“Even when following IOC hormone-reduction guidelines, genetically male athletes are, on average, 40% heavier, 15% faster, 30% more powerful and 25-50% stronger than female athletes. It should therefore come as no surprise that injury to female athletes increases by 30% when genetically male competitors enter the sport.”
“Reverence for sport’s first principle — fair play — unites people across the globe. Hell hath no fury like sport enthusiasts witnessing systemic cheating. Speaking of which: That burning smell? It’s the rubber of gender theory hitting the road of biological reality, as the consequences of broadening gender “inclusion” policies in sport achieve visible effect on our playing fields and medals podiums.
“Since 2015, the IOC has allowed biological males who have ‘self-identified’ {What a joke!} as ‘female’ for a year to compete in women’s sport, if they reduce their testosterone levels to 10 nmol/l (nanomoles per litre). That‘s still much higher than the female testosterone range of .54 to 2.4 nmol/l. In any case, testosterone is only one factor in the male athletic advantage — and not, as I explain below, the most significant one by any means.
“On Oct. 16, in resolution of a civil rights claim levelled by ‘Concerned Women for America’ against Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights agreed that FPU’s ‘transgender’ sports and inclusion policy violated ‘Title IX’, which prohibits discrimination in educational programs and activities, including athletics, on the basis of sex. FPU has agreed to
“rescind its Transgender Participation and Inclusion Policy and will cease any and all practices related thereto.”
“The complaint centred on ‘trans’ athlete CeCe Telfer. Telfer had competed in the 400m hurdles on the men’s team in 2016 and 2017, ranking 390th in NCAA Division 2. In 2018, the athlete started ‘self-identifying’ as a ‘woman’. Then eligible to compete against women according to NCAA rules, Telfer won the women’s national championship in June 2020. Telfer’s coach, Zach Emerson, ascribed the extraordinary improvement to attitude:
“I’ve never met anyone as strong as ‘her’ mentally in my life.”
“Mental attitude is now the fallback “explanation” when genetically-male athletes leap from low or average achievement in men’s sport to stunning success in the women’s category. Such a fiction insults those female athletes brimming with mental toughness that Telfer sails past in competition. A female athlete’s attitude, however magnificent, is insufficient to overcome inherent male advantages of superior strength, lung capacity and muscle mass.
“Some sport professionals toe the official ‘nothing-to-see-here’ line, but with a wink to indicate the performative nature of their commentary. U.K. ‘trans’ rugby player Kelly Morgan, six feet tall, once folded an opponent “like a deck chair”, according to ‘her’ club captain. The team founder jokingly told a BBC interviewer:
“‘She’s going to be a good, good player for the next few years, as long as we can stop ‘her’ injuring players in training”.
“But injuries to women athletes by genetically-male competitors are no laughing matter. Last February, ‘World Rugby’ held meetings to investigate the harms women in contact sports are vulnerable to under current inclusion rules. This was the first sport association to bring together experts in biology, sociology and kinesiology with a view to updating eligibility standards. The consultation was reportedly respectful and thorough, with both sides of the inclusion debate represented.
“Relying on data published by Sweden’s pre-eminent Karolinska Institute of medical academic research, they concluded that even when following IOC hormone-reduction guidelines, genetically male athletes are, on average, 40% heavier, 15% faster, 30% more powerful and 25-50% stronger than female athletes. These spreads are enormous, considering the minuscule measures of time, distance or weight that distinguish gold from silver, silver from bronze. (Ironically, doping “only” confers an advantage of nine to 12%.)
“It should therefore come as no surprise that injury to female athletes increases by 30% when genetically male competitors enter the sport. On Oct. 9, the ‘World Rugby Council’ issued a new resolution on ‘transgender’ participation:
“Transgender women may not play women’s rugby”.
“This statement marks the first time a sport federation has broken ranks with the IOC on this issue.
“‘Rugby Canada’s response was, disappointingly, to state that the new ‘World Rugby’ guidelines “are not policy that can or will be adopted” {?!?}. Instead, it doubled down on commitment to its own ‘Trans Inclusion Policy’, which declares that players
“should be able to participate as the gender with which they ‘identify’ and not be subject to requirements for disclosure of personal information beyond those required of ‘cisgender’ athletes. Nor should there be any requirement for hormonal therapy or surgery”.
{Canada is becoming an embarrassment of a nation…}
“In other words, anyone is eligible for entry into women’s rugby without preconditions of any kind but the statement,
“I ‘identify’ as female”.
“Amongst youth aged five to 19, ice hockey, rugby and ringette are the riskiest for brain injuries, accounting for 27 to 44% of all injuries incurred during play. But the only sentence containing the word “safe” in ‘Rugby Canada’s guidelines references hurt feelings when “‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’” aren’t respected.
“In fact, even in non-contact sports, female athletes competing against genetically-male athletes do not feel safe. Last February, three female Connecticut high school runners launched a federal ‘Title IX’ lawsuit because, over three competitive seasons from 2017 to 2019, two genetically-male athletes scooped gold and silver in 15 women’s state championship titles. A minimum of 85 female athletes are estimated to have thereby lost out on opportunities for advancement. The girls’ witness impact statements are peppered with words like “stress”, “anxiety”, “depression” and the like.
“The 1988 Seoul Olympics doping scandal, which eventually stripped Canadian runner Ben Johnson of his gold medal in the 100m sprint, prompted the creation of the ‘Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport’ (CCES) in 2003. Its job was to ensure that systemic cheating in sport would never again be tolerated. So the “fair play” buck stops with them.
“Alas, the negative fallout from the CCES’s decision, amplified in its 2019 guidelines, to sacrifice the principle of fair play for female athletes on the altar of gender “expression” constitutes a tawdry tale of mission betrayal. But that is a column in itself for another day.”
–‘Transgender sports policies have thrown fair play out the window’,
Barbara Kay, National Post, Oct. 23, 2020
FEATURE Image: CeCe Telfer competed for three years on the men’s track and field team before medically ‘transitioning’ and joining the women’s team. (PHOTO BY NVAA)
From the U.K.:
“For over a decade, the ‘trans’ lobby has been successful at promoting anti-science hokum as truth.”
“…It has been fascinating to see who gives weight to science and who does not. For instance, ‘Extinction Rebellion’ (XR) alerted members earlier this spring that because of Covid-19, it would ‘follow advice from scientists and doctors’ and not organise mass public gatherings until a later date. Fast forward to this week, however, and you can see XR’s willingness to take science into account shifts radically in the context of ‘transgender’ ideology
‘We do not believe that the existence of ‘trans’ people, or the clearly documented oppression and abuse they experience, is a topic that should be up for debate. ‘Trans’ ‘women’ are women. ‘Trans’ ‘men’ are men. ‘Non-binary’ and all other ‘gender expressions’ which do not conform to the gender that person is ‘assigned’ at birth are valid, legitimate, and true.’
“I was taken aback by the anti-scientific nature of the statement, though I was not at all surprised. In the years I have been writing about ‘trans’-rights activism,
https://www.spiked-online.com/tag/transgender/
I have had to wade through streams of pure, unadulterated sophistry coming from this movement and its supporters.
“Even though this identitarian movement represents a tiny sliver of the population, it has been successful in exerting enormous influence on our institutions, including international NGOs, the UN, policymakers, media, local and national governments, and private corporations. It has been encouraging them all to promote patently anti-science rhetoric. This also includes the naming and shaming (and firing {See below}) of anyone who states the scientific fact that ‘men are not women’.
“Even the NHS has caved in. It now has a section on its website dedicated to the entirely unscientific category of ‘gender identity’.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/think-your-child-might-be-trans-or-non-binary/
“The NHS even conflates the terms ‘transgender’ and ‘non-binary’. Both of these terms are opaquely defined because they each rely on the slippage between the idea of ‘normal’ and ‘gender diversity’. The NHS even couches its advice within the language of belief:
‘We now believe that ‘gender identity’ is on a spectrum, with male at one end, female at the other and a “‘diversity’ of gender identities in between. These can include male and female, non-binary or even ‘agender’ (no gender)’.
“The NHS’s specialist service, the ‘Gender Identity Development Service’ (GIDS), provides treatment for children and adolescents. But there is no clear evidence that there is such a thing as ‘gender identity’. The term comes from gender studies and the humanities, not medicine. Gender is merely a stereotype or a social construct.
“The problem is that gender here is determined by diagnosing people’s feelings in relation to the clothes they wear and how they conform to rather conservative tropes for what makes a man or a woman. The NHS criteria for determining gender dysphoria relies entirely upon social stereotypes where girls are likeable, boys are assertive, and so on.
“Take a look at this gender-role test,
https://www.idrlabs.com/gender/test.php
which seems to rely entirely on the stereotypes of women and men from the 1950s, and you might begin to understand why so many women, gay men and lesbians are concerned about the encroachment of a movement which promotes these stereotypes and medicalises children on this basis. Treatment for gender dysphoria starts to look something like gay-conversion therapy. Added to this is the fact that more than 40 clinicians have left the NHS’s GIDS clinic over the past three years alone, due to serious concerns over the safeguarding of children in their care.
“And while the ‘trans’ lobby has successfully medicalised gender, it has simultaneously pushed the idea that biological sex is merely a social construct. This has dangerous consequences.
“Since 2018, ‘Cancer Research UK’ has promoted its cervical-cancer screenings not to women but to ‘people with a cervix’. Similarly, ‘Public Health England’ (PHE) wants us all to know that it thinks men can have cervixes, too. So even in cases where biological sex is a question of life and death, PHE sees ‘trans’ inclusivity as a priority, while anything targeted at women is deemed exclusionary. But the reality is that aiming screening campaigns at ‘people with a cervix’ is what is truly discriminatory. Many women will simply not understand that they are the target audience of calls to get tested since, according to polls, nearly half of all women don’t actually know what a cervix is.
“Here are some of the other anti-science claims made by the ‘trans’ movement:
that there are pink and blue brains (which has been thoroughly debunked);
you can have a ‘biologically female penis’;
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/02/19/pose-indya-moore-trans-penises-biologically-female/
that men can get pregnant;
and that sex is a spectrum
(humans are sexually dimorphic – even people born with intersex conditions are still either male or female).
“More bizarrely, according to Adrian Harrop, a ‘trans’ activist and NHS GP, ‘transgender-identified’ males are ‘women’ but biological females are ‘cis women’. It is claims like this which have led many feminists to conclude that the ‘trans’ movement is attempting to naturalise men as the ‘real’ women, which would create a sub-category of women to encompass actual females. To be considered a real woman seems to require the validation of men.
“There is some good news, however. Last week, “BBC Woman’s Hour” reported that much of the language on the NHS website around ‘gender dysphoria’ has been reworded to more accurately reflect science. One major change was that the NHS no longer states that puberty-blockers like ‘Lupron’ are ‘reversible’, since there are few studies on their long-term physical or psychological effects. What is known from trials of hormone-blockers in sheep is that it ‘is associated with permanent changes in brain development’. For the study’s authors, this
‘raises particular concerns about the cognitive changes associated with the prolonged use of [hormone] treatment in children and adolescents’.
“References to ‘trans’ children committing suicide have also been removed from the NHS website. The threat of suicide was used to frighten parents into submitting their child into harmful treatments. The site no longer equates ‘gender identity’ to having specific interests as a young child – such as wearing ‘typical boys or girls’ clothes’, or disliking ‘taking part in typical boys’ or girls’ games and activities’. The NHS also no longer claims that sex can be changed. The new phrasing is as follows:
‘Some people may decide to have surgery to permanently alter body parts associated with their biological sex.’
After years of kowtowing to the gender lobby, for the NHS to even use the term ‘biological sex’ feels revolutionary.
“For over a decade, the ‘trans’ lobby has been successful at promoting anti-science hokum as truth. And it has promoted regressive and conservative notions of gender in the process. It’s time to speak up against it.”
–‘Trans dogma is based on junk science’,
JULIAN VIGO, Spiked, 6th July 2020
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/06/trans-dogma-is-based-on-junk-science/
Also from the U.K.:
“The essential problem with today’s law on ‘trans’ issues is that it is premised, not on enquiring into facts and truth, but by considering feelings.”
“…The desire of an increasing number of men and women, and boys and girls, to ‘change sex’ and to require society to adapt to their desires is an issue for political debate. It is, like most political issues, capable of engendering strong and passionately held beliefs on both sides. It is the sort of issue that demonstrates the need for free and vigorous debate. Indeed, it is an issue that highlights the need for democracy. Only a democracy – with the respect it necessarily affords to each citizen’s right to express an opinion – can guide society to decisions that are capable of being accepted by the wider public.
“On ‘trans’ issues, society has been moving in a direction that stokes considerable unease among many people. In the latest controversy, there are some who believe that men should be allowed to ‘self-declare’ as women and to be treated as women (likewise for women desiring to be men) and there are many who strongly oppose such a development. Changing rooms, prisons, school uniforms, sports, swimming pools, toilets, women-only shortlists and women’s refugees have all been the focus of recent ‘trans’ controversies. Underlining the dispute is the view held by many that sex is a biological fact that cannot be changed, and that society is harmed by accommodating to those who claim to have changed sex.
“This controversy needs the antidote of free public debate. Two years ago, Maya Forstater decided to join the debate. She, like millions of other citizens, opposes the possibility that the ‘Gender Recognition Act 2004’ could be amended to permit people to ‘self-identify’ their gender. After researching the issue, Forstater tweeted:
‘Some transgender people have cosmetic surgery. But most retain their birth genitals. Everyone’s equality and safety should be protected, but women and girls lose out on privacy, safety and fairness if males are allowed into changing rooms, dormitories, prisons, sports teams’.
https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1036375233723330560
“In a further social-media comment on ‘Slack’, she noted how
‘I should be careful and not unnecessarily antagonistic. But if people find the basic biological truths that “women are adult human females” or “trans women are male” offensive, then they will be offended’.
“And she noted how
‘in social situations, I would treat any trans women as an honorary female, and use whatever pronouns etc… I wouldn’t try to hurt anyone’s feelings but I don’t think people should be compelled to play along with literal delusions like “trans women are women”.’
“Forstater’s opinions were clear, but they were also measured and sophisticated in that she distinguished between challenging ‘trans’ issues at a political level and how she would treat a ‘trans’ person at a personal level. Essentially, Forstater was doing what any democracy would welcome because she was engaging in an issue of public concern by eloquently expressing the viewpoint of millions. However, when her employers saw it differently, she brought an employment-tribunal claim in which she alleged unlawful discrimination based on her beliefs.
“The law concluded, in a {foolish} judgment given last week, that Forstater’s belief that sex is immutable
‘is not worthy of respect in a democratic society’ {?}.
https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/06/Forstater-v-CGD-Judgement-2019.pdf
…
“…The ruling highlights that the law on ‘trans’ issues has become a menace to democracy. It has become the servant of a ‘trans’ discourse that is not concerned with winning arguments, but which seeks to silence them in pursuit of a ‘victory’ secured from a referee who is on their side. When the law – that coercive feature of society that requires obedience – declares that a belief ‘is not worthy of respect’, then the law has taken sides by undermining one side of the debate.
“By taking sides on the politically-controversial issue of ‘trans’ identity, the law is giving a green light to its advocates to seek to sack, discipline, silence and drive their opponents from political debate. Trans activists will do this secure in the knowledge that the law will back them. When the law declares that one side of an argument is ‘not worthy of respect’, the law undermines democracy by allowing its favoured argument to be militant, intemperate and censorious. This is not democracy – this is oppression.
“The essential problem with today’s law on ‘trans’ issues is that it is premised, not on enquiring into facts and truth, but by considering feelings. The judge repeatedly referred to the ‘enormous pain’ and ‘hurt’ that would be caused by Forstater’s opinions. And with this therapeutic approach as his guide, he began his judgment by noting that he ‘sought to use appropriate terminology that will not be offensive to the parties, their witnesses or others reading this judgement’. To this end, he refers to Gregor Murray, who Forstater is said to have offended, as a ‘non-binary person’ and as ‘they’. In other words, the judge began by dismissing Forstater’s case by making clear that, even in a judgment which is a statement of the law, he would accede to the right of men and women to self-declare their own ‘sex’ {and to be referred to by grammatically-incorrect pronouns…}.
“As Forstater had already noted, and as anyone who engages in a questioning of ‘trans’ issues knows, if a decision-taker bases his decision on the possibility of somebody being ‘hurt’ by an opinion, then people who disagree with that opinion will declare themselves to be hurt. Pain, hurt, dignity, distress and offence (all metrics cited by the judge) become the basis for resolving issues in favour of the campaigners with the thinnest skins. This was the central basis for the judge’s conclusion, for, as he argued:
‘Calling a ‘trans’ ‘woman’ a man is likely to be profoundly distressing. It may be unlawful harassment. Even paying due regard to the qualified right to freedom of expression, people cannot expect to be protected if their core belief involves violating others’ dignity and/or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them’.
“It is worth re-reading this passage in order to appreciate that, so far as the law is concerned, nobody in a democracy should express the political belief that a ‘trans woman is a man’ because it may hurt the man’s feelings.
…
“ As the Dickensian character ‘Mr. Bumble’ would say, ‘the law is an ass’. Worse still, the law’s approach to democracy on ‘trans’ issues has become Victorian. Victorian law denied democracy by denying people a vote; today’s law emasculates democracy by denying people a voice. Maya Forstater has courageously stood up to the oppressive purveyors of trans identity and to a law that considers her beliefs to be unworthy of respect. Whatever the law says, Maya Forstater is a true champion of democracy, and the dismissal of her case highlights the extent to which the law has become a menace to the institution it is supposed to uphold: democracy”.
–‘Maya Forstater: a champion of democracy’,
JON HOLBROOK, Spiked, 23rd December 2019
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/12/23/maya-forstater-a-champion-of-democracy/
See:
‘Freedom of Speech and the Law’:
As Western law becomes increasingly politicized and ‘racialized’ {racist}, freedom of speech becomes less and less possible…
From the U.K.:
“A researcher who lost her job at a thinktank after tweeting that ‘transgender’ women cannot change their biological sex, has lost a test case… Maya Forstater was accused of using “offensive and exclusionary” language in tweets opposing government proposals to allow people to ‘self-identify’ as the opposite sex…”
https://hectorheisler.wordpress.com/2021/03/06/freedom-of-speech-and-the-law/
See also:
‘Another Man Wins Women’s Competition’ (Lia Thomas/Swimming) {Apr.10, 2022}:
“Second is the new first… She finished second place, but would have been first place if people had the courage to speak up about the injustice of a MAN competing against women.”
“The University of Virginia’s Emma Weyant was praised as the “real winner” after she came in second to biologically-male ‘transgender’ swimmer Lia Thomas in the NCAA Women’s Swimming Championship 500 yard freestyle…”
https://insidesportssite.wordpress.com/2022/04/10/another-man-wins-womens-competition/
‘The End of Women’s Sports?’ (Transgender/Cycling) {October 14, 2018}:
“Cheating guy wins women’s competition…”
https://bloginsidesports.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/the-end-of-womens-sports/
‘Just Not Fair: Update’ (Transgender//Weightlifting) {November 27, 2017}:
“Australia’s weightlifting chief says New Zealand’s selection of ‘transgender’ athlete Laurel Hubbard will create an uneven playing field at next year’s ‘Commonwealth Games’… The 39-year-old was a national junior record-holder in the male 105kg class before ‘transitioning’ in his mid-30s.”
https://bloginsidesports.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/just-not-fair-update/
‘A Man Is Still a Man: Political Correctness Meets Biological Reality’ {Aug. 6, 2017}:
“I’ve never felt so overpowered, ever, in my life. Nothing can take away from the fact that you are physically a man. Mentally and emotionally, who knows — but physically, he’s a man.”
https://insidesportssite.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/a-man-is-still-a-man/
‘Just Not Fair’ (Transgender/Australia/Weightlifting) {June 23, 2017}:
“Hubbard, 39, began ‘transitioning’ in his 30s. Before that, he competed in weightlifting events as Gavin Hubbard. Despite the controversy, Olympic rules state Hubbard is within his right to compete {as a woman}.”
https://bloginsidesports.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/just-not-fair/
‘Undermining Fair Competition’ (Transgender/Wrestling) {April 11, 2017}:
“Beggs, who is ‘transitioning’ from female to male — but competing as a girl because of a University Interscholastic League rule — won gold….”
https://insidesportssite.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/undermining-fair-competition/
Inside Sports 