The international governing body for athletics, World Athletics has made a sensible decision and that is to ban those who have gone through male puberty from competing in female only events.
The BBC said:
World Athletics has banned transgender women from competing in the female category at international events.
The governing body’s president, Lord Coe, said no transgender athlete who had gone through male puberty would be permitted to compete in female world ranking competitions from 31 March.
This is in my view a good first step but doesn’t go near far enough to ensure proper fairness. The only way to make this issue properly fair is to ban anyone who was born male from competing against females and not just at big international competitions but all competitions including junior contests.
This is a big win for women but the fight is not over. Much work needs to be done to ensure that future female competitors are not going to face men on the track or on the field at some time in the future. It remains to be seen whether the decision by World Athletics is held up or whether it gets watered down by pressure from trans activists.
Personally I believe that it is right and proper that those who call themselves trans should be able to take part in competitions, but they should either compete with those who share their birth sex or even better there should be specific contests for trans women and trans men. That way like is competing with like in a similar way to how athletes in regular sport do not compete against those with disabilities and do so to the disadvantage of disabled sportsmen and sportswomen.
There is no such thing as a “trans-woman” or a “trans-man”: And all the “Doctor Mangle-rs” who mutilated people into facsimiles of the opposite sex should be serving 30 years in Broadmoor Prison for the criminally insane.
This is truly Winston Churchill’s warning about “perverted science” made (mutilated) flesh.
Agree there but the key point is that those who call themselves this and who want to do sport should not be competing against females. All in favour of these types doing thesport they choose but should not compete against women as they would have an unfair advantage over women because of male inherent body differences that give men and boys greater physical strength when compared to women. At heart this is a fairness issue. We would not accept as fair Usain Bolt competing against a one legged athlete as Bolt would probably win every time. Better to have the Bolt’s of this world compete against their peers and have the one legged athlete compete against others with a similar impediment.
I remember an African runner from a few years ago. Caster Semenya was her name. If I remember correctly, Caster was an hermaphrodite, and therefore had both male and female attributes. She had to go through the most humiliating tests and endure all kinds of slurs to be able to compete in the female competition. These days, you only have to say the magic words ‘I’m a trans woman’ and that’s it. No questions asked, you get to compete in female sports. Anyone who dared challenge this was branded a bigot, and biological female athletes who objected were treated in the most appalling manner. I’m glad to hear that things MAY be returning to the way they should be.
If you look at the sporting records of those claiming to be trans in order to compete against biological females, you will find that they were very mediocre as a male. Then they got into female competition and suddenly they were breaking records. I hope that this is the start of female sports being left solely to female competitors. I’m fully expecting to hearing their much wailing and gnashing of teeth over this ban, but it’s just tough. This should never have been allowed in the first place.
I recall the Semenya case and it has been referenced by both World Athletics and various news reports. The new rules will also include lower testosterone limites for those like her with ‘differences in sex development’ (DSD).
You are bang on correct with your assessment of the situation regarding mediocre males claiming trans identity beating women in competitions. I agree that this situation where men claiming trans identity compete against women in physical sports (not too bothered about chess that much) should never have been allowed to develop in the first place.
Like you I expect trans activists to kick off over this and if I was a sporting body that this group targets then I would be thinking about engaging extra security when needed as the trans activists have an extreme side to them which is notably violent.
I quite like the idea of female and open (instead of men’s) categories. Seems to solve the problem so long as it is sex based
Agree with you there on the issue of open catetgories. It’s the only way really at this point to make sport fair for women. Personally I’d like to see separate trans competitions as that way the trans competitors don’t get embarrassed by being constantly beaten by men because some people transition have different outcomes to this treatment and may have, for MtF’s different testosterone levels. Also you would not want FtM’s to be competing against natal men for similar reasons, they’d always be at a physical disadvantage to men.