The report, from Sport England, concluded that trans women have an advantage in some sports, even when testosterone levels have been reduced.
To protect female sport while also ensuring transgender participation, the report suggested that new 'universal' or 'open' categories are introduced for trans athletes.
Comments
Sad for all concerned but it just has to be that way.
In your scenario ("...out of fairness it shouldn't happen the other way round either") then men are going to be overlooked for the role of cox by women. Women's bodies are ideally matched to the requirements of the role of cox.
If it's ok for a women to be a cox in a men's boat race (for what it's worth, I think it is), then, by extension, it should be ok for men to row in the women's boat race, since their bodies are likely to be more ideally matched to the requirements of the sport (for what it's worth, I don't think this is ok).
In short, there's no blanket solution to the issue of gender barriers in sport.
The fact of the matter is the 2 biological forms of female and male are fundamentally different in growth and development, and therefore no amount of hormone replacement therapy is going to reverse the muscle tissue development the body has already been through.
There are countless things that differentiate the genders in almost all species of natural life, from being bigger and stronger, difference in appearance, having different genitalia, the list goes on, that's (literally) life. So to be honest, I think allowing people who were assigned male at birth to compete against people assigned female at birth, no matter how negligible the difference may seem, would be giving them an unfair advantage
I'm also incredibly disappointed at the editorialising by the BBC headline: "Transgender inclusion, fairness and safety often cannot co-exist", says major review
This - if you didn't know it was about sport - just sounds anti-trans. And I think it's probably deliberate, given the BBC's inexcusable coverage of things like Tavistock.
There is an undercurrent of subtle - and some not so subtle - anti-trans sentiment throughout mainstream media at the moment, and it's absolutely growing. And it is really infuriating to read.
Why do we actually have women's sport at all? It's because 99% of sports men are "better" than women. There are open categories in almost every sport. We tend to refer to them as men's.
If a women is good enough to win the "mens" open golf, the world heavy weight boxing championship, the 100 meters freestyle, the 110 meter hurdles, Wimbledon, the tour de France or anything else she probably would be allowed to, in most cases.
There some archaic "men only" spaces like clubs that I think we are would all agree are wrong but there are reasons why there are things like women only gyms, women only swimming sessions. And that reason is men.
This week of all weeks we need to all be mindful of women's rights and why they not only exist, but why they are an absolute necessity. If women can't play women's sport with out competing against men you might as well jack it in.
Does that make me transphobic or a TERF? I honestly don't think so but being labeled one is, quite frankly, a price I am prepared to pay.
Was it... right? I don't know enough to pass comment. But I think it probably benefited trans people, who are grossly underrepresented in sport, to have some visibility - despite the attendant brouhaha.