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

Fair enough, not sure how that would fit for the trans folk who sometimes insist on competing in the category of their chosen gender.

How would you pick which sports to have an open category?

It could work, but there’s just no demand for it, and sports organisations aren’t going to invest resources in a category which isn’t able to sustain itself due to the lack of competitors. FINA tried it, but had to roll back on the idea as there were no competitors.

USA Boxing as an example, one of the governing bodies in amateur boxing has decided not to implement the policies which other governing bodies in amateur boxing have adopted -

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna131938

In the UK, there are boxers like Danny Baker who are adamant that they compete with men, but they have difficulty obtaining a license to box in competition -

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/boxing/trans-boxer-danny-baker-says-27147175

Most amateur boxers won’t turn professional then either which is another story entirely as the more high profile boxers have no interest in boxing in the Olympics, and then there’s this upcoming shìt-show which should never have been sanctioned, but there’s no denying the amount of money and interest involved:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Paul_vs._Mike_Tyson

There is a lot to go through.

Regardless, and there might be a solution, I think we can agree that biological men do not belong in female categories, at all.

OK, so we can dispense with epidemiology, longitudinal studies, the empirical method? Arithmetic is an essential component of any study comparing two or more distinct populations - should we dispense with it because it's too simple for you?

The French study you linked is interesting, but most sports fans could have told you that people playing different field games will have different physiques on average, and that sprint performance is linked to the level the sport is being played at. Furthermore, players have got bigger and better over the last 10 years. But, since it compares groups of biological females with other groups of biological females, it is not at all relevant to the subject of this thread.

I hope you'll forgive me a little smile at the exquisite irony of you rubbishing my suggestion for a study by linking one which uses exactly the same scientific method, albeit looking at physique rather than results.

In composing my reply, an image came to mind: Mario Rosenstock's Vincent Browne, "Martin Mansergh, let me put this to you...what, what time is it?" :)

A bit of whataboutery to make some point no one other than you understands is a game changer for sure.

The study you reference uses exactly the same scientific principle as I was referencing in my original post. In other words they are not doing an experiment in the sense of applying different inputs (e.g. diet, training regimes, rest, etc to different groups), they are merely recording various outputs (physical characteristics, weightlifting ability at different points in time. My example of weightlifting is actually one of the criteria they used. My suggested study is simpler, but uses exactly the same principle.

Did you really not understand my posts? I try to keep them simple so I can understand them.

French rugby's decision to allow biological males to compete against females is scandalous. Rugby as a sport is trying to deal with CTE - American Football have had similar problems. I think it's only a matter of time before a female sues for negligence due to being injured by a bigger, heavier, faster male.

Male and man are inseparable just as female and woman are.

A man can perform as a woman, and be a more or less convincing actor, but it's still a man, or at best a transwoman, which is its own distinct category deserving of recognition and respect.

You cannot be "born in the wrong body" or "assigned the wrong gender". It's moronic to even claim it. However the feeling of that is valid and these people deserve support. Support however does not mean denying reality or falsifying the meaning of words

Your first link helps me make my point: on the presumption that both players were biologically female then if that level of damage could be inflicted, imagine what could happen in a collision between a biological male and a biological female. I realise that there are already disparities in weight and height of around 60kg and 40cm in the purely male teams, so why make this worse, especially as it's generally agreed that males are stronger and faster than females of the same weight and height, freaks of nature excepted. I'm not aware of any case of a biological female suing after being injured by a biological male, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened yet. If it hasn't, I reckon it's only a matter of time.

Your second link is indeed what I was referring to. If it's a problem now (and it seems world rugby are trying to say the effects of cumulative brain trauma are only clear now, when the research in the US is old news), then why add to the problem?

You haven't responded to the point on research methods, so I'll take that as agreement😀.

That is coming too from LPGA, Once Davidson started winning on the mini tour there was a rethink which resulted in him being banned, that mini tour has now reinstated the rule that players must be female at birth, The LPGA will follow.

The whole fiasco about males competing in female sports is coming to an end, Personally I would like to see some research done to determine how so many sporting bodies initially agreed to go against basic common sense in allowing males into female competition.

@One eyed Jack: I've been on boards since 2009, and I've never felt the need to report a post. I have, however, reported the one quoted above for the use of the phrase "the remote possibility of a scenario you’ve concocted in your imagination". You linked an example of one biological female causing life changing injuries to another during a game of rugby, and being sued as a result. It's not much of a leap of logic to suggest that similar incidents might happen if biological males compete in contact sports against biological females, so I didn't need to concoct anything. Your suggestion that I would do so is an attack on my integrity.

I will deal with the substance of your post. Indeed, that level of damage is thankfully rare in rugby, but not at all unheard of. I'm no expert but they have done a lot with the rules in recent years around scrums to reduce the danger. There used to be regular enough reports of players being paralysed due to scrum collapses; I haven't heard of one recently. Similarly with tackling, though the rules (I believe they call them laws) seem to be applied inconsitently. I have seen a documentary which demonstrated that two large players colliding at speed has a similar impact as being in a 30mph car crash, and that is when the game is being played within the laws.

I absolutely take your point about the inherent risks of injury in sport (abuse and discrimination are distinct, though no less serious issues); I just feel it's unwise, and unjust, to increase those risks by allowing biological males to compete against biological females. Do you think females want to compete against biological males?

"What bans are doing is proposing a solution to a problem that they’ve invented". I'm not sure who "they" are in this statement. Just taking athletics for example, there have always been rules separationg the biological sexes. In the 80's there were rudimentry sex tests, and suspicions were raised about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarmila_Kratochv%C3%ADlov%C3%A1 among others. Your so-called new rules aren't really new, they're just tightening up a loophole in order to achieve the same competitive situation that the "old" ones did, i.e. separation of the sexes.

Thank you for further delicious irony in stating "It isn’t based upon anything scientific or rational" while finishing your post with "because biological reality something something" - still trying to eat your cake and have it?

Slightly OT but I actually agree with you about the state of female sports vis-a-vis male sports regarding discrimination in funding and other areas. Thankfully attitudes seem to be changing, albeit slowly. One big concern is the amount of underage girls who give up sport in their teenage years. The reasons behind this are complex and I certainly don't have the answers, however the sight of adult females being beaten (and possibly beaten up) by adult males who are only in the particular event due to moral cowardice and/or virtue signalling by the authorities can't be much of an encouragement to continue in the sport. I have even seen examples of adult males celebrating their victories over 12 year old girls…crazy stuff.

A couple of real world examples, with associated questions:

Last Friday evening, Rhasidat Adeleke won the Monaco Diamond league 400m in a time only 0.1 sec outside her PB. The second placed woman, Lieke Klaver, set a new PB. These women (by which I mean adult females) are both 6ft tall, and magnificent physical specimens. They won silver and bronze medals respectively in the recent European championships. An average enough male club runner would have had no difficulty finishing ahead of both women in either race. If this had happened, do you think that would be a fair outcome?

I have done a bit of competitive running in the past, though nowhere near the elite level inhabited by Enduro. Towards the end of my career I entertained the slightly delusional notion of winning an age group National championship medal. In most of the road races I ran I would have beenin the top 1% of all males, with typically 2 or 3 women ahead of me. In my final marathon, in the closing miles, the group I was with overtook the leading Irish women. In the event there were more than 3 men my age ahead of me, so no medal. Now, if I'd had the presence of mind to identify as female before the race, I could have had a women's national championship gold medal (and I mean that literally, I would have had a medal that rightfully belonged to a woman). If I had done so, do you think that would have been a fair outcome?

There are lots of anomalies in sport, and they're really difficult to address. I also cycled competitively in my youth, and within the U14, U16 and junior (U18) categories there were often huge disparities in height, weight, and strength. In particular, juniors could be puny 5 footers, or well over 6 feet. There were a few 16 year olds who regularly competed against seniors, and often beat them (juniors were allowed in senior races up to 50 miles long.) At senior level there was some categorisation and a rider could be upgraded to "A" based on results. There were also some races run on a handicap basis in an attempt to give everyone a chance. Yes, some females are faster than some males, but if males are allowed compete against females, in many sports the winners will be exclusively male. For transwomen, I don't think anyone is actually suggesting a ban. They're merely saying that discriminating against all biological females in order to validate the gender identity of a small number of people would be grossly unfair to the females. The rules should reflect that.

That's twice you've done it now. I try to be precise in my use of language- obviously I was mistaken in expecting the same of you. If you don't think I'm lying then please refrain from using language that suggests exactly that.

Any comments regarding the future are by their nature hypothetical. I merely suggested the likely outcome of a particular course of action, extrapolating from an example you helpfully provided.

I would do you the courtesy of responding to the rest of your post but I honestly can't make head or tail of it.

They are separable. One relates to gender, the other to sex.

I have already said that biology should determine sport.

However, it seems some have an issue with me recognising gender issues outside of sport.

The chances of him replying are not great, and the chances of a direct answer are very slim indeed. Evasion, whataboutery, and long multi-paragraph posts dragging in off-topic items would seem to be the nature of his posts on this thread these days. I wish you luck!

Quite possibly he will generate some reason to never reply to your posts from now on. He is currently using that childish behaviour with all of my posts at the moment! It's never a good sign of having a strong case when you have to run away from arguments like that.

I have a potential problem with it because I still don’t understand what you mean by “living as a woman”.

It sounds worryingly close to traditional stereotypes such as “women are no good at maths with their frilly little brains that can only be happy in pink dresses” - I’m exaggerating but only a little. Lots of TW post stuff worse than that as fact: I saw one who was thrilled because he had (allegedly) started to fail all his maths tests since he’d started oestrogen.

So I don’t care if a man wants to wear frilly pink dresses and call himself a woman. I do have a problem when this is presented as the definition of what being a woman actually is. Because I think it’s terribly harmful to real girls and women to allow that to be presented in society as some deep truth about being a woman.