that as far as sports are concerned, they are not women.
Correct.
The first time somebody tried this, the sports admin should have just said
"You can't play as it's not fair for very obvious reasons".
And that was that. Flat earthers are rightfully disdained for not having their heads screwed on properly. The same approach should be taken for those that think Trans Woman are woman in the sporting world.
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@jc said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@godder said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@jc said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@godder So in a nutshell, the people who said this legislation was the thin end of the wedge were right?
Hard to tell, it's pretty recent stuff, and while there will no doubt be some bad faith actors who deserve all the opprobrium they get, my sense of the submissions (written and oral) on the legislation and other material on the subject was that the vast majority of the people using this type of process are using it for genuine reasons that don't impact anyone else.
In terms of impact on sport, there aren't that many trans people (3% is a high estimate in NZ) and Sport NZ research shows their participation rates are lower than for the general population. It's already an issue that girls who turn 12 (or whatever age the sport has for gendered competition) sometimes can't play their sport any more because there is no local girls team or competition due to lack of numbers,
Isn’t it possible that admitting transwomen could make that bad situation worse?Is it possible that any girl who is uneasy about their presence would opt not to make a scene and risk social ostracism and just drop out of sport? Has any independent research been done on the relative increase in trans participation vs a potential reduction in girls’ participation, or is even the suggestion that it is possible in itself transphobic?
mandating separate transmen and transwomen sections/competitions would have the effect of banning gendered sports for much of that population because it is so small. Quite hard to promote sport as the great place of cameraderie and team spirit etc when it comes with a caveat of "except for transpeople.
That may be true. But every action has a price. I just wonder if that price has been fully and honestly assessed in this case. Does a cis 12 year old’s mental and physical health matter?
Sport NZ research on 12-17 year-olds dropping out of sport shows that both boys and girls drop out as they get older, and that girls drop out at a higher rate than boys. That research provides a few main reasons, being time commitments (that's a big one), over-emphasis on competition and lack of social and participatory options (these two points are obviously linked), body image (uniforms have also been mentioned in other research as girls with poor body images are not keen to play in skimpy sports uniforms, and white pants/shorts/skirts are also highly unpopular). Activities like running and dancing are popular instead of competitive sport, but there is still an overall reduction in sport and physical activity as girls get older.
Issues with transgirls outcompeting cisgirls doesn't feature in any of it which is not surprising because time commitments are obviously unaffected by that, and if girls aren't interested in competitive sport and prefer non-competitive social and fun activity, being outcompeted isn't an issue in that environment.
There's also a pretty obvious question that given professional women's sport exists and men apparently have the much-feared ability to become women and play pro sport at which they will dominate easily, why haven't professional women's sports been dominated by transwomen for years already? Why hasn't a top youth male tennis player transitioned to take over women's tennis for all the money instead of bothering with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic? Surely there's some young guy in the top 1000 or even 2000 who could transition and become top 50 women's tennis and win far more money, and surely this could have happened any time in the past 10-20 years.
All this seems awfully reactionary about a perceived problem that doesn't appear to be there in anything like large enough numbers to warrant totally overhauling everything.
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@godder said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@jc said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@godder said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@jc said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@godder So in a nutshell, the people who said this legislation was the thin end of the wedge were right?
Hard to tell, it's pretty recent stuff, and while there will no doubt be some bad faith actors who deserve all the opprobrium they get, my sense of the submissions (written and oral) on the legislation and other material on the subject was that the vast majority of the people using this type of process are using it for genuine reasons that don't impact anyone else.
In terms of impact on sport, there aren't that many trans people (3% is a high estimate in NZ) and Sport NZ research shows their participation rates are lower than for the general population. It's already an issue that girls who turn 12 (or whatever age the sport has for gendered competition) sometimes can't play their sport any more because there is no local girls team or competition due to lack of numbers,
Isn’t it possible that admitting transwomen could make that bad situation worse?Is it possible that any girl who is uneasy about their presence would opt not to make a scene and risk social ostracism and just drop out of sport? Has any independent research been done on the relative increase in trans participation vs a potential reduction in girls’ participation, or is even the suggestion that it is possible in itself transphobic?
mandating separate transmen and transwomen sections/competitions would have the effect of banning gendered sports for much of that population because it is so small. Quite hard to promote sport as the great place of cameraderie and team spirit etc when it comes with a caveat of "except for transpeople.
That may be true. But every action has a price. I just wonder if that price has been fully and honestly assessed in this case. Does a cis 12 year old’s mental and physical health matter?
Sport NZ research on 12-17 year-olds dropping out of sport shows that both boys and girls drop out as they get older, and that girls drop out at a higher rate than boys. That research provides a few main reasons, being time commitments (that's a big one), over-emphasis on competition and lack of social and participatory options (these two points are obviously linked), body image (uniforms have also been mentioned in other research as girls with poor body images are not keen to play in skimpy sports uniforms, and white pants/shorts/skirts are also highly unpopular). Activities like running and dancing are popular instead of competitive sport, but there is still an overall reduction in sport and physical activity as girls get older.
Issues with transgirls outcompeting cisgirls doesn't feature in any of it which is not surprising because time commitments are obviously unaffected by that, and if girls aren't interested in competitive sport and prefer non-competitive social and fun activity, being outcompeted isn't an issue in that environment.
There's also a pretty obvious question that given professional women's sport exists and men apparently have the much-feared ability to become women and play pro sport at which they will dominate easily, why haven't professional women's sports been dominated by transwomen for years already? Why hasn't a top youth male tennis player transitioned to take over women's tennis for all the money instead of bothering with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic? Surely there's some young guy in the top 1000 or even 2000 who could transition and become top 50 women's tennis and win far more money, and surely this could have happened any time in the past 10-20 years.
All this seems awfully reactionary about a perceived problem that doesn't appear to be there in anything like large enough numbers to warrant totally overhauling everything.
That doesn’t really answer the question. If a concern is the drop out rate of 12 year old girls surely any action would need to be assessed for its ability to make that situation better or worse. If that assessment hasn’t happened you’d have to draw the conclusion that the drop out rate of 12 year old girls doesn’t concern the people advocating for trans inclusion. Now there’s no reason why I would expect trans advocates to take it into account but I’d probably expect officials to know and care.
The fact that we don’t have a flood of pseudo transwomen invading women’s sport yet doesn’t mean it won’t happen. What we know now is that a decade ago that would have been impossible, now it’s not.
You can call me reactionary if you want, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. I’d probably call myself conservative because although I am very firmly socially liberal I believe that social change should be evidence based. I’ve seen way too many poorly considered actions that end up making things worse.
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@Godder do you think it's fair if a man that is not good enough to compete professionally transitions to become a woman and is now good enough to compete at the top level, taking the place of a biological woman?
Drug cheats don't only get banned from professional sport if they dominate, they get banned if they get caught taking performance enhancing drugs because it's not fair on the other competitors.
Of course there is concern about a transwoman absolutely dominating, but the central concern is that they have an unfair advantage that puts them ahead of where they should be because of the advantages of being biologically male.
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A sacked Girl Guides executive has blasted the organisation’s “cancel culture’’ for opening membership to anyone identifying as a girl or woman. Karyn Lisignoli was dumped just days into her new job as chief executive of Girl Guides Western Australia after seeking legal advice on changing the membership rules to “biological females”. Her dismissal spotlights the tension between freedom of speech and the legal obligations to protect transgender Australians from discrimination. The Guides’ decision to let members self-identify as female could also set a precedent for enrolment at single-sex schools, following the Morrison government’s botched attempt to change discrimination laws this week. The Girl Guides WA constitution defines a girl as “any person under the age of 18 years who lives their life as female”, and a woman as “any person aged 18 years or older who lives their life as female”. **The wording alarmed Ms Lisignoli, who used Twitter to message women’s rights lawyer Katherine Deves, the head of Save Women’s Sport Australia, to seek legal advice** “I’ve noticed our constitution panders to this ideology,’’ Ms Lisignoli wrote, in reference to Ms Deves’ tweet about the UK Supreme Court ruling against gender-neutral passports in December. **Can I DM (direct message) you to find the legal standing on this? If we change it back to biological female are we breaking the law?** An LGBTI+ website, OUTinPerth, noticed the tweet and published an online article exposing the new chief executive’s criticism. The next day, Ms Lisignoli was given her marching orders in a letter from Girl Guides WA chairwoman Yvonne Power, who terminated her employment because the tweet had “exposed the organisation to serious reputational risk’’. “Your conduct has caused a serious and imminent risk to the reputation of the organisation,’’ said the letter, dated December 18. “You made external statements that undermine the policy of the organisation and were made without due consideration of our governance structure. “We consider that your actions constitute serious misconduct warranting summary dismissal.’’ Speaking for the first time about her dismissal, Ms Lisignoli said she was seeking legal advice because she worried about the safety implications of girls sharing tents with men or boys identifying as female. She insists the definition of girls and women used in the Girl Guides WA constitution is “ideology not biology”. “This is a classic case of cancel culture,” she said on Friday. “Inclusion has been taken too far. “If we include trans girls who are biological males, they can go to mixed-sex school camps. “There is a reason why there are certain situations in which we say men can’t be present. Do parents know when they send their nervous and shy 12-year-old girl to Girl Guides that she might be camping in a tent with a biological boy of the age of 15? They might identify as a girl but they are a biological boy.’’ Ms Lisignoli said the inclusion of transgender members, staff and volunteers was causing problems for Girl Guides in Britain. Girlguiding UK revealed last November that it was investigating Instagram photos of a transgender Girl Guide leader dressed as a dominatrix and wielding what appeared to be a fake assault rifle. Girl Guides WA is the only state or territory branch to give a definition of girls or women in its constitution. But the national headquarters has drawn up guidelines on inclusion and gender diversity, which state that “an individual is to be considered the final authority on their own gender identity’’. They state that “the girl will participate in the same activities as all other youth members of your unit”. “This includes sleeping in the same area as the other youth members,’’ the guidelines say. Denying transgender people access to bathrooms is a form of discrimination, the guidelines state. But if a girl transitions to become a boy, they must quit Girl Guides. “As an all-female organisation, (Girl Guides) are no longer the right place for members who have transitioned to male,’’ the guidelines state. Girl Guides Australia chief commissioner Rosemary Derwin said the guidelines had been drawn up to comply with state and territory anti-discrimination laws in 2018. “There was never a push from the transgender community telling us to do that,’’ she said. “Girls and women who identify and live in the community as female are welcomed in our organisation.’’ Ms Derwin said she did not know how many transgender children or adults belonged to the organisation. “We don’t ask parents: is your daughter a transgender girl or a biological girl, as that would be discriminatory in itself,’’ she said. “All people are treated equally and with mutual respect regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. If a transgender girl goes to school as a girl, and her friends go to Guides, it’s important they can come too, otherwise it’s discriminatory.” Ms Derwin said the Guides’ policy on gender had been publicly available before Ms Lisignoli took the job as chief executive. “I think a CEO who comes into an organisation and is fundamentally against your membership criteria, that’s a little bit challenging,’’ she said. Ms Deves said Ms Lisignoli’s dismissal showed the difficulties of harmonising a range of rights and freedoms. “It seems to me that the former CEO gave primacy to the precautionary approach to young girls’ safety. That was certainly an approach reasonably open to her, for which I don’t think she can be properly criticised,” Ms Deves said. A Girl Guides WA spokeswoman said the organisation stood by its commitment to providing a “respectful, open, and safe environment where all people are treated equitably and with mutual respect regardless of their background, ethnicity, culture, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or level of ability”.
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the tweet had “exposed the organisation to serious reputational risk’’.
By publicising the organisation's lunacy?
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@no-quarter downvote
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@voodoo said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@no-quarter downvote
Silver medal was 12 seconds behind. 12 bloody seconds.
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@catogrande said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@voodoo said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@no-quarter downvote
Silver medal was 12 seconds behind. 12 bloody seconds.
You wonder how she sleeps at night
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@voodoo said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@catogrande said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@voodoo said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@no-quarter downvote
Silver medal was 12 seconds behind. 12 bloody seconds.
You wonder how she sleeps at night
Probably like the rest of us, one hand on her cock.
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@kirwan said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@godder you make a good point that our laws allowing people to change sex on their IDs on a whim are stupid.
Political party introduces all-female shortlists for safe parliamentary seats and also allows party members to choose their gender. Men suddenly identify as female and put their names forward for candidate selection in said safe seats.
Happened here 4-5 years back. One wag defended his change of gender saying "he always identified as female on Wednesday"
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Some common sense up in Scotland, albeit not from the Government.
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The following is not sport - I think the sport aspect is a specific sub-set of the overall trans debate, but as pointed out above it's difficult to divorce the two - but this seems like the best topic to drop this into.
Following link is to an article by a previously FtM trans person, and her journey through how she convinced herself she was trans and how she realised she wasn't.
Gave me some insight into the motivation for how some people may become trans, and how, once they start they are kept on that path.
TL;DR: socially awkward teen gets on line validation when she convinces herself that all her negative feelings about theyself are because she is not living her true life.
Gets affirmation every step along the way, going behind her parents' backs with teachers, counsellors and treatment specialists who never once question her position and actively encourage her.
After fucking up her late teenage and early twenties she realises she's not blissfully happy, that her feelings may be something different.
Decides to 'de-transition', in this case stop taking the testosterone as thankfully she didn't have surgery. Counselling and therapy she gets at this point is all anti-detrans as she must have been influenced by transphobia, and in fact it is likely she is transphobic herself.
Anyway, realises she was part of the epidemic of Rapid Onset Gender Disporia and is building back her life.
Long read.
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@catogrande fuuuuck. That is effectively two races going on.
@booboo there was a really interesting thread on Reddit recently about trans folks who had de-transitioned. Some hard to read stories but lots of insights and reflections on internal and external drivers to making changes, right up to surgery etc.
Identity is a hard puzzle to work out at the best of times, let alone as a young person struggling with this stuff on top of 'regular' life. That article booboo shared highlights what lots of us think, that supporting drug treatment and/or surgery on kids is not right. It's like a race to find their final form when they are still developing on all fronts, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up ffs and I'm a 43 year old Polish wahine!
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@paekakboyz said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@catogrande fuuuuck. That is effectively two races going on.
@booboo there was a really interesting thread on Reddit recently about trans folks who had de-transitioned. Some hard to read stories but lots of insights and reflections on internal and external drivers to making changes, right up to surgery etc.
Identity is a hard puzzle to work out at the best of times, let alone as a young person struggling with this stuff on top of 'regular' life. That article booboo shared highlights what lots of us think, that supporting drug treatment and/or surgery on kids is not right. It's like a race to find their final form when they are still developing on all fronts, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up ffs and I'm a 43 year old Polish wahine!
You just be you, sister
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Penn State’s Lea Thomas wins NCAA National Championship 500 yard freestyle (that’s an unusual distance, isn’t it?), obliterates her competition and smashes the womens national record.
Congratulations Lea, You Did It!
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@kid-chocolate Lia
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@booboo said in Trans in sport / Laurel Hubbard:
@kid-chocolate Lia
I think accuracy in name is the least of the problems.
Transgender debate, in sport, in general