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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.
pascalo
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.
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.
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.
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.