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

The Equality Acts should be clarified to differentiate the terms "gender" and "sex".

100%!! Or as we called it in the good old days "life"!!! No labels, no special flags, no people losing their jobs for a tweet ……

My dad had a good friend who used to dress as Marilyn in her Seven Year Itch heyday - I never knew, nor asked, whether he was gay or straight - it mattered not. In a miserable world he had found something that made him happy and good on him! Simpler, happier and freer times.

Thanks Enduro. In engaging with the thread, and that poster in particular, I was a bit reluctant as I wanted to avoid any perception of a pile-on. Although it's often not a pleasant experience, like the late Daniel Kahnemann I am always grateful to be proven wrong, as I end up the wiser for it. I hoped the poster could correct any errors in my reasoning or rebut anything I had presented as factual. I'm still learning in this particular subject as in many others.

At the risk of being seen to engage in back-seat modding, the thing I took exception to was the suggestion that I was either lying or bullshitting. When called out, the poster in question, who insists on science and research (at least when he thinks it suits his argument), in yet another exquisite display of irony, stated as fact what he imagined was the contents of my head and my thought processes without any possible way of validating his imaginings.

To be fair to OEJ, I wasn't rigorous enough in my posting, so consider this:

Take the current situation of womens sport, team or individual. There are various variable inputs e.g. age, natural aptitude, coaching standards, disparities in weight, speed, strength. Consider the output of injuries due to interaction with other competitors whether within or outside the laws of the sport, and the associated output of lawsuits. OEJ provided documentary evidence of both those outputs occurring, which I accept as factual. We could make an equation:

Prob (lawsuit) = Function (Prob injury) = function (all the inputs I listed above)

Now, if we change only one input, by allowing biological males to compete with women, the disparities in weight, speed, strength increase, therefore it's a mathematical certainty that Prob (lawsuit) would increase. However, as the poster in question either denies any performance differences between the sexes, or alternatively accepts biological differences but states that they're nothing to do with anything, then maths or science are of no use and we're back to imaginings, alleged or otherwise.

Why get so worried about what other people want to do?

There are much more serious risks to women in the world today than a few males wearing frilly pink dresses

I mean I said twice (at least) that I have no problem with men wearing frilly pink dresses.

I do have a problem with little girls being taught that wanting to wear frilly pink dresses is what makes someone a girl/woman.

I’m sure you can see why if you think about it.

As for Saudi: a little whataboutery when you can’t reply - well I suppose why not.

I’ve plenty to say about countries like Saudi, and have done so on this site, but I’m talking here about a different problem in western, non Muslim countries.

So if you see a failing in my actual point rather than trying to hand wave about Islam, you might help me understand. If you genuinely believe that gender identity is anything other than a collection of harmful stereotypes that is - because you’ve made no attempt whatsoever to engage with that.

I have no problem with either males or females wearing frilly pink dresses. Or anything else. I don't have those hangups.

Biologically, females of the human species are hard-wired to want to look good to attract a mate. Other species are hard-wired biologically to eat their mates.

Very strange that you should insist that one biological hard-wiring is fixed and immutable (a male is a man) while another (wanting to attract a mate) is not.

Recently watching gay/transgender interviewees clips on Piers Morgan about sports and there actually deluded as it comes.

Piers destroying them in interviews and making valid points but they come back with nonsense and in the interview you can see they know there completely wrong but continue on with their nonsense for attention.

XX and XY continue with their own divisions and possibly open another two divisions for transgender women and transgender men. I am completely open to that.

I have two daughters and a son, I am not having my daughters disadvantaged by biological men.

Just because your transgender doesn't mean I have to blow smoke up your arse, I will respect you but I am not going to acknowledge a lot of the bull **** that you want to be recognized by and craving attention.

If your born XY and want to compete against XX your nothing but a **** in my eyes craving attention.

A BIOLOGICAL MALE IS NOT THE SAME AS A BIOLOGICAL WOMEN, I AM FOR TRANSGENDER PEOPLE, NOT CRAVING ATTENTION ONES COMPETING AGAINST BIOLOGICAL FEMALES.

100% there. I grew up a total tomboy and into middle age I remain so. I have gay male friends across the spectrum of stereotypes - some tall, butch, sport mad and some who are more on the metrosexual side. They're still hardwired to be gay, as I am to be straight. You'd get me in an England shirt before you got me in a pink frilly dress, so why is "feminine" clothing a marker of a woman ? It isn't.

Google Alex Drummond - a self styled "male lesbian", boasting about fixing a car wearing make up and a mini skirt, I'd applaud that usually - such self confidence is wonderful to see. Yet he says he's "expanding the bandwidth of what being a woman is". How exactly ? How can he know what a woman is ? If that was "expanding what being a man is" I would be there front and centre cheering; I adore people who live their lives and care not what anyone thinks of them - but not when they claim to be something they cannot be, and the rights of women and single sex spaces are being eroded.

Back to the topic at hand - it is concerning to see several civil liberties organisations such as the NYCLU in New York currently going to court to fight for the "human rights" of male bodied athletes to compete against females in all sports - be they speed, contact etc. I really don't understand how they can let an ideology take such hold that they are happy to push female sports back, and in some cases physically endanger female sports people.

I stood proudly with the gay community as they were under attack in the 1980s and beyond, and all they wanted was to be left in peace to love who they wanted, and marry with the same basic legal rights as heterosexual couples and thankfully this was almost achieved, sadly not all across the world but we live in hope. It is sad to see a possibly harmful belief system tagged on to the progress made in gay, lesbian and bisexual rights in general but given that there are usually several campaigns to get girls into sports, as there are many health and societal benefits to doing so, what parent is going to want their daughter put at risk, either emotionally knowing she can't possibly win, or physically by being in contact with a male body that has stronger bones, larger muscle mass etc.

Thank you fellow rodent poster!

It is very much a belief system and whilst I can empathise - I'm Catholic - if someone tells me for example that the host and wine don't actually become the body and blood of Jesus, I may disagree - but I will respect their opinion and not orchestrate their downfall and threaten their safety! No one is trying to "erase" me.

Surely the truly progressive opinion there would be to say that Drummond is increasing the bandwidth of manhood by being a man who likes dresses and nail polish? And that men or women can be interested in mechanics?

Oh boy, that's an important point. In almost all discussions about these topics, the focus is always on women, and women’s spaces, and what is a woman.

And that has allowed men to control the narrative; by allowing them to ask what a woman is, it lets them assume that men who wish to be women cannot possibly be men at all.

If men have certain thoughts and feelings then they cannot possibly be Real Men, and must be something else, and it is women’s job to deal with that.

And this is no accident, because it serves to uphold male gender norms. By not accepting men who do not fit in with some confining standard of manhood, everyone gets to be divided into the categories of Men and Non-Men.

When men say "I don't feel like I fit in", how is it progressive to say "that’s because your place is over there with the women"? The progressive view would be to say there is nothing that any man can do or say or think or feel that can stop them from being a man.

Just thinking about your last paragraph, and thinking of all the feminist battles like equal pay, a woman being able to get a mortgage in her own name…..all of the rights being fought for could be granted without infringing on anyone elses rights, unlike what we're discussing here.

Another thought: anytime I've had to satisfy eligibility requirements for entry to a sporting event, the criteria were always objective and could be satisfied by producing documentary evidence (often this wouldn't be actually asked for, but it could be produced if necessary). E.g. age, membership of a club, achievement of a particular performance standard etc. Using gender for this purpose would be a minefield as there's no way to independently verify it other than "because I say so". Not to mention the possibility of gender fluid..

As for gender fluid, some at least of those people are just taking the P. I happen to know someone who works with Pippa/Philip Bunce, the guy who was named for a "Business woman of the year" award based on the fact that he identifies as a woman for a couple of days a week, but only after a successful career as a man and getting to the post of director - no glass ceiling for Ms Pippa as a young woman: he identified as male until he got to the point where there were very few women around. It's positively laughable to consider that Bunce is in any way representative of the problems that women face in the banking industry.

But just in case that wasn't enough for the comedy of it, he only identifies as a woman for two or three days a week. "If it's Tuesday, I'm a she/her" sort of thing. 🙄

It is indeed a minefield. And the Gender Recognition Act makes establishing a person's observed sex at birth impossible now, as birth certs are no longer immutable.

We also have the issue of the time-specific gender identities, such as the Male Spanish trail runner who only identifies as a Woman when she is trail running, but identifies as a man at all other times. They insisted on claiming their first place prize in the Female category at a race this year.

We are encouraged to be kind, and I really feel nothing but kindness towards any one who is suffering mental distress, but that sort of pisstaking (by the Spanish runner) causes me mental distress 😀.

So, when did being a transvestite (sometimes wearing ladies clothes) à la Grayson Perry, turn into actually becoming a woman like Pippa?