British Cycling being embarassing, obsequious idiots ...

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.