I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
“ Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?”
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
OK, let's kick off some pb-style bragging. My best for the 100m at school was 13.5.
A friend was telling me that a hundred years or so, his school sports day had one boy knock 10 seconds off the school half mile record which was obviously absurd and written off as a timing error. A subsequent Olympic gold medal...
5 women entered the qualifying rounds for the snooker world championship this year, although none of them progressed through to the first round of the tournament proper.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
The professionalisation of tennis, much like that of football in the UK, led to stricter sex segregation and more money going towards male athletes.
Oh FFS. All this article proves is that there was a game of mixed doubles going on.
"Lawn tennis got going in the mid-19th century after a British major and a Spanish merchant combined aspects of the British game rackets and the Spanish game pelota. The two opened the first tennis club in 1874. The above drawing comes from the same year, demonstrating the layout of the court — which looks pretty familiar for anyone who's seen a modern tennis court. Also familiar: The fact that women are on the court. Even back in 1874, women were still playing mixed doubles. Though playing in a bustle skirt isn't something that survived the nineteenth century."
Mixed doubles is still a thing. This article doesn't prove any of your lunatic suggestions that men and women should compete against each other in all sports because differences are all "cultural". There is no evidence for any of this, none. All you have shown is that women have always played tennis. Not that they played against men competitively save in mixed doubles.
Fascinating comment by the Dudley’s Tory council leader in the FT yesterday. Like most councils now, Dudley is facing financial difficulty and is “struggling to maintain roads and parks”.
“We were flying along quite nicely 18 months ago . . . then we were hit with a £7mn overspend on adult social care,” he said. The costs related to just five complex individual cases.
How can anyone cost a council £1.4M ?
A regular prisoner costs something like £60-100k a year iirc, and whilst care homes are steep they aren't £1.4M a year steep. Even googling Broadmoor - which you'd expect (more or less) to be the most expensive individuals to maintain, reveals a cost of ~£300k a year (Say a max of £400k now). So £1.4M is right out there. Even with the most complex cases that's a ridiculous cost. Someone somewhere is printing money out of these cases at the taxpayers expense.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
If I were running a girls' boarding school, which tbh is fairly unlikely, I'd install dart boards in all the common areas, and maybe snooker tables as well. There is no strength advantage to men in these sports so quite possibly the very real sex differences we see in real life are due to lack of opportunity. If you've never thrown a dart, how would you know if you are any good at throwing darts? (A question for men as well as women.)
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
That was what all English churches looked like during the Interregnum TBF
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
That was what all English churches looked like during the Interregnum TBF
No the abbey is quite decorative. It’s not swept clean of adornment or stained glass
It’s just… spiritually dead. Empty. Voided. No noom
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
France is wasted on the French. If only Henry VI hadn't been such a giant pussy willow
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
As I see it one problem with this view is that you have just removed the justification for category group sports - so perhaps the nine year olds should be playing football on the same pitch as the fifteen year olds.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
I remember the days on PB when, from midday onwards on a Wednesday, PB would be full of comments about PMQs. In recent weeks (months?) it barely merits a cursory mention. Is that because it's all over for Rishi, or because it's ineffably dull? Or both?
Back in the day, all I remember is that the PB Tories would say "Cameron is on fire" or "Cameron is pulling his punches", depending on his PMQ performance.
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
France is wasted on the French. If only Henry VI hadn't been such a giant pussy willow
Or if Henry V and his army had practiced better hygiene.
I remember the days on PB when, from midday onwards on a Wednesday, PB would be full of comments about PMQs. In recent weeks (months?) it barely merits a cursory mention. Is that because it's all over for Rishi, or because it's ineffably dull? Or both?
Back in the day, all I remember is that the PB Tories would say "Cameron is on fire" or "Cameron is pulling his punches", depending on his PMQ performance.
Twitter is still full of 'you must be watching a different PMQs to me' goodness
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
That was what all English churches looked like during the Interregnum TBF
No the abbey is quite decorative. It’s not swept clean of adornment or stained glass
It’s just… spiritually dead. Empty. Voided. No noom
I meant more the conversion to a warehouse bit, as happened in Canterbury and others.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus
If the poll is correct, looks like the Tory vote is relatively holding up in places linked to the military ? Indicates a comfortable hold of Aldershot to my mind.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
This article explains much better than I do why, although there are clearly differences between the sexes, that culture is as a significant factor as biology. I note this quote specifically:
Consider the skeletal remains of ancient people. Differences in body size between females and males of a species, a phenomenon called sexual size dimorphism, correlate with social structure. In species with pronounced size dimorphism, larger males compete with one another for access to females, and among the great apes larger males socially dominate females. Low sexual size dimorphism is characteristic of egalitarian and monogamous species. Modern humans have low sexual size dimorphism compared with the other great apes. The same goes for human ancestors spanning the past two million years, suggesting that the social structure of humans changed from that of our chimpanzeelike ancestors.
And whilst I do accept things like more types of muscle building and energy release - I still think that in part shows the cultural feelings of sports. Your example above uses sprinting - something that is beneficial to the muscle build up typically associated with men. Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?
“ Why do we consider sprinting a sport or impressive - does it have to do with the fact that it is something that showcases a skill that benefits men, in the same way that basketball showcases a skill that benefits tall people?”
We consider it impressive because most people have sprinted at some point in their life and so we marvel at watching people do something the majority of people can/have done to a level that is beyond our wildest abilities. We enjoy seeing people pushing physical boundaries of speed, dexterity, strength because they are all just extreme extrapolations of what most people can/could do.
Not because it is men. We marvel at the women’s 100m etc in the olympics too.
OK, let's kick off some pb-style bragging. My best for the 100m at school was 13.5.
Fascinating comment by the Dudley’s Tory council leader in the FT yesterday. Like most councils now, Dudley is facing financial difficulty and is “struggling to maintain roads and parks”.
“We were flying along quite nicely 18 months ago . . . then we were hit with a £7mn overspend on adult social care,” he said. The costs related to just five complex individual cases.
Absolutely insane. The entitlement on adult social care, as hard as it may be on individuals causing some real issues of pain and difficulty, needs to be hugely qualified or we will go bankrupt.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth - Leave won 58/42 Southampton - Leave won 54/46
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
If I were running a girls' boarding school, which tbh is fairly unlikely, I'd install dart boards in all the common areas, and maybe snooker tables as well. There is no strength advantage to men in these sports so quite possibly the very real sex differences we see in real life are due to lack of opportunity. If you've never thrown a dart, how would you know if you are any good at throwing darts? (A question for men as well as women.)
"Me, DecrepiterJohnL, running a girls' boarding school, with MY reputation?1??"
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus
If the poll is correct, looks like the Tory vote is relatively holding up in places linked to the military ? Indicates a comfortable hold of Aldershot to my mind.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth - Leave won 58/42 Southampton - Leave won 54/46
It’s imported from US, which current Tory politics and thinking is increasingly shaped by, and to be honest it is a very effective tactic. The number 1 thing in a campaign period is to get your message across, but the first thing you have to do when interviewed is explain the criminality the police are investigating you for. At the end of the “Beergate” month long campaign Labour were pulling their hair out unable to get their message across, and it tightened the national polls to just 4 points. As a Tory leader, you have to go down to the campaign team and say well done, you played a blinder.
As was clear from PMQs today, the Tories now want the police to investigate Vaughan Gething too. Odds on that happens 😈
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
That was what all English churches looked like during the Interregnum TBF
No the abbey is quite decorative. It’s not swept clean of adornment or stained glass
It’s just… spiritually dead. Empty. Voided. No noom
The Celtic vestiges of Gaul hold some of the mystique that is - I agree - missing elsewhere.
A whole system of geography and settlement based on “oppida” and the lines between them. So buried in the forgotten pre Roman past despite being so relatively recent.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
If I were running a girls' boarding school, which tbh is fairly unlikely, I'd install dart boards in all the common areas, and maybe snooker tables as well. There is no strength advantage to men in these sports so quite possibly the very real sex differences we see in real life are due to lack of opportunity. If you've never thrown a dart, how would you know if you are any good at throwing darts? (A question for men as well as women.)
Yes, the "pyramid" effect, the broader the base, the higher the peak. I would give your girls school's common room one of Sunak's chess boards, too.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus
If the poll is correct, looks like the Tory vote is relatively holding up in places linked to the military ? Indicates a comfortable hold of Aldershot to my mind.
Or it might be a special case.
She has a huge profile and works that seat hard.
It’s also just one poll from one firm - other polling of the seat has her doomed by tactical voting.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
And I don't. Live your life they way you want to by all means, but I cannot believe that someone born with the DNA of a man becomes a woman by wishing it so.*
*Clearly biology is fabulously complex and not everyone is either man or woman, but that category is rather small.
We're also straying into semantics a bit. People are fairly clear about what they mean by 'sex' in this context, but at the margin, the boundaries get quite fuzzy when looked at closely.
And there are plenty of examples of other species where the categories are not at all clear. Even at the genetic level, since the mechanisms that control gene expression are much harder to elucidate than are the genes themselves.
Fascinating comment by the Dudley’s Tory council leader in the FT yesterday. Like most councils now, Dudley is facing financial difficulty and is “struggling to maintain roads and parks”.
“We were flying along quite nicely 18 months ago . . . then we were hit with a £7mn overspend on adult social care,” he said. The costs related to just five complex individual cases.
Absolutely insane. The entitlement on adult social care, as hard as it may be on individuals causing some real issues of pain and difficulty, needs to be hugely qualified or we will go bankrupt.
Interesting response. Your mind goes to, “this needs to be qualified”. Someone else posted, “someone is making a killing”. My mind goes to, “this sounds like an over-regulated producer-captured hellscape”.
One thing we all agree on: the status quo ain’t working.
Isn't anyone else a bit concerned about the Home Office being used for party political purposes, by posting a video of the detention of asylum seekers for deportation to Rwanda the day before the local elections?
The SNP just need to ask themselves whether they are likely to lose more voters to Labour/Greens under Forbes or Tories/Alba under Swinney.
Sturgeon's genius was converting a pre-2014 rural SNP into a central belt winning political machine. Going for Forbes = abandoning the central belt and a reversion to their former role as Tartan Tories.
There simply aren't enough rural constituencies for that to work, though perhaps Yousaf's failure to count is contagious?
The "rural" constituencies, i.e anything not in the central belt, are not only fewer in number but historically more marginal. The big fight is still in the central belt, and the SNP are losing the arm wrestle to Scottish Labour, so while I think that Forbes could be a more effective FM in the longer term, I think she will be kept off balance by "events". From the longer point of view of the SNP, it may be better to keep Kate in reserve to lead the recovery, on the grounds that the die is cast for the next GE,
However, Forbes herself thinks that she can limit the losses at the GE and maintain power at Holyrood after the next elections for the Scottish Parliament. Well, all politicians have plenty of ego, but the tide is running, and however skilled Kate Forbes may be, she is probably not ^that^ skilled,
I don't understand - if Forbes is such a good politician, why did she lose to Hamza the first time around?
Humza
Something of an anti-Muslim slur, Hamza
I hear you're a racist* now, 148!
*Islamophobe, whatever.
Last month I called him Yousaf Humza, nasty Islamophobe that I am.
FYI - Hamza is a Muslim name given to men and a surname too.
I remember the days on PB when, from midday onwards on a Wednesday, PB would be full of comments about PMQs. In recent weeks (months?) it barely merits a cursory mention. Is that because it's all over for Rishi, or because it's ineffably dull? Or both?
Neither Sunak or Starmer are that good at it, so the entertainment value is low. Sunak is so far behind, and Tory morale so low, that it hardly matters for internal party reasons, or as a measure of the ebb and flow of political fortunes. The government is proving so adept at aiming both barrels at its own feet that there isn't much significance in terms of holding the government to account.
We're all just waiting, and have been for ages, for the election.
PMQs does show politicians as being like horses, going in and out of form. When they are out on campaign stump quite a lot they are probably not preparing for PMQs as much. Starmer’s poor performances in interviews this week and at PMQs is probably to do with tiredness and all the dashing around.
Anyone else realised Rishi is trolling Starmer with all these “toughest geezer PM” video’s? If Starmer attempted these “interviews whilst running along” or press ups in the garden Rishi is doing, it would probably kill him.
It’s imported from US, which current Tory politics and thinking is increasingly shaped by, and to be honest it is a very effective tactic. The number 1 thing in a campaign period is to get your message across, but the first thing you have to do when interviewed is explain the criminality the police are investigating you for. At the end of the “Beergate” month long campaign Labour were pulling their hair out unable to get their message across, and it tightened the national polls to just 4 points. As a Tory leader, you have to go down to the campaign team and say well done, you played a blinder.
As was clear from PMQs today, the Tories now want the police to investigate Vaughan Gething too. Odds on that happens 😈
Having imported it we should export it pretty darn sharpish. I’m sure there will be room on a flight to Rwanda…
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
That was what all English churches looked like during the Interregnum TBF
[edit] Rather a lot of that was down to the other Cromwell, and then Edward VI, surely?
Reform will undercook there and Penny will be comfortably into the 40s, IMHO.
Not necessarily. UKIP got 20% there in 2015 I suspect her name recognition will see her hold reasonably comfortably but the fact that it's "in play" speaks volumes
Oh look, those ever vigilant guardians against hypothetical trans women in changing rooms aren’t too bothered about actual weirdos intimidating vulnerable women. Who’d have thunk?
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus
If the poll is correct, looks like the Tory vote is relatively holding up in places linked to the military ? Indicates a comfortable hold of Aldershot to my mind.
My issue with Kate Forbes is that she implies a moral superiority over her colleagues and a right to decide on her conscience that doesn't apply to to her colleagues, as if those colleagues don't also have to grapple with their consciences on different issues.
I don't think a single word of that is correct, and I don't think any of it can be justified.
Kate Forbes was hardly backwards coming forward on her moral positions in the leadership campaign last year, dismissing policy decisions her party had laboriously arrived at, no doubt involving all sorts of soul searching by her colleagues that they don't shout about.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The point is that an independent Scotland can choose policies which Forbes likes, or could choose policies which Forbes hates. Unlike at present where Scotland gets the policies that the people of Epping Forest want.
Wrong, at the moment most Scottish domestic policy is decided at Holyrood which only Scots elect. Technically however as there is no English Parliament and now not even EVEL domestic laws relevant to Epping Forest can be voted on by Scottish MPs as much as UK wide laws
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
That was what all English churches looked like during the Interregnum TBF
[edit] Rather a lot of that was down to the other Cromwell, and then Edward VI, surely?
As I said subsequently, I was referring more to the use as a warehouse, than iconoclasm. Some of the Tudors didn't like images but none of them willingly stabled horses in churches.
Former Trump economic adviser and current Fox Business host Larry Kudlow goes off the deep end: Biden is “taxing white people because they own more assets than people of color … racial warfare against white folks and especially successful white folks.” https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/1785417704532275400
The King of Scottish centrist dads has spoken. Somewhat over egged but I largely agree. He’s also the type of default Labour backer who occasionally shows a watery curiosity about Indy that the SNP would rather have on board rather than any of the hacks from the Mail, Express, Tele etc.
I agree with the thrust of the article andalso that it's somewhat over egged. I think Kate Forbes could make a decent First Minister, but I'm pretty sure I'm right she does think she's morally superior to those she disagrees with (the rest of her Party, coalition partners etc). And in any case the perception she does think this way is a political problem for her.
Only in the perception of halfwits like you making up fantasies with no facts
Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A Jewish woman apparently beaten unconscious at UCLA and also at UCLA accses to buildings is being restricted to those displaying pro palestine sympathies.
Not verified at this stage but disturbing and worth further investigation.
The “mystical forest of Broceliande” is a big old pile of frog’s poo. Meh. It is probably the remnant of the great Breton forest but now it is just a large wood
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
That was what all English churches looked like during the Interregnum TBF
[edit] Rather a lot of that was down to the other Cromwell, and then Edward VI, surely?
As I said subsequently, I was referring more to the use as a warehouse, than iconoclasm. Some of the Tudors didn't like images but none of them willingly stabled horses in churches.
Mm. But lots of monasteries got put to secular uses at the Dissolution? The church at Charterhouse was used as royal store wasn't it?
Sky's Beff suggests Labour have been pulling resources from Teeside to focus on West Mids and their aim in Teeside is to get it to single figures behind which would 'win everything' at a GE
That suggests West Mids are close and they might even be slightly behind, and are trying to drive turnout.
Interesting.
Turnouts key there I think, Labour still has the "can't be arsed for locals" brigade in the main.
I'm of the opinion the extent of anger and blame about Birmingham councils finances will be decisive
W Mids anecdote. Intelligent middle class voter, weighing up whom to vote for. Hates the Tories nationally. Quite likes Street. But "then there's the whole Birmingham bankruptcy stuff".
So at least one voter was considering voting against Street on the assumption he is responsible. (Had I not made the point that's the council. But also the second point that it's because of Tory cuts).
Is Birmingham Council's bankruptcy due to the council, government cuts, or its management software which by some accounts means they've not known for two years how much money they have? How do you vote against Oracle?
The problem with KAB is that they turn a brick basement into a tent in the wind if they fall far. If it's close, you lose your hearing. If a bomb falls nearby, you die, no matter where you are hiding. This is depressing psychologically, as you are constantly waiting for death. https://twitter.com/AseyevStanislav/status/1784126720385196355
Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A Jewish woman apparently beaten unconscious at UCLA and also at UCLA accses to buildings is being restricted to those displaying pro palestine sympathies.
Not verified at this stage but disturbing and worth further investigation.
Why aren't the police/authorities defending people from these attacks?
Minor correction: Androgen insenitivity syndrome (AIS) is due to genes, specifically a defective gene: "Management of AIS is currently limited to symptomatic management; no method is currently available to correct the malfunctioning androgen receptor proteins produced by AR gene mutations." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome
In principle, AIS could be "treated" by aborting fetuses with the defect, as is still done by some parents for other fetuses of the "wrong" sex. (Or other defects, such as Downs syndrome.)
Those unwilling to be that drastic -- me, for instance -- may prefer that we treat the sufferers from this defect with kindness, and that we look for cures.
I can’t believe I have to explain what’s happening here, but here goes. Elite students of Ivy League schools have glamorized oppression so much that they have now reached role play status to satisfy their fantasies. Here, the students have appropriated the suffering of Gazans and are cosplaying as living through humanitarian crisis. In their American make-believe story where Ivy League infrastructure sets the scene, the students play Gazans and the school administration plays Israel.
Israel (the school) is blocking their “basic humanitarian aid” in this play, and if they don’t receive it soon, they will “die of thirst and starvation” (appropriating exact experiences of Gazans). They also destroy upper class buildings and claim them as “liberated” while the students repeat chants in zombie-like chorus, playing the roll of “freedom fighters” destroying Israeli infrastructure and claiming them freed. If I’m alive in a world where people don’t see the levels of perversion in this, I give up.
You don’t see this in lower tier schools from kids of lower socio-economic standing because they aren’t plagued with the guilt of privilege that they’re seeking to launder through Middle East role plays of feigned suffering. This is as first world dystopia as it gets.
Meanwhile, these Ivy League students who can have much more than a glass of water and as much food as their stomachs can take are commanding the attention of the media and the entire American audience, while actual Gazans who need humanitarian aid are ignored. I still have to pinch myself that people don’t see this.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
The professionalisation of tennis, much like that of football in the UK, led to stricter sex segregation and more money going towards male athletes.
Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.
Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A Jewish woman apparently beaten unconscious at UCLA and also at UCLA accses to buildings is being restricted to those displaying pro palestine sympathies.
Not verified at this stage but disturbing and worth further investigation.
Why aren't the police/authorities defending people from these attacks?
When I was at QMW over 30 years ago, there was a sit-in at the uni's head offices (can't remember what they were called now...). This apparently involved people having sex on the principal's desk. Which some found hilarious, and I thought was just a bit icky.
I feel sorry for the majority of the students at these organisations, who will just be wanting to get on with their work without @sshats on both sides disrupting their studies.
Isn't anyone else a bit concerned about the Home Office being used for party political purposes, by posting a video of the detention of asylum seekers for deportation to Rwanda the day before the local elections?
I am. Pictures in the Mail online of asylum seekers being led away in handcuffs, like serious criminals, on the day before elections, under a 'Rwanda crackdown...' headline. We all know who the audience is for these. It's shameful, and brutal.
On turnout - I do wonder if it will be even further suppressed by those who are very unhappy with the Govt but not enamoured of anyone else and think 'sod it, I'm only turning out once this year to register my disgust' which might skew things (relatively) Torywards
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
The professionalisation of tennis, much like that of football in the UK, led to stricter sex segregation and more money going towards male athletes.
Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.
See the famous USA football example. When the USA womens football team played and U15 boys team in 2017 they lost 5-2.
The effect of physical warmth on the perception of psychological warmth, a classic instance of the embodiment effect, flops at the latest attempt at replication. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231575#d2369815e1 Williams and Bargh found that individuals holding a cup of warm beverage perceived the individuals they faced as psychologically warmer than those who held a cold beverage. We set out to replicate and extend Williams’ and Bargh’s study by exploring whether various factors modify the effect of physical and social warmth. We did not find any evidence for a main effect, and weak evidence for moderating effects for participants' awareness, participants' personality or target person's gender. We do not find support for the idea that this sensory perception [warmth] is 'cognitively penetrable'. Bayesian analysis and equivalence testing also provided evidence for the absence of an effect."
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
The professionalisation of tennis, much like that of football in the UK, led to stricter sex segregation and more money going towards male athletes.
Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.
See the famous USA football example. When the USA womens football team played and U15 boys team in 2017 they lost 5-2.
If it's a contact sport, then womens' lives would be placed in danger, if they competed against men.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
The professionalisation of tennis, much like that of football in the UK, led to stricter sex segregation and more money going towards male athletes.
Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.
See the famous USA football example. When the USA womens football team played and U15 boys team in 2017 they lost 5-2.
If it's a contact sport, then womens' lives would be placed in danger, if they competed against men.
Well quite - brilliantly as the England womens rugby team has been, they would be in serious danger against a mens team.
"The British prime minister has urged the Dublin government not to send police into border areas amid a row over asylum seekers crossing from Northern Ireland into the Republic.
Rishi Sunak said the Dublin government “must uphold its promises” to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and avoid setting up checkpoints to prevent asylum seekers entering the country.
Diplomatic tensions between London and Dublin have increased in recent days after the Republic’s justice minister claimed there had been an upsurge in asylum seekers crossing the border following the passing of the UK’s Safety of Rwanda Act.
On Tuesday, the Dublin government said 100 police officers would be made available for frontline immigration enforcement duties, although Dublin insisted they would not be “assigned to physically police the border with Northern Ireland”."
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
The professionalisation of tennis, much like that of football in the UK, led to stricter sex segregation and more money going towards male athletes.
Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.
See the famous USA football example. When the USA womens football team played and U15 boys team in 2017 they lost 5-2.
If it's a contact sport, then womens' lives would be placed in danger, if they competed against men.
Well quite - brilliantly as the England womens rugby team has been, they would be in serious danger against a mens team.
It's fascinating how many people, both on here and elsewhere, regard Sadiq Khan as a bit obnoxious but can't quite put their finger on why he's obnoxious. Curious.
Rishi Sunak is a good example of a non-obnoxious politician, even if you disagree with his policies.
Both Sadiq Khan and Rishi Sunak are of average height, which apparently is too short to be a proper leader.
Forbes is a bit of a short arse; game over.
Otoh if she was bossing a Yamaha V Max 16 years ago I might revise my opinion.
They should have gone for her in the first place.
I'll pop that in my bulging advice to the SNP from people not in the SNP folder.
The sort of folk fluffing for Forbes here and elsewhere aren't exactly making me warm to her. Perhaps it's a cunning plan to turn SNP members off her as she is verily the the most accomplished politician of our age and would have Scotland independent in a trice.
A question to ask is: Who do the Labour and Conservative parties want to lead the SNP? My guess is it is not K Forbes.
Labour would be happy enough with Forbes, I'd have thought, if it means the SNP are no longer to the left of them.
As a unionist WRT Scotland, I don't think Labour or Tory will want an SNP leader who understands that independence can only be achieved from a unifying centre ground and who has strong appeal to people who distrust politics and politicians.
If Forbes becomes FM and Starmer UK PM then Scotland would be seeking independence for a government more rightwing and conservative than England's. Wonder how that would go down with the Yes crowd, ha ha!
The point is that an independent Scotland can choose policies which Forbes likes, or could choose policies which Forbes hates. Unlike at present where Scotland gets the policies that the people of Epping Forest want.
Wrong, at the moment most Scottish domestic policy is decided at Holyrood which only Scots elect. Technically however as there is no English Parliament and now not even EVEL domestic laws relevant to Epping Forest can be voted on by Scottish MPs as much as UK wide laws
"technically" "now not even EVEL" - that's your party deleting it to try and stir up the shite "most Scottish domestic policy" - but that depends what you mean by domestic. Lots of UK legislation doesn't apply overseas, so id somestic, but is retained at Westminster. Fiscal, for instance.
The Scottish government can also set income tax and bands for non-savings, non-dividend income
Yes and get an equivalent cut in teh pocket money when doing it, wow
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
Easy Con Hold come the GE imo by 10% plus
If the poll is correct, looks like the Tory vote is relatively holding up in places linked to the military ? Indicates a comfortable hold of Aldershot to my mind.
Or it might be a special case.
She has a huge profile and works that seat hard.
It’s also just one poll from one firm - other polling of the seat has her doomed by tactical voting.
Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A Jewish woman apparently beaten unconscious at UCLA and also at UCLA accses to buildings is being restricted to those displaying pro palestine sympathies.
Not verified at this stage but disturbing and worth further investigation.
I know this may sound like a ridiculous question, but do we know what the Free Church of Scotland (and Kate Forbes') position on evolution is? Like - are they creationists? I understand that this doesn't necessarily impact policy that much, but it is also just a line for me in terms of politicians living in the same reality as... well reality.
Do you believe it's possible for humans to change sex?
So there's the long answer to this and the short answer.
Long Answer: It depends on our definition of sex. I think it is clear people have an internal sense of their own gender identity from a young age and for some people there is an incongruency between their assigned gender, their physiology, and their identity. These people can take cross sex hormone treatment and get surgeries (if they wish) to be more in line with their understanding of themselves. People like this seem to have existed throughout history and across different cultures and, given our current level of understanding of intersex conditions, I don't see why their wouldn't be a material reason for this. When someone takes cross sex hormones their body reacts in ways extremely similar to people who would have those hormones in their system due to typical development. Clearly people cannot change their chromosomes - so if that is the singular criteria one uses to assign sex, then no; but there are multiple characteristics that are correlated with sex and for some of those criteria people on cross sex hormones the answer would be yes. Sex is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary distinction we have decided to measure against and whilst most people fit within the typical binary, sex is bimodal and many intersex conditions exist - some of them are obvious (because they typically involve the external criteria we relate to sex) and some of them less so (because we very rarely do chromosomal testing, and some people may develop in a way typical to their assigned sex but could have atypical chromosomes to those associated with that sex).
Short answer: For all intents and purposes, yeah.
Two points.
One. Yes, hormones are much more important than genes in terms of sex, and so it is possible to change sex to a much greater extent than someone looking at chromosomes alone would think.
Two. Sex is not an arbitrary distinction biologically. It's how the species reproduces. What a weird statement.
I think it is arbitrary to decide to split the species into (basically) two groups based on how the species reproduces. It's not to say it isn't significant, culturally or scientifically, but there is no objective reason to do so.
"Arbitrary" means based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Dividing the species by sex is not a random (human) choice or a personal whim. You may not agree with them but there are reasons and systems involved. For example, women object to males competing in contact sporting events because we are sexually dimorphic - average body mass between the sexes differing by roughly 15%* which, by mammalian standards, is a big difference. "Arbitrary" is completely the wrong word.
So I don't know if we can say that body mass differences between men and women are biological - I know we have seen a tightening of the average gaps between men and women in recent decades and there are good arguments for why cultural reasons have led to men being bigger than women historically (with men typically holding the social role of fighter and physical labourer, men have historically been prioritised for resources over women, and culturally women may feel more need to self sacrifice in favour of male partners / children across different historical periods; in cultures with more abundance you also then get the expectations of what women "should" look like, and beauty standards etc.) I also see no reason why that should mean anything about gender segregating sports when one answer to that is following sports like boxing where there are such things as weight classes.
They are biological. There is no archeological record of a time when humans were not dimorphic. We are, admittedly, less dimorphic than other primates, in gorillas it’s 50% on average compared to our 15%, but all the evidence points to dimorphism across the board oh ours and our closely related species. It may be reducing but it’s not going to reach equality this millenium.
The current women’s world record for the 100m is 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988, nearly 40 years ago. That means the fastest woman IN HISTORY would not have even reached the final of the 100m at the last Olympics running at her fastest. The slowest finisher in that 2021 race clocked well under 10 seconds.
You are suggesting that women should have to compete with men which means, ultimately, abolishing competitive sport for women.
In sports like athletics and football segregation by sex is by no means perfect but, amongst all other options, it is the fairest way to do it. There is no other way for a multitude of sports. If you have a better way of doing it then put it forward. The current system is the fairest one possible and is based on current science.
I find the idea of fairness in sport a difficult stumbling block to get over - because by its very nature sport isn't about fairness, it is about taking human talent and human extremes and pushing them to great feats of physical prowess. Basketball is designed to test feats of prowess that benefit the atypically tall - is that fair? Arguably we could say Michael Phelps is just a biological outlier and shouldn't compete with typical athletes because his body is so specifically adapted to be good at swimming, that it just isn't fair on anyone else.
When it comes the the cultural aspect of women's sport - it's difficult. Women athletes don't get the same investment as male athletes, there isn't the same history of sports, and it is not typically a cultural expectation or pride to be good at sports as a woman. I don't know the best solution for that - but I would say that sex segregation hasn't been great at it. I would also note that sex segregation was not introduced to enhance women's sports and, indeed, in the past was enforced for the exact opposite reason - to protect male egos. We had a lively women's football league during WW1 in the UK, for example, but when the men came back the funding for it left and the feeling was women should allow the men to take the spotlight because that is clearly more important. There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this. And it's also clear some sports / activities are sex segregated not for reasons of skill but for misogynist cultural reasons (like darts or chess).
My position is not that all sports should be integrated on the basis of sex tomorrow, and that would be great and cause no problems. My position is more that I think if there was equality of investment between men and women's sports that we would probably see more overlap in outcomes.
You live in a total fantasy world.
"There are suggestions that tennis, which was at points a non sex segregate sport, became so when women were beating men and men disliked this."
Who has suggested this and why do you give it credence?
It’s lunatic drivel
Lawn Tennis, as was played in the early-mid 1800s, was a mixed sport:
The professionalisation of tennis, much like that of football in the UK, led to stricter sex segregation and more money going towards male athletes.
Once sports like tennis, football, rugby, and many forms of athletics professionalise, a fairly average man will outperform a very talented woman, because of advantages, in terms of strength, height, weight, and stamina. Ending separate sports for men and women would just mean eliminating women from professional sports.
Yup
To give an example - I'm an old bloke with okish fitness. My 2000m ergo times are roughly to those of women competing at Henley.
Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A Jewish woman apparently beaten unconscious at UCLA and also at UCLA accses to buildings is being restricted to those displaying pro palestine sympathies.
Not verified at this stage but disturbing and worth further investigation.
Why aren't the police/authorities defending people from these attacks?
https://police.ucla.edu - in many large US universities, the university has it's own police department.
No, this cannot mean that the campus police are controlled by the administration of the University in any way. Nor that in a number of scandals, campus police has helped cover up horrendous crimes to try and protect the reputation of their university.
Fascinating comment by the Dudley’s Tory council leader in the FT yesterday. Like most councils now, Dudley is facing financial difficulty and is “struggling to maintain roads and parks”.
“We were flying along quite nicely 18 months ago . . . then we were hit with a £7mn overspend on adult social care,” he said. The costs related to just five complex individual cases.
Absolutely insane. The entitlement on adult social care, as hard as it may be on individuals causing some real issues of pain and difficulty, needs to be hugely qualified or we will go bankrupt.
Interesting response. Your mind goes to, “this needs to be qualified”. Someone else posted, “someone is making a killing”. My mind goes to, “this sounds like an over-regulated producer-captured hellscape”.
One thing we all agree on: the status quo ain’t working.
Some disturbing images being reported on US University campuses. A Jewish woman apparently beaten unconscious at UCLA and also at UCLA accses to buildings is being restricted to those displaying pro palestine sympathies.
Not verified at this stage but disturbing and worth further investigation.
Why aren't the police/authorities defending people from these attacks?
https://police.ucla.edu - in many large US universities, the university has it's own police department.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
Interesting. Reflects something I've noticed in recent years: just how hostile people in Portsmouth and Southampton have become towards the Tories. Shipping's a big thing down there, of course, and they're all mighty pissed off with the Brexit red tape that's been thrown at them.
Portsmouth North was a Labour seat from 1997 to 2010 and yet they're still behind the Tories atm according to this.
Comments
Portsmouth North Constituency Voting Intention:
CON: 39% (-22)
LAB: 35% (+8)
RFM: 15% (New)
LDM: 7% (=)
GRN: 4% (+1)
Via @techneUK, 9-19 Apr.
Changes w/ GE2019.
"Lawn tennis got going in the mid-19th century after a British major and a Spanish merchant combined aspects of the British game rackets and the Spanish game pelota. The two opened the first tennis club in 1874. The above drawing comes from the same year, demonstrating the layout of the court — which looks pretty familiar for anyone who's seen a modern tennis court. Also familiar: The fact that women are on the court. Even back in 1874, women were still playing mixed doubles. Though playing in a bustle skirt isn't something that survived the nineteenth century."
Mixed doubles is still a thing. This article doesn't prove any of your lunatic suggestions that men and women should compete against each other in all sports because differences are all "cultural". There is no evidence for any of this, none. All you have shown is that women have always played tennis. Not that they played against men competitively save in mixed doubles.
A regular prisoner costs something like £60-100k a year iirc, and whilst care homes are steep they aren't £1.4M a year steep. Even googling Broadmoor - which you'd expect (more or less) to be the most expensive individuals to maintain, reveals a cost of ~£300k a year (Say a max of £400k now). So £1.4M is right out there. Even with the most complex cases that's a ridiculous cost.
Someone somewhere is printing money out of these cases at the taxpayers expense.
Anyhoo, it's almost like somebody wrote an article about the intermarium...
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/01/29/the-intermarium/
Also this lack of French noom is real. Just walked into the 12th century Abbey of Paimpont, in the middle of the mystical forest. In the UK that would be guaranteed noom. A 12th century abbey in the middle of a vestigial ancient forest?
Here it ia like walking into a warehouse. A temporarily disused Lidl with unusual stone structure
No the abbey is quite decorative. It’s not swept clean of adornment or stained glass
It’s just… spiritually dead. Empty. Voided. No noom
Huh, this is interesting, this is a much smaller swing than you'd expect based on national polling.
Electoral Calculus have it at 40% Labour, 24% Tory.
Southampton - Leave won 54/46
#middleagedfastshowreference
She has a huge profile and works that seat hard.
As was clear from PMQs today, the Tories now want the police to investigate Vaughan Gething too. Odds on that happens 😈
A whole system of geography and settlement based on “oppida” and the lines between them. So buried in the forgotten pre Roman past despite being so relatively recent.
Nicely written book on this: https://images.app.goo.gl/y3PjA6wuYthQPJ6v9
The hilltop forests at Bibracte-Alésia give a sense of this too. Where Vercingetorix was finally defeated by the Romans.
I would give your girls school's common room one of Sunak's chess boards, too.
Only about a third of voters are expected to vote in Thursday’s polls but that could fall to as low as 13% in some places
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/may/01/voting-is-not-on-their-radar-lowest-turnout-predicted-in-poorest-areas
This crap has come up on my discover feed three times today.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/fka-twigs-reveals-she-has-created-an-ai-clone/ar-AA1nYWwh?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=70291d615b9947b2cc5357c653481bd3&ei=40
And there are plenty of examples of other species where the categories are not at all clear. Even at the genetic level, since the mechanisms that control gene expression are much harder to elucidate than are the genes themselves.
See, for example, this recent paper.
Navigating sex and sex roles: deciphering sex-biased gene expression in a species with sex-role reversal (Syngnathus typhle)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231620
Your mind goes to, “this needs to be qualified”.
Someone else posted, “someone is making a killing”.
My mind goes to, “this sounds like an over-regulated producer-captured hellscape”.
One thing we all agree on: the status quo ain’t working.
https://x.com/forwardnotback/status/1785623264989004006?s=46
Anyone else realised Rishi is trolling Starmer with all these “toughest geezer PM” video’s? If Starmer attempted these “interviews whilst running along” or press ups in the garden Rishi is doing, it would probably kill him.
UKIP got 20% there in 2015
I suspect her name recognition will see her hold reasonably comfortably but the fact that it's "in play" speaks volumes
https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/1785417704532275400
Not verified at this stage but disturbing and worth further investigation.
No it's not Birmingham this time. West Sussex County Council ERP replacement price to hit £40M
https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/30/uk_council_sees_cost_of/
The problem with KAB is that they turn a brick basement into a tent in
the wind if they fall far. If it's close, you lose your hearing. If a bomb falls nearby, you die, no matter where you are hiding.
This is depressing psychologically, as you are constantly waiting for death.
https://twitter.com/AseyevStanislav/status/1784126720385196355
Operational range, 40km.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAB-500S-E
"Management of AIS is currently limited to symptomatic management; no method is currently available to correct the malfunctioning androgen receptor proteins produced by AR gene mutations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome
In principle, AIS could be "treated" by aborting fetuses with the defect, as is still done by some parents for other fetuses of the "wrong" sex. (Or other defects, such as Downs syndrome.)
Those unwilling to be that drastic -- me, for instance -- may prefer that we treat the sufferers from this defect with kindness, and that we look for cures.
I can’t believe I have to explain what’s happening here, but here goes. Elite students of Ivy League schools have glamorized oppression so much that they have now reached role play status to satisfy their fantasies. Here, the students have appropriated the suffering of Gazans and are cosplaying as living through humanitarian crisis. In their American make-believe story where Ivy League infrastructure sets the scene, the students play Gazans and the school administration plays Israel.
Israel (the school) is blocking their “basic humanitarian aid” in this play, and if they don’t receive it soon, they will “die of thirst and starvation” (appropriating exact experiences of Gazans). They also destroy upper class buildings and claim them as “liberated” while the students repeat chants in zombie-like chorus, playing the roll of “freedom fighters” destroying Israeli infrastructure and claiming them freed. If I’m alive in a world where people don’t see the levels of perversion in this, I give up.
You don’t see this in lower tier schools from kids of lower socio-economic standing because they aren’t plagued with the guilt of privilege that they’re seeking to launder through Middle East role plays of feigned suffering. This is as first world dystopia as it gets.
Meanwhile, these Ivy League students who can have much more than a glass of water and as much food as their stomachs can take are commanding the attention of the media and the entire American audience, while actual Gazans who need humanitarian aid are ignored. I still have to pinch myself that people don’t see this.
I feel sorry for the majority of the students at these organisations, who will just be wanting to get on with their work without @sshats on both sides disrupting their studies.
Replication crisis.
https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1785615837447012491
"Rolf Degen
@DegenRolf
The effect of physical warmth on the perception of psychological warmth, a classic instance of the embodiment effect, flops at the latest attempt at replication. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231575#d2369815e1 Williams and Bargh found that individuals holding a cup of warm beverage perceived the individuals they faced as psychologically warmer than those who held a cold beverage. We set out to replicate and extend Williams’ and Bargh’s study by exploring whether various factors modify the effect of physical and social warmth. We did not find any evidence for a main effect, and weak evidence for moderating effects for participants' awareness, participants' personality or target person's gender. We do not find support for the idea that this sensory perception [warmth] is 'cognitively penetrable'. Bayesian analysis and equivalence testing also provided evidence for the absence of an effect."
Rishi Sunak said the Dublin government “must uphold its promises” to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and avoid setting up checkpoints to prevent asylum seekers entering the country.
Diplomatic tensions between London and Dublin have increased in recent days after the Republic’s justice minister claimed there had been an upsurge in asylum seekers crossing the border following the passing of the UK’s Safety of Rwanda Act.
On Tuesday, the Dublin government said 100 police officers would be made available for frontline immigration enforcement duties, although Dublin insisted they would not be “assigned to physically police the border with Northern Ireland”."
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/asylum-row-dont-send-gardai-to-border-rishi-sunak-tells-dublin-DKLA3RZDFVDZFOEDLNEYUKEXRE/
https://x.com/scotnational/status/1785652388822392886?s=46&t=fJymV-V84rexmlQMLXHHJQ
NEW THREAD
Anas Sarwar put forward the motion arguing it would be 'untenable' for the SNP to 'impose yet another unelected first minister' on Scotland
https://x.com/ScotNational/status/1785680592912224413
To give an example - I'm an old bloke with okish fitness. My 2000m ergo times are roughly to those of women competing at Henley.
No, this cannot mean that the campus police are controlled by the administration of the University in any way. Nor that in a number of scandals, campus police has helped cover up horrendous crimes to try and protect the reputation of their university.
No sir. That would be a terrible thing to say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard_Police
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress_Police (ok, that's an old one)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Logistics_Agency#DLA_Police