Transgender man wins women's 100 yd and 400 yd freestyle races.

It's another example of the woke stuff that makes voters so angry that they are willing to vote for Trump this year.

Do you realise that the information in that survey doesn't support your assertion? Plenty of interesting information for sure. But it in no way upholds your assertion that :

That obviously plays into the role of women in terms of sports, and it was largely uncontroversial for most of human history that women should not be permitted to participate in sports - they were activities solely for men. That belief is still largely uncontroversial.

Your belief should show that at minimum a majority should not be in favour of allowing women to participate in sports. There is no evidence of that in your article (There are minority opinions which have much milder aversions to women's sport, but absolutely nothing like you're suggesting).

Look, if this is a hill you want to die on then knock yourself out. Everyone who lives in the real world knows exactly what kind of nonsense your talking. When you make nonsense assertions like this it just weakens your standing for anyone reading through the thread and highlights you're willingness to assert complete nonsense with no evidence to support it.

Again, do you understand at all what you're saying when you say that gender is an immutable characteristic? Here is the first definition of immutable I found when I googled for the definition of the word: "unchanging over time or unable to be changed."

So are you saying that gender is unchanging over time / unable to be changed? Do you see at all how this might make the very concept of someone being transgender incompatible with the concept of gender being immutable? You know it is perfectly OK for you to say that you got that wrong and that gender is not an immutable characteristic. Because if you really do think that gender is unchanging over time and cannot be changed then you're about as far as it's possible to get on the anti-transgender spectrum.

I do 100% agree that sex is currently an immutable characteristic.

You're main argument on this thread is that not allowing transwomen to compete in the female sex category is somehow discrimination on the grounds of gender. Yet you are now saying that there are no sports organisations breaking anti-discrimination laws by not allowing transwomen to compete in female sex categories. If that's the case then great! We're in total agreement.

I have no problem agreeing that sports organisations are subject to the law of the land in every jurisdiction they operate in. If that's the only point you're trying to make then grand, I agree. And since no sports organisation has been found by any legal ruling to be discriminating against transwomen by excluding them from the female sex category then it looks like we might actually agree on everything.

Feel free to correct me if I am not interpreting your quoted statement above correctly, and letting me know what you actually think if I have got it wrong.

Oh, sports organisation make their own rules. Sometimes these are called laws. They can also be called regulations. In all cases, they only apply to the sport and can only be enforced by the sport. That doesn't mean they can invent civil laws for themselves, or have their "laws" enforced by the state.

You quote from the above article to back up your opinion. That is an opinion piece and no more. There is no evidence presented to back up her assertions. Just because someone else repeats the same lies that you repeat does not make them any less of a lie.

Nobody is excluding transgender people from participating in sports. Transwomen (male sex, female gender) athletes are being excluded from competing in the female sex category. They are perfectly entitled to compete in the male sex category. That is not excluding them from participating in sports. The lie doesn't become true just because you keep repeating it.

I haven't made any arguments about player safety. The issue is fundamentally about fairness. There are plenty of sports where there is no safety issue with males competing alongside females in the same event (Most sports I participate in are fully mixed, with males and females competing in the same event. Only the results are categorised). It remains unfair to allow male sex athletes to be ranked in the female category nonetheless. Hence why sports with little or no safety issues, such as swimming (the thread subject matter) and athletics, have ensured that no athlete who has been through male puberty can participate in the female category.

Park run isn't a competition so all of that is irrelevant

Pages and pages of theory, discussion and Psychobabble, yet the answer is very simple! Men participate in men's sports and women participate in womens sports - sorted 👍

Man = Adult Human Male XY

Woman = Adult Human Female XX

Hope this isn't too controversial as Ex Olympic swimmer Sharon Davies advocates a mouth swab to determine one's sex, should there be any confusion on inclusion or exclusion to the category one belongs to.

Re Park run, are there not course times and records for different categories?

Women's category, course record, mens category course record etc?

Tell me you never played sport without telling me

In fairness to Parkrun, they are clear that they have gender categories. They know exactly what they are doing, and fully understand the implications of that decision. It's all outlined here (https://support.parkrun.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005339137-Gender). So the behaviour outlined in MilkyToast's post is totally within their rules. It's a good illustration of what is likely to happen when you have Gender categories rather than Sex categories.

Of course, Annasopra is still showing her usual lack of knowledge when it comes to sports issues (And completely misses the much more relevant point that Parkrun categorises by Gender). Parkrun also acknowledges that some people run in their events on a competitive basis, and the fact that they keep records of fastest times (in multiple categories) is in itself competitive.

Ha... I was writing my very similar reply as you were posting yours. Agree totally with your points.

Thanks for that Enduro, so I've just read the Parkrun admission form and it seems anything goes, Gender based entry, so you could enter gender fluid, gender neutral, non binary, multi spirit etc, so it is very inclusive, but its also totally up in the air re course records and whether one is a woman one day and a man the next. All good fun, but not to be taken seriously, which is fine 👍

Competitive swimming, Olympic swimming, athletics & cycling are now tightening up the rules of entry based on human sex as man or woman, male or female, so Lia Thomas can still compete, but not in the ladies events anymore ....

That's up to you to decide

If they really wanted to prioritise fun and inclusion, they would do away with the categories and record-keeping entirely. The result of the current attempt at it is only serving to ensure that, eventually, women will never get records, while men who fancy one can just pick a different gender that day and Bob's your uncle. Might as well make it explicitly a male-only record holder affair.

Except the records in Aberystwyth and Porthcawl and, I'm sure, multiple other places soon.

You are wrong.

As are the people saying it's 'fair enough' for males to run as females and 'smash' records in female categories, because Parkrun have been upfront about allowing males to do this.

Most of the stats on their website are individual rather than competitive. You can see your own (and other people's) times and results for every parkrun you did, with best times recorded for each year. There used to be a small amount of competitive stats which used to provide the data for a "best" male and female runner of each year, but they stopped recording that a number of years ago.

In fact, I just went looking for the male and female fastest finisher information for a few locations and I can't find it any more. So, unless I'm mistaken they seem to have dropped that too. Same applies to "national" records. As far as I can see they are gone as well. You might be able to get that information from other websites who have access to their data, but it doesn't seem to be on the parkrun site itself anymore.

<Update>Okay, it seems you can still get the fastest male and female finisher information, by sorting the event history table. They have removed it as a I thought from where it used to be, but you can still find the info if you know where to look.

Did Ciara Mageean not recently set a WR time for Parkrun? Or at least it was in the Sports headlines.

She did, and once you time people and record their times, then other people are going to point out notable results, or even unofficial "world records" for parkrun. They are just a bit of fun. Parkrun courses vary a lot so records are not that meaningful. Victoria in Belfast is very flat - a good place to run a PB. I found this report from a different parkrun, the same week that Mageean ran (these reports are written by volunteers, so they don't reflect any official point of view)

I think it captures the difference between parkrun and competitive athletics. It probably used to be more competitive, but it's different now. Also, the parkrun gender policy has evolved. It is what it is. Some are happy with it and others aren't. If a male trans athlete comes along and breaks Ciara's record, I'm sure there'll be a big discussion about it. But, I don't get the impression that the policy will change.