-
But it can still be shit for the cis-women who get beaten by trans-women and no one is stopping them racing. Track league is the perfect example of categories being based purely on ability rather than sex, gender, age or anything else.
I say ballot the female licence holders. As a cis man who races it won't affect me either way but it certainly may affect them.
-
As a cis man who races it won't affect me
The common denominator in this thread in support of this cruel and regressive policy to ban trans people from racing under their actual identities, stealing away one enjoyable thing in their lives for no good reason.
Have any of you clowns thought through how you think this is going to be enforced? Who in BC is going to be on charge of inspecting all the 'female licence' applicants and checking out the accusations of "boo hoo I got beaten because that person's secretly trans"? Anyone volunteering to strip search people before they get on a podium?
-
How do they check ages? At an amateur level they don't - it's done on trust and can be applied to a whole variety of variations.
No one is stopping anyone from racing under their identities. No one is stopping anyone racing full stop.
Have you clowns asked the people who this will affect most? Cis-women.
-
ah yes not the actual trans people to whom this policy is to be applied, because on planet clown trans people aren't actually valid human beings.
-
Maybe stop frothing, calm down and answer some points rationally. Trans people must be so proud to have you as spokesperson....
-
You can't even tell me how your policy is going to be enforced, don't lecture anyone on "answer the question " you dope. Maybe you're keen to be the person "inspecting" young women when they're accused of being trans at the velodrome.
-
... the people who this will affect most? Cis-women.
I think the effect on cis women is yet to be fully understood. All the studies so far (including those relied on by BC to justify their policy) seem to be equivocal or inconclusive.
Any assumption that trans women will undoubtedly triumph over cis women competing in the same field is on very shaky ground (and strikes me as rather patriarchal).Cis women who were assigned female at birth, have lived their lives as women, and are happy to continue to live their lives as women are not going to have their identity changed if trans women start racing in the same events. They may or may not end up a few places further down the results in the odd race.
Trans women however, will have lived a significant portion of their lives in the wrong gender, will have undergone significant therapies to transition, will have forged new identities, and will now be forced to race bikes in an environment that they've worked so hard to leave. Once the racing stops, they'll then continue to be subject to discrimination in everyday life due to transphobia from people who know them to be trans, and misogyny from a patriarchal society. Trans women will lose in every way from this policy, whether they're elite athletes or enthusiastic amateurs who are happy to challenge themselves to beat their own limits even if they roll across the line DFL.
-
How is it "my" policy?
I said ask the people it affects.
Why are you so emotional about this one? Desperate to get your first ever bike race win in a women's league C cat race?
-
I think everyone needs to be a bit less "Frothy" here and talk it out civilly as we are all finding our feet. The language seems to get weaponised very quickly. Sorry to point out the obvious, but I am reading this trying to get my head round it and it doesnt help. There doesnt seem to be any winners here.
British Medals, sorry British Cycling, didnt say in their announcement how many Trans-Women racers are effected, also how many Cis-Women had complained. To my mind all views need to be respected.
More tellingly they didnt say anything about how they were going to to help Trans-Women riders during this time, but I guess there are no medals in it so not really interested. Back to the original title of the thread.
-
Some good points there.
There doesnt seem to be any winners here
Which is sad all round. I'm glad I'm not in a position to have to make these decisions.
-
I just think British Cycling could have been much more nuanced and supportive in their communication in their ruling on how they were going to support all cyclists whilst this is being sorted out. But thats pretty obviously not how they roll. They just seem to serve themselves for the sake of medals. hmmmm.
Also there are references above on how all people are included in grass routes competitive riding. It would be good to have further insight on that, so that maybe people who are affected, who are reading this, feel less excluded and learn how they can participate.
-
i think we're acting on the faith that BC is a body which acts to protect and encourage sport and isn't just one of britains many, many, government organisations which is more a employment scheme for second cousins of the political class than it is a serious instituition.
BC has not cared about cycling for many years, let alone the fairness of it (let's not forget the dodgy envelopes over the years). this thread is dedicated to that fact. from failing to support clubs and young racers, to working with petrochemical giants, to the underfunding and support of diverse cycling. they really simply exist to win a few medals every 4 years so we can wave flags and pay a small number of rotating executives a pretty penny.
to view this act as something in the "fairness of sport" is pretty funny.
if were to take a stab in the dark i'd say this will not lead to anymore focus on womens sport, fairness at our local clubs, equity in tv representation, racing, funding and platforming, no more cleaning up of sexism in the sport, reducing homophobia competitors face, no more equity to mothers in the sport or support of them over their careers, no more oppoertunities for women in the industry when they finish cycling, the list goes on really.
because really, if they wanted to do all this well... they would have done it? instead of wasting time an energy on creating policy about one...in how many years? trans woman who made vaguely enough points to get into the BC / uci project.
it's funny really (i keep saying this, i want to clarify to the reader, i mean quite sad, it's very sad and depressing)
really, if anything what's more likely is bc use this broarder mens catagory, sorry i mean open, BC uses it as an exscuse to continue to not focus on womens sports. at which point i will assume they say something like "the open catagory is too large, we cant justly support trans people at this time if we want to focus on womens sport" etcetc, the spiral continues.
the "science" of it is extremely malluable at best, very funny at worst when you flick through it, but getting bogged down in that is pointless. this is nothing more than an extension of government social and cultural policy, much in the way sports have always been used.
as always, i urge you, go make friends with trans people, get to know them, invite them round for dinner! hear what their concerns are, how stuff like this affects them. now you might say i'm biased, i need to listen to cis women too! but don't you worry your pretty faces, i have many cis women around for dinner regularly and some of them even like to ride bikes fast!
they all agree this ruling is fucking stupid and does not help womens sports
-
Big chat from some faceless goon hiding behind a fake name on the Internet. No doubt you aren't so blasé when actually at hhv.
Expect you've already emailed bc to volunteer for the role of women's groin inspector, roaming around fondling women's bodies whenever some hysterical transvestigator screeches that the trans menace is spoiling the bike race and reckons person A's Adams apple is too big.
Maybe you shouldn't act shocked when you start saying well done to BC for banning a load of people in our community, some of society's most marginalised people, from women's amateur cycling events, and people tell you where to get off.
-
.
-
This is all getting unnecessarily aggressive, this forum isn't exactly known for hatred of minorities of any sort, quite the opposite. Accusations are unhelpful and will never lead to better understanding.
-
What's there to understand? Old mate doesn't like trans women and wants them kicked out of womens cycle racing. As far as they're concerned, trans women in women's cycling events are just frauds trying to sneak in and steal podiums (if you knew anything about women's cycling you'd know these are extremely rare because there are barely enough cat c women's races organised anyway, mixed cat b and c races are predominant).
1 Attachment
-
-
I do wish that there was a way to hear Phillipa York's opinion, although I suspect the subject is far too raw for her to comment. I also admire her enormously and wish she would spend more time on our screens, or quite likely would be allowed to.
-
she's written similarly recently on the topic of trans women being excluded from sport
(@Ste_S beat me too it)
it's a good article, this part in particular is relevant, and echoes the similar comments here people have raised, which is...why now....how many women?
The UCI has the research data from proper studies and has decided on 2 years of testosterone below 2.5 nanogram/litre, and that has not produced any trans female domination. In fact, similar policies have resulted in no trans medals at the elite level in any sports ever since the IOC introduced its rules in 2003. None, zero, zilch. So the idea that there's going to be a tidal wave of men pretending to be women so they can win events hasn't happened. It won't happen, because trans female athletes are rare and even if there was a tenfold increase in numbers, that would still be a minuscule number.
these rules have been largely unchanged for years, universily agreed upon since the early 2000's, coincidentally as the christofascist right dumps money into reducing womens bodily autonimy and seperating trans people from the LGBT to start clawing back ground they lost since gay marrige legalisation we have a new bogey....woman.
i've spoken quite publically about how HRT has drastically affected how i can ride a bike and i'm not particularly fast, but regardless, it's moot. there simply is no trans women in sport, let alone winning it. let alone winning it in a meaningful and dominant capacity. with this in mind these changes in policy can only be seen as politically motivated to at best, curry favour for investment in the sport from political money, at worst, social conservatives capturing social insititutions. elite sport is not the main purpose of sport, it's community participation and development at all ages; we should strive to have that as diverse and as inclusive as possible
also @leggy_blonde i'm going to assume what you typed was at the end of a long weekend in the sun and you'll reflect on it to be in flippency and a poor taste joke. when we discuss trans women in sport we're not letting men compete with women, or if we should let a special type of man compete with women if they wear a dress, comments like yours only serve to parrot this misconception. we're talking about women being able to compete with women, and the policing of womens bodies which happen when we allow discrimination over what women are able to compete.
-
Thank you, also thank you @Maj, that might redress the balance.
-
this forum isn't exactly known for hatred of minorities of any sort, quite the opposite. Accusations are unhelpful and will never lead to better understanding.
As a female person (not a minority yet undeniably historically and still marginalised), I find the forum far less welcoming than I used to.
I utterly reject the belief that the only significant difference between men and women is mental. I do not accept my existence and my lived experience of the constraints and pressures that are imposed on female people by a sexist society being redefined as some sort of proof that there is such a thing as a Woman's mind that exists independent of the body.
Like many women (OG version) I'm horrified how happy male people who consider themselves to be progressive have been to support the appropriation of female opportunities, protections, political voice, even our actual name, as resources for the benefit of males.
Sure, if you redefine womanhood as type of mind you can make comforting statements about "including all women" in women's sport, but all you've really done is created new opportunities for male people at the expense of female.
I don't believe this - or at least I hope it doesn't - comes from a place of hating women but I do think it comes from a deep seated unconscious belief that women are lesser than men, and that men have the objective vision, and therefore the right, to define society and women's place within in it. And I am quietly terrified how quickly rage and yes, hate, arises against the women who stand up and say No to having this new, mental definition of womanhood imposed upon them.
Women (OG version) are talking about this to each other. More and more every day. If they are not talking to you about it it's because they are scared to.
Let that sink in. Women are becoming scared to tell so-called progressive, feminist men the truth. They do not believe you will listen. They believe you will call the witch hunt on them.
Even if you don't believe our sex is innately significant, living as female in culture shaped by and for male people makes it significant, and we need the rights and language to talk about that.
Yes, trans people exist, but Female people also exist.
We share many challenges. We could have a fantastic dialogue between trans people and female people about the way male-shaped culture shapes us and how to escape that and make it better for all of us. But we cannot do that when male people who believe they are the same as us appropriate our cultural and physical spaces, our political voice and even our own name.
leggy_blonde
Calumonwheels
Bearlegged
jakemcree
velosaurus
Maj
ColinTheBald
M_V
Ste_S
ffm
brokenbettyAbout
British Cycling being embarassing, obsequious idiots ...
Posted by
@lazysuperhero
Literally nobody is being denied participation.