"Dumped by email": Mother of transgender cyclist Emily Bridges speaks out after British Cycling decision to suspend trans policy

So trans women can compete as women unless they actually win (an incredibly rare occurance, in reality)? That kind of begs the question doesn't it?

UCI and BC frame this as "protecting women from unfair competition" yet if we wanted to protect women cyclists we would abolish UCI and BC and replace them with bodies that had women athlethes' interests at their heart.

Lest we forget, testosterone testing comes from a long history of dodgy pseudo-science and the athletics regulators are the ones who have held back women's participation in sport for decades. These regulations are not coming from a good place and they are about continued subjegation of women in sport, as Doyle argues here: https://thesportspectacle.com/2016/08/16/capturing-semenya/ 

Caster Semenya is not trans, she is intersex (DSD) so shouldn't really be used to push the trans argument. Only 0.0018% are intersex. 
I never said trans women can compete as long as they don't win. My stance has always been trans women shouldn't compete against non-trans women.  
You'll no doubt bring in "nuance" and say things like "it's complicated" but the facts are that trans women carry quite a few advantages over non-trans women. Deny biology/science all you want but they are based on facts, not ideology. 

Ramz wrote:

So trans women can compete as women unless they actually win (an incredibly rare occurance, in reality)? That kind of begs the question doesn't it?

UCI and BC frame this as "protecting women from unfair competition" yet if we wanted to protect women cyclists we would abolish UCI and BC and replace them with bodies that had women athlethes' interests at their heart.

Lest we forget, testosterone testing comes from a long history of dodgy pseudo-science and the athletics regulators are the ones who have held back women's participation in sport for decades. These regulations are not coming from a good place and they are about continued subjegation of women in sport, as Doyle argues here: https://thesportspectacle.com/2016/08/16/capturing-semenya/ 

but if they DONT win, you have abhorrent transphobes deciding that they must have thrown the event in order to not draw attention. Or some other trolling nonsense. 

nosferatu1001 wrote:

but if they DONT win, you have abhorrent transphobes deciding that they must have thrown the event in order to not draw attention. Or some other trolling nonsense.

It's difficult to argue with someone who slanders anyone who does not agree.

The situation you describe represents a perverse incentive. Whether or not a given competitor has yielded to that incentive is not the issue. So you can hold off asking for proof that so-and-so has deliberately performed sub-par (and you know such proof is almost impossible to provide, which is why you ask), and accept - since you have described it yourself - that the situation exists when you have transwomen competing against women. If you run a competitive sport in the face of obvious perverse incentives, there will always be questions asked.

If you think anything is libellous, please point it out. I've, in my opinion, identified transphobic people from their transphobic written comments on here. 

There is a perverse incentive you can find for any competitor to throw a competition.  Gambling, for example. 
 

When, with absolutely no evidence - none, not even an analysis of performance past and present to suggest an abnormal time, for example - an accusation is made that the competitor threw a race purely to avoid adverse publicity when there may not have been any at all, well, that's quite a jump. 

You keep stating "biological females" yet cannot define that for anyone. Care to do so now? 
 

you've had well over a month since first asked, so should,be trivial. 
 

also, not virtue signalling. It's about treating people who are women as women. 

I'll give you a clue. Emily Bridges is not a biological woman. Does that make it any clearer?

sparrowlegs wrote:

I'll give you a clue. Emily Bridges is not a biological woman. Does that make it any clearer?

ill give you a clue. You sound EXACTLY as idiotic as this guy

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/josh-hawle...

does that make it any clearer? 
also, please provide proof of what a biological woman is. Then you can prove Emily isn't.  Whoops, you're still stuffed there, aren't you? 

You're still confusing gender with sex. 

Nope, not at all.

did you read the link?

oh, do you have any proof that the trans competitor threw the match deliberately? Or are you just going to spread malicious statements and then run away when called on them?

nosferatu1001 wrote:

You keep stating "biological females" yet cannot define that for anyone

Isn't it the case that it's easy to define for the vast majority of women? Then there is a tiny proportion for whom it's much more difficult, and where setting an exact definition which is fair to all is actually rather difficult?

Or perhaps you have the perfect answer already - in which case, please share.

Duncann wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:

You keep stating "biological females" yet cannot define that for anyone

Isn't it the case that it's easy to define for the vast majority of women? Then there is a tiny proportion for whom it's much more difficult, and where setting an exact definition which is fair to all is actually rather difficult?

Or perhaps you have the perfect answer already - in which case, please share.

Shockingly it isn't easy- which is the point. 
What tends to happen is it's a reductionist field day of misogynistic ideas usually revolving around the presence or otherwise of various reproductive organs.  
for example, the entire GOP managed to fall into this exact issue despite saying it was easy to do...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/josh-hawle...

Well, in my world, a biological woman has a cervix, ovaries, breasts, has the ability to be able to reproduce and have babies. Whereas a biological male does not have any of the above and cannot have babies. That seems pretty clear to me, and anyone else with common sense.

Unfortunately, unless you're a lefty liberal woke, you cannot have eveything your own way in life, just because you want it.

biker phil wrote:

Well, in my world, a biological woman has a cervix, ovaries, breasts, has the ability to be able to reproduce and have babies. Whereas a biological male does not have any of the above and cannot have babies. That seems pretty clear to me, and anyone else with common sense.

Unfortunately, unless you're a lefty liberal woke, you cannot have eveything your own way in life, just because you want it.

Okay, so women's competitions should only be open to women who have had a successful pregnancy and haven't reached menopause yet. To even it up a bit, the men's competitions should only be open to men who've fathered at least one child.

It's the way that he has excluded the people who have had a full hysterectomy, or those who have had a double mastectomy, or indeed those infertile, from the definition of womanhood.

But wether or not it shows to him that simple definitions come with problems, I don't know.

ktache wrote:

It's the way that he has excluded the people who have had a full hysterectomy, or those who have had a double mastectomy, or indeed those infertile, from the definition of womanhood.

But wether or not it shows to him that simple definitions come with problems, I don't know.

I shudder to think how he plans on categorising the junior teams

hawkinspeter wrote:

ktache wrote:

It's the way that he has excluded the people who have had a full hysterectomy, or those who have had a double mastectomy, or indeed those infertile, from the definition of womanhood.

But wether or not it shows to him that simple definitions come with problems, I don't know.

I shudder to think how he plans on categorising the junior teams

Possibly a system of tattoos and numbers, so he can ensure only approved people csn enter? 

You say that like it's a bad thing!  Meanwhile the world has chosen to identify itself with chips... No this is not Covid-era (over already!) paranoia but the ones we all bought in our phones which we use to publicise our "private" lives.

Anyway on the plus side it would stop solve all those criminal cyclists getting away with it because they can't be identified.

chrisonatrike wrote:

You say that like it's a bad thing!  Meanwhile the world has chosen to identify itself with chips... No this is not Covid-era (over already!) paranoia but the ones we all bought in our phones which we use to publicise our "private" lives.

Anyway on the plus side it would stop solve all those criminal cyclists getting away with it because they can't be identified.

absolutley - I wonder what phi would do for anyone who needs a hysterectomy though, or hits menopause.  Does their chip get wiped?

Can't find it now but read years back a classic on the difficulties that systems then had of keeping track of / representing an individual in data.  Marginally relevant here because it went something like "Jenny Smith -> (growing up) -> Ms. Jennifer Smith -> (college) -> Dr. Jennifer Smith -> (marriage) -> Dr. Jennifer Jones / Mrs. Simon Jones -> (change of career) -> Revd. Jennifer Jones -> (divorce) -> Revd. Jen Smith -> (change of gender) -> Revd. John Smith -> (change of religion) -> Davider Singh -> (in politics) -> Hon. Davinder Singh, MP -> (enoblement) -> Lord Trent -> ..."

Anyway I was forgetting, didn't this all start from rules for higher-level competitions by a sporting organisation or something?

Again nothing to do with competition or rights but a note that even in existing traditional category and labelling systems there are a possibly surprising range of options e.g. Spanish surnames (note that the paternal one comes first though - but the opposite order in Portugal) More of this here.

Absolutley - customer management systems have a huge fun time of this. Keeping track is so difficult, even by assigning unique ID and having field history to track the change of identifiers. 

And yeah, it's quite the track from "this sport bsck tracked on years of consultation and implementation in a matter of hours" to posters claiming anyone withiut a uterus isn't a woman. 

nosferatu1001 wrote:

And yeah, it's quite the track from "this sport bsck tracked on years of consultation and implementation in a matter of hours" to posters claiming anyone withiut a uterus isn't a woman. 

Much has been made of comments such as men have a penis, women have a uterus, or comments in a similar vein regarding fathering or bearing children etc used as a definition of biological sex. Immediately shot down by the argument that that excludes women who have had a hysterectomy and so on.

Two things. Firstly I would agree that just because a woman has lost her uterus or whatever does not mean she is no longer a woman. Likewise a man who has lost whatever male sexual characteristics does not cease to be a man.

Secondly, regarding the original statements, they should say that, for example, all people who can bear children are women, but not all women can bear children. All people who can father children are men, but not all men can father children. I would have though that was understood, but neglecting the second part is no reason to shoot down the first.

I think much of the argument could be deflated by being more precise.

Maybe some Venn diagrams would help?  Although given we're no longer talking about a static system they'd have to move.  So maybe something like those pop-up books?

But that's still rather insulting, is one of the main issues with cis-the men making that argument.  That all that matters about a women is her reproductive capabilities. 
misogyny is a thing. 

ktache wrote:

It's the way that he has excluded the people who have had a full hysterectomy, or those who have had a double mastectomy, or indeed those infertile, from the definition of womanhood.

And yet, trans activism is not fuelled primarily by childless, infertile or menopausal women fighting to be recognised and admitted to womanhood.

Sriracha wrote:

ktache wrote:

It's the way that he has excluded the people who have had a full hysterectomy, or those who have had a double mastectomy, or indeed those infertile, from the definition of womanhood.

And yet, trans activism is not fuelled primarily by infertile or menopausal women fighting to be recognised and admitted to womanhood.

Maybe because (almost) no-one uses such a short-sighted definition of womanhood

Possibly so. Or possibly because women did not start the dispute in the first place.

Sriracha wrote:

Possibly so. Or possibly because women did not start the dispute in the first place.

...depending on how you define "women"