British Cycling being embarassing, obsequious idiots ...

I think you got it wrong, they got a free pass, it's just women who have to sit down, shut up and listen.

The man defending trans rights steamed into the chat, shouted like fuck, shouted over cis women who appeared to be making considered posts, kept shouting at everyone, and then stomped off. Most people have been focussed on his activity, though some have suggested that people “looking for gender critical discussion” should do so elsewhere.

No one has come up with a solution to include everyone in bike racing.

Amirite?

So we should listen to the transphobe? Should we listen to racists and homophobes, also?

So we should listen to the transphobe? Should we listen to racists and homophobes, also?

I don't know, since you only seem to have a problem with those groups I must assume you are a paedophile so I can't really value your opinion anymore.

Lol. If it helps I have a problem with other bigoted (and illegal) viewpoints and actions.

Do you think transphobia is ok, and transphobes should be listened too?

I'm wary of adding another voice, as the most informed and relevant voices in this thread are women, transgender, and non binary people.

Me too. As a white, straight, cis-male with privilege oozing from every pore I'm hesitant to put my oar in more than I have done previously as, like you, I've found the most informative and enlightening posts recently in this thread to have come from women and non-binary/trans people. However, as someone who'd like to be an ally to both cis-women and trans-women, I also feel it would be cowardly not to try and educate myself on these issues and to engage in the debate so that I can better understand the issues, learning from those better placed than me to comment on them.

The one insight I have is that the pitting of transgender and gender critical women against each other is happening in a crucible of misogyny.

Also agreed. I can, I hope, understand the desire of cis-women to have safe spaces which exclude men given their experience of misogyny and male violence, and their fear that those spaces will be violated if gender becomes no more than a matter of self-declaration. I can also, I hope, understand the desire of trans-women not to be excluded from women-only spaces on the basis that doing so rejects their existence as women. I don't have an answer to how that conflict can be resolved, and given that I have no skin in the game, I don't feel I'm in a position to offer one. All I think I can do at present is to make sure that, as far as I possibly can, I'm not part of the problem.

If we could tackle the rancid and toxic misogyny that pervades every aspect of our society, maybe we could resolve some of these issues.

Also agreed, but it does seem to me that sport is one of those issues where there is a more fundamental issue than misogyny and general discrimination against women. It seems fairly clear to me - although I stand as ever to be corrected - that while there has undoubtedly been misogyny and discrimination in sport, the fact remains that people who were born male and grew up as male have a distinct advantage over women in sport, due to the effects of testosterone and androgen on the human body.

@Velocio has referred to women being excluded from the TdF, and being given their own race on that basis, but in reality the very best women cyclists wouldn't get a place as a domestique in a race open to both men and women. If you ignored sex in professional cycling, or Olympic track cycling, then there would be no professional women cyclists. That isn't the result of a social construct or historical misogyny. It's just biology. Sure, if I was racing against Katie Archibald on a track (or anywhere, frankly) I wouldn't even see which way she'd gone, but that's because I'm old, slow and have the athletic ability of a bunch of asparagus. To my mind, it's not a question of excluding women from male-only competition. It's a question of excluding men from women-only competition, so as to provide women with a space where they can compete on a level playing field with other women. As to who qualifies as a woman, well, on that point I am going to take the coward's way out and defer to others.

At the risk of being pilloried as Centrist Dad (despite having no children) I can understand why a trans-woman would want to compete as a woman, as an affirmation of her identity and to reflect the physical changes which come with hormone treatment. However, I can also understand why cis-women would consider it unfair that someone who had the benefit of the hormonal advantages of going through puberty as a man would be able to race against them when they did not have that physiological advantage. Going back to something @ough said, I'm not sure it's really a zero-sum game. Seems to me it's a question of two inherently incompatible arguments with no obvious answer.

I humbly suggest that men contributing here could put their mind to that goal.

Trying to. Hope that comes across to all and sundry. Flame away if you wish, but this is genuinely written in good faith and with a fair degree of trepidation.

I don't know what that label means anymore in this discussion. It went from people wondering
how bike races could be organized fairly to "OMG, you want to kill trans people"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia

If that helps?

Context - I find it sad that some people are trying to both sides the debate in this thread, in a way that wouldn't happen with other bigoted viewpoints.

I think the what makes it complex is that it affects 2 groups that both suffer from discrimination, so you do have to consider 2 sides, because as it has been pointed out multiple times that men will not be negatively affected by this.

[redundant, said better by other]

The point you made about the performance difference is exactly what I was trying to get at, albeit more eloquently articulated.

If there is a better way to form fair brackets, I'm keen to hear it. But not just for a fixie race that only few give a toss about, but with consideration of a level of competition where money, ego, sponsors, tv coverage etc all come in.

I find it sad that some people are trying to both sides the debate in this thread

Is "to both sides" an implied action or a typo/omitted word?

Katie Archibald was mentioned above. I think she's the only (current) pro cyclist who has spoken publicly about this. As the discussion has calmed down now, maybe it's worth adding.

“I feel let down by the International Olympic Committee who tell me there should be no assumed advantage for an athlete with a gender identity different to their sex,” she said.

“I read this and hear that my world titles, my Olympic medals, and the champions jerseys I have at home, were all won in a category of people who simply don’t try as hard as the men. That losing to male androgenisation is not about biology, but mindset. They are wrong.

She added: “The retained advantage of people who have gone through male puberty in strength, stamina and physique, with or without testosterone suppression, has been well documented."

(She also expressed a lot of sympathy for the trans women let down/treated unfairly by the IOC.)

just to add to some of Velocio’s points:

on bio sex as being more complex than just what the docs see when you pop out:
https://youtu.be/szf4hzQ5ztg

on JKR, respectibility politics and seemingly ‘reasonable’, what that omits and/or assumes:
https://youtu.be/7gDKbT_l2us

an insight into the views of some of the most prominent in the gender-critical movement:
https://youtu.be/Ou_xvXJJk7k

it’s almost funny in that a lot of trans folks, including Natalie Wynn in the second vid, also very much feel things like sports and trans people aren’t simple things to remedy - but arguably the arguments around them are easily hijacked for use as a kind of litmus test (e.g. trans women banned from bike races ergo they’re not real women (pls note, i do not agree with that statement)

Are people editing stuff?

I see email updates and then the text says otherwise.

Someone used the phrase "I don't know if this was written in haste" about my understanding of sports stuff... and yes, it was. I'm on holiday (currently pre-breakfast), and I don't want to be on the forum trying not to ban people (and as I'm on holiday my temptation to ban is far higher because it's less total expenditure of effort and time on my part).

To my very hastily thought out TdF comment... I kinda think like perhaps you can have a single race where everyone participates at once. A bit like a marathon I guess where you can give prizes to lots of different groups in the same event. And you know, the TdF does this already with age discrimination built-in (white jersey) as well as skill based discrimination. The marathon does it with sex, disability, age, etc. You don't have to segregate anything, but that's what they've chosen to do so that's what they have to double-down on if they're not willing to overhaul the structure of the events - which they are not.

So yes it's hastily written, but just trying to highlight that it's not beyond comprehension to be able to do things differently if doing so was desired, if it was wanted to be inclusive rather than exclusive.

I can, I hope, understand the desire of cis-women to have safe spaces which exclude men given their experience of misogyny and male violence, and their fear that those spaces will be violated if gender becomes no more than a matter of self-declaration. I can also, I hope, understand the desire of trans-women not to be excluded from women-only spaces on the basis that doing so rejects their existence as women. I don't have an answer to how that conflict can be resolved, and given that I have no skin in the game, I don't feel I'm in a position to offer one. All I think I can do at present is to make sure that, as far as I possibly can, I'm not part of the problem.

Brommers I'm afraid you didn't edit (thank you) so I can reply.

The thought experiment is basically the toilet one (such a distraction)...

But let's try the same experiment with other form of discrimination.

Racism

I can, I hope, understand the desire of white people to have safe spaces which exclude black people given their and their fear that those spaces will be violated if race becomes no more than a matter of self-declation.

I won't even finish it, but you know... it's pretty obvious already.

Homophobia

I can, I hope, understand the desire of normal people to have safe spaces which exclude gays given AIDS is a gay disease and their fear that those spaces will be violated...

Agism

I can, I hope, understand the desire of young people to have safe spaces which exclude embittered and smelly older people and their fear those spaces will be violated...

Ablism

I can, I hope understand the desire of able-bodied people to have safe spaces which are not compromised just to accommodate disabled people and their fear those spaces will be violated...

You can run the gamut of other exclusionary, segregatory, hate and isms... and no matter how you do the thought experiment, the conclusion is that the first part of your argument is transphobia.

The real risk to any persons isn't to the woman at risk in the toilet from another woman... it's the woman that was forced to use the men's toilet. Forced to out themselves, be humiliated, be uncomfortable, be subjected to any type of speech (and you know men will open their mouths and say something when a woman is in the men's toilets).

No woman can look at another woman and judge whether she is, or isn't, a woman based on looks. Hell, men look like women, women look like men, many just look like how they are and fit less binary definition. It's all so arbitrary, but when the transphobic argument is used to create discriminatory laws and rules that segregate and exclude... it's trans people that pay the highest price (think of the reaction if the trans man uses the womens facilities! exactly the logical conclusion of TERF argument though), now excluded from all spaces and as a result from society at large. Yet as you cannot know who is or isn't trans unless they're telling you... what you also do is bring in laws which now overlap policing and enforcement into the spaces and lives of all women.

This stuff is transphobic, and it's not even an argument as to whether it is. It doesn't hold against any scrutiny or intellectual thought. It barely holds at the level of pub debate. It's transphobic. And it does not differ from racism, homophobia, sexism, ageism, ablism, or any other hate thread.

Do I care whether or not any individual honestly believes that trans people are not the men or women they claim? Nope... I'm going to ban. Because I also do not care if someone honestly believes there is a difference between races, that gays are perverted, that disabled people shouldn't be allowed in their space as it makes them uncomfortable, yada, yada, yada. I'm just going to ban people based on hate language regardless of other factors.

I don't buy it, and nor should you.

In fact... I didn't enter into this trying to convince anyone of anything, but if you've (all cis-men thinking they have no skin in the game) reached the end of this post and are still wondering how you can make a difference... it's the same as with racism, ablism, ageism, homophobia, sexism, etc... fight the hate and don't make excuses for it. Understand it, and fight the hate.

I will watch these but they are long so I likely won't respond today. I approach this with genuine hope it won't be just the same old cherry picked quotes out of context and distorted strawmen misrepresentations I've seen so many times before - ever the optimist me.

Wouldn't that just mean something like the female category as one of the bands within the big event, then one person goes "but XYZ shouldn't be in that category because they weren't born as a woman" and you get back to more of the same?

Anyways, I hope you have a good holiday!

Betty, I fear your optimism will be misplaced.

no worries! i should warn you the longest one (Contrapoints) can be a bit sardonic and often plays characters - but the length of her videos is generally as she builds up the philosophical foundation of the arguments being made.

When it comes to female-only spaces and language, the relevant comparator for other -isms isn't cis==white/hetro/abled/young, trans==black/gay/disabled/old, it's male==white/hetro/abled/young, female==black/gay/disabled/old.

Unlike Male people excluding female or White people excluding Black, Female people didn't need spaces / rights / opportunities reserved for female people to maintain power and entitlement, they needed, and still need, them as a refuge from Male power and entitlement.

That's the power dynamic that female-only spaces exist for.

And in case there's any doubt, I would 100% support (and indeed actively do support) Black people saying they need a space away from white, or opportunities created for Black people, to mitigate the challenges of being Black in a racist society. And the same for gay, disabled, trans and old people (and actually, young people), and any subsets in those groups or other groups that feel they need to define themselves separately to deal with the challenges they face by being not society's default human. Marginalised people have a moral right to physical and mental space away from the powers that marginalise them, and to be allowed to define themselves and speak of their own lives in their own voices.

Maybe you move in circles where this doesn't happen any more, but I promise you for me and many, probably most, other women, being female in this world is like carrying a weight around all day. Female-only spaces, places without males taking up our space, resources and attention, are the respite that allows us to heal and find ourselves.

But if we can't talk about the impact of sex in the context of gender (because notwithstanding that sex may be biologically complicated in the details, the physical and social consequences of sex for the roughly 50% of humans that do meet the criteria to be correctly recognised as female the day they are born are certainly fucking real) then this disappears from the picture. And that's just --- sexism on steroids.

You mentioned Intersectionality. You assumed I wouldn't know what it was. I was doing womens/gender studies back in the 90s. Yes I know about intersectionality. Back then it wasn't "who can pile the highest intersectional pile", it was about understanding that intersecting axis of oppression change the shape of oppression - that women experience different aspects of sexism based on factors like race, class and so on. Back then we saw gender as another axis of social control, cultural myths pretending to be "natural" (yep, pretty sure I even read some Judith Butler as well). We saw gender as a tool of the Patriarchy, something we needed to challenge and demolish in order to free both men and women from constraining stereotypes and myths. Our aim was to be without gender, just people with different bodies. If someone had told me then that 30 years later we'd be told that it's the gender, not the bodies, that is real, that people would start thinking they had to change their body to match their gender and that this would be called Progressive - well honestly I think I'd have blamed last night's acid.

So to talk about Intersectionality without including sex, the deepest, probably oldest, most universal axis of oppression, the one the runs like a faultline through our history and through all our social structures from our most private domestic lives to our heads of state, the one that we are unwittingly complicit in before we are even born because of what our gestation and care means for our female parent in a sexist society - to think you can reoplace that axis with gender identity and it doesn't even fucking matter - that's just a sick joke.

You talk about the real problem being the Patriarchy. I agree. You think saying a trans woman is male is transphobia. I disagree. I think society can neither challenge the Patriarchy NOR fully accept trans people UNTIL we can honestly talk about the significance of sex. Trans women ARE male. It's kind of the fundamental defining feature, otherwise they'd be cis women. Owning that is in itself is a huge fuck you to Patriarchy. Denying it is not only letting that big toxic lump patriarchy labelled "Maleness" to continue to exist unchallenged, it's actively perpetuating the Patriarchal power structure of male people believing they have the right to define, speak for and utilise female people.

As I said in my original post, yes, trans people exist, but Female people also exist (some of whom are also trans, of course).

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, because you do not even allow us the words we need to describe what it is to be us and not you.

Because 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.

I've seen the first two of those. The first is interesting, but really talks about the complexity of sex development and so is somewhat orthogonal to many of the issues. I like contrapoints and I think Natalie is usually worth a watch although I'm not sure her arguments here are the best. The last appears to be largely guilt-by-association from a quick skim through it.

For the sports issue specifically Ross Tucker is quite good, he contributes to this BBC article. Likewise Jon Pike has written on philosophical concepts of fairness in this issue.

you're a very smart woman @brokenbetty , we've spoken before and one of those reasons we did speak is because you clearly are quite switched on when it comes to feminist theory, the 70-90's of british feminism is a fascinating place which has shaped the lives of women and LGBT people for this country since and you know this as well as i, more even, you were there. but what i think you do struggle with, much as i thought at the time and still now, is that you forget you're a middle class white woman.

when we talk about intersectionality, in bell hooks original intention, the core principle of such is not that these labels are interchangable and applyable like pin badges, but that the intersections you have are fixed, not from birth, but we aquire them through life. this helps to explain how a intelligent black women will find it much harder in the world, as a woman, as professional, as a person, than a middling white woman from a old money family. rehashed by, i'm sure you know, peggy mcintosh when discussing how privilige was an explicit tool to convey the impact of whitness and how it is pervaisive even amongst "the good ones" (funny how this has been forgotten and the intention of privledge discourse is heirachical masturbation, maybe something for people in this thread to remember). with this in mind it's very interesting reading your thoughts on intersectionality, and how you dont think it has helped women all that much. i think this goes some way to articulate why you have so much difficulty relating to trans women.

i actually reject that trans and blackness are synonymous models of marginalised experience, they're not, they're parralell but a white trans woman like myself, and a black trans woman have a multitidue of different experiences and risk factors in society at large, that are different in consequence even when considering the patriachy we both face. but we're both women even though our experiences and fears come from different avenues. much in the same way that when a trans woman stands side by side with a cis woman, we're both women.

trans women are women, they have been treated like a woman their whole life, it's why our experiences and understanding of male patriarchy are connected. one does not decide to take HRT, get shunned by friends and family, face unemployment, homelessness, and LGBT violence for an internal feeling or to win some sporting events. much like a lesbian does not choose to be gay, or a hetrosexual woman who deplores the patriarchal impact and control men have over her life chooses to end up married to a man who you have to coach into cleaning up after themselves.

the idea that trans woman somehow is embodying or weaponising patriarchy, or in competition with a woman is a misunderstanding of how patriarchy is formed. it's not an individual agency, the patriarchy isn't something one embodies, it's a structures used to describe how societry constructs to advantage white men. ofc trans women can be participatory in this, so can cis women, they do all the time, for they are both white women. which is why writers like bell hooks wrote about intersectionality, how could we critique whiteness, and the participation of white women in the patriarchy, how could we critique feminism for its erasure of black and brown bodies, how could we critique feminism of its erasure of queer experiences. i also believe hooks went on to define that trans women also are a valid critique of feminism (https://www.instagram.com/tv/CXhZ6fWAoc4/?hl=en)

i don't expect to change your mind betty, i've failed at that before, you're an autonomous person with your own experience.

but i think you might get banned if you keep calling trans women male and i don't want that, i like having strong opinionated women around in this see of fence sitting men, so i'm trying again to say, let's stop that

Hey @Maj - thank you for the reply and you know I respect you too. I'm not going to get into a back and forth that neither of us want but I think you've misunderstood my points on -isms, on patriarchy and on intersectionality. I'm not trying to convince you of anything here - you also know your own mind :) just clarify where I think you misrepresented me.

I'm not saying trans and blackness are synonymous models of marginalised experience at all, I'm just saying the power dynamic between male and female is not in the direction of female to male, and therefore Veloccio's examples of female excluding male being like white excluding black, straight excluding gay etc are the wrong way round.

And I know Patriarchy is the structures society constructs to advantage men (sorry, can't agree it's just white men, plenty of non-white societies are patriarchal, some pretty fucking violently), but those structures are built out of both tangible institutions and the intangible individual actions people take every day, mostly unconsciously, that reinforce them. Patriarchy informs the individual actions between men and women (and men and men, and women and women) through which domestic and social power is enacted.

And I don't reject Intersectionality, not at all. Not do I think all intersections are fixed at birth. What I am calling out is an intersectional analysis that ignores physical sex, or assumes it can be subsumed into gender. Sex and gender intersect.

Ok, that's all I wanted to say. If I don't get banned I hope we will continue to have the odd cautious and polite interaction over the trenches - and maybe one day I'll even be able to get you that beer I owe you ;)

(And of course I don't forget that I'm a middle class white woman! I have a lot of privilege. But even women like me know what it's like to be spoken over by male people, to walk in a room, or sit in a park or get on a train even, and realise the women are just... not there, not myself raped thank god but yes pulled off my bike in the dark, not hit in anger but see the flash of rage for saying no or answering back, to try again and again to find the right words to say something reasonable without provoking anger and realise there can never be any right words for someone who doesn't want to hear...)

This is such a divisive contentious issue and it’s painful to watch people arguing.

Isn’t a bigger problem that all competition is inherently unfair. Some sports are better suited to people with certain physiolgies - body proportions, muscle mass (or lack of it) quick twitch/ slow twitch fibres, left or right handed etc etc. Some sports are better suited to different mind sets. Rules in sports are often aimed to reduce the impact of the differences but then at the end of the event a victor is crowned, the person who is considered by the arbitrary rules and metrics of the sport to be better. But it’s impossible to create a level playing field, and if it was done then people may as well turn up and watch a coin toss.

Take away the competitive element and celebrate people’s participation in the activity, their efforts to improve themselves. It’s why I am finding going out riding mountain bikes with friends so rewarding, we acknowledge where each other have ridden well/ found a great line/ ridden a feature that used to inspire fear etc but we are not looking for Strava QOMs/KOMS (which are also not inclusive terms).