More polls like this and a January 2025 election will be nailed on – politicalbetting.com

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More polls like this and a January 2025 election will be nailed on – politicalbetting.com

Labour lead at *30 points* in this week's YouGov poll for The Times That's the biggest Labour lead since TrussCON 18 (=) LAB 48 (+4) LIB DEM 9 (-1) REF UK 13 (-2) GRN 7 (-1) Fieldwork 7 – 8 May pic.twitter.com/CafOaINyco

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david_herdson

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

Nigelb

"Stayin' slive" ?

Nigelb

Nigelb said:

"Stayin' slive" ?

Is that a (characteristically) subtle Jabberwocky reference ?

wooliedyed

I think he'll be more guided by several million votes last week than the latest YouGov. It's entirely coincidental that both encourage delay. However I still think he gets a flight of immigrants off to Rwanda and calls it if the polls narrow at all

rcs1000

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

Chris said:

rcs1000 said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I've been making these gags on Facebook for a while:

Any hilarious jokes about racism, homophobia and antisemitism to share?

So:

I can post a picture of the Prophet Mohammed dressed as a terrorist, and that's free speech.

But if I make a gag about trans, that's suddenly completely unacceptable.

Get a grip. It's a belief. Beliefs can be - and should - be teased.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Doubling down, eh. Furry muff.

I think it is a characteristic (protected in law in some circumstances AIUI) and things can be in bad taste or asinine without it being "completely unacceptable". In your long and eloquent post on the issue you said it's about not being offensive. Your grandad facebook post failed this test imo.

And that's your view, and you're entitled to it.

But I am not picking on a trans person, as far as I can tell. I am poking fun at the idea that gender is *entirely* chosen, and that there's no biological element at all, by taking it to an extreme.

It's just an extension of the old "the logical consequence of animal rights is votes for clams" line.

Now, you can argue it isn't funny (and you might well be right). But I don't think you - or anyone else - can argue that I am targeting trans people and/or belittling them.

What's the difference between that and "the logical conclusion of equal marriage is legal bestiality". Would you understand why that is not okay?

You're allowed to say it of course. People say it in the US all the time.

And you know what: they're entitled to that opinion. I disagree, but I can't legislate for them to change their mind.

All I can do is legislate to make sure they treat gay and heterosexual couples equally.

148grss

I think it is already pretty nailed on. Pick your pollster - the polling averages point to anywhere from a reliable majority to a Baathist level of Labour representation. Sure - events can always happen. It's possible (although I think unlikely) that voters, imagining Labour victory is assured and hating the Tories, vote more for fringe parties (LDs, Greens, RefUK). To me part of this "expectation" plotting is to make sure squeeze campaigning still matters in an election that looks fixed (and to allow the media to pontificate about it and pretend there is still a race to be run).

Nigelb

Stormy Daniels: Show me where I said instrumental.
Trump's lawyer Necheles: Here's your tweet, "Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down."
Daniels: It doesn't say Trump, just orange turd. If you want to interpret it that way...
https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/1788574734113722710


Stormy having fun - but not being entirely helpful to the prosecution, I suspect.

TheScreamingEagles

So is Natalie Elphicke the most right wing MP Labour have had since Oswald Mosley?

rcs1000

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

TheScreamingEagles

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

"Stayin' slive" ?

Is that a (characteristically) subtle Jabberwocky reference ?

Typo.

Mexicanpete

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

So is Natalie Elphicke the most right wing MP Labour have had since Oswald Mosley?

Cap't Bob? Woodrow Wyatt? Tony Blair? Keir Starmer?

TheScreamingEagles

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

So is Natalie Elphicke the most right wing MP Labour have had since Oswald Mosley?

Cap't Bob?

He was a proper leftie.

wooliedyed

TheScreamingEagles said:

So is Natalie Elphicke the most right wing MP Labour have had since Oswald Mosley?

Blunkett

TheScreamingEagles

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I agree with you but say come early October when Sunak has to call a November election and the Tories are circa 20-25 points behind in the polls you think he might delay in the hope something does come up?

Mexicanpete

TheScreamingEagles said:

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

So is Natalie Elphicke the most right wing MP Labour have had since Oswald Mosley?

Cap't Bob?

He was a proper leftie.

In so much that he raided the Mirror Group pension scheme for personal gain? Fair enough.

Nigelb

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

"Stayin' slive" ?

Is that a (characteristically) subtle Jabberwocky reference ?

Typo.

Shame.

148grss

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

TheScreamingEagles

Nigelb said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

"Stayin' slive" ?

Is that a (characteristically) subtle Jabberwocky reference ?

Typo.

Shame.

I am not that subtle.

DecrepiterJohnL

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

December 12th is five years to the day since the 2019 election and as such would be hard for the pro-Boris wing to attack. January gives another month in office, and as previously argued, probably favours the Conservative Party by making the campaign an air war rather than a ground war.

TimS

The logical "compromise" is that December election isn't it? Not January so less risk of looking like you're desperately hanging on, but not earlier than absolutely necessary. And with the bonus of reminding Brexiteer voters of that glorious get Brexit done moment in December 2019.

boulay

TheScreamingEagles said:

So is Natalie Elphicke the most right wing MP Labour have had since Oswald Mosley?

On the subject of fascists I’ve just got round to my first beer to celebrate Liberation day,it’s what the Germans would have wanted.

I am sometimes quite cynical about it but I’m always quite surprised and slightly impressed how it still really means a lot to people here. There aren’t many around who remember being occupied but people my age and younger still largely respect what it means and isn’t just a day off work drinking in the sun, although it is also a day sitting around drinking in the sun.

So Bouonne santé to you all as they say in our native patois.

RochdalePioneers

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I agree with you but say come early October when Sunak has to call a November election and the Tories are circa 20-25 points behind in the polls you think he might delay in the hope something does come up?

Various dates get thrown around with so much gay abandon we may as well be referring to a Tory backbencher. Remember that we have to factor in how stuff gets done.

Tory conference is definitely happening 29th September - 2nd October. Lets assume the "autumn fiscal event" happened right at the start of September, Sunak would need a few days back to wrap everything up before dissolution. So that's the 14th November date in play.

Anything before that smashes both the giveaway non-budget and conference. October dates mean coming straight back off summer and not bothering with a budget event, straight to dissolution. Won't happen.

Besides which, things are going to look *awful* as they come back for the summer. Best to give people a tax cut, a couple of months to flush it through to pay packets and then go before Christmas when everyone is feeling happy.

12th December. Or if he's still frit, 23rd January.

Mexicanpete

TheScreamingEagles said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I agree with you but say come early October when Sunak has to call a November election and the Tories are circa 20-25 points behind in the polls you think he might delay in the hope something does come up?

Now we know Sunak is PM until at least election day, he has nothing to lose running it all the way to January 23rd. Plenty of time over the Christmas holidays to apply for the required green cards, should they be needed.

Jim_Miller

On topic, sort of: Does Prime Minister Sunak celebrate Christmas?

Mexicanpete

Jim_Miller said:

On topic, sort of: Does Prime Minister Sunak celebrate Christmas?

Not if he calls the election for December 12th. Well not this year anyway.

kinabalu

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I think 24th Oct to 12th Dec is the range. Not my most exciting call, that, admittedly.

LostPassword

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

A scenario I find plausible is using a January election date to disrupt the primarily activist-based campaigning of Labour and, particularly, the Lib Dems, while leaving a Tory campaign based on online advertising largely unhindered.

You might argue that the benefits of that would be outweighed by the public ridicule, but I think that Sunak is exactly the sort of person most likely to make such a miscalculation.

148grss

kinabalu said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I think 24th Oct to 12th Dec is the range. Not my most exciting call, that, admittedly.

Sunak will be talked about alongside Brown as PMs who should have gone to the electorate earlier and potentially done badly, but at least could have held it together, but instead decided to hold on to power and got increasingly unpopular whilst in office (although Brown at least still left a viable party behind him, and Tories didn't get a majority - whereas Sunak looks like he may be leading the party to near extinction levels).

LostPassword

I used to think December 12th was most likely as an election date, but that would require calling the election in early November, as the US election reaches its climax.

I think that will provide an excuse for delay, and I think Sunak will be inclined to cling to any excuse for delay and avoidance.

I think a similar argument also makes a November election somewhat less likely than it would be otherwise.

Nigelb

Nigelb said:

Stormy Daniels: Show me where I said instrumental.
Trump's lawyer Necheles: Here's your tweet, "Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down."
Daniels: It doesn't say Trump, just orange turd. If you want to interpret it that way...
https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/1788574734113722710


Stormy having fun - but not being entirely helpful to the prosecution, I suspect.

some jurors struggling to maintain poker faces during this cross
https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1788576534137127172

Mexicanpete

kinabalu said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I think 24th Oct to 12th Dec is the range. Not my most exciting call, that, admittedly.

He'll have a disappointing Diwali if he goes for 24th October and loses. It has to be January 23rd.

megasaur

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I don't see why all those groups would be pissed off. January is by an order of magnitude the worst month of the year, so dismal that it makes the celebration of the work of a dialectical poetaster by eating sheep guts look like fun. Who would not want to enliven it with a general election?

Nigelb

A reminder to Republicans saying the US shouldn't "second guess" Israel.

Ronald Reagan paused the delivery of F-16s to Israel after it bombed an Iranian* nuclear reactor in 1981. Then, after Israel invaded Lebanon and bombed Beirut in 1982, Reagan refused to deliver 75 F-16s and limited military aid until Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanon.
https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1788389468413763846

(* actually Iraqi)

EPG

Nigelb said:

A reminder to Republicans saying the US shouldn't "second guess" Israel.

Ronald Reagan paused the delivery of F-16s to Israel after it bombed an Iranian* nuclear reactor in 1981. Then, after Israel invaded Lebanon and bombed Beirut in 1982, Reagan refused to deliver 75 F-16s and limited military aid until Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanon.
https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1788389468413763846

(* actually Iraqi)

Yes, a lot of people seem to have a cognitive block about the 1980s Israel-Iran partnership.

Carnyx

megasaur said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I don't see why all those groups would be pissed off. January is by an order of magnitude the worst month of the year, so dismal that it makes the celebration of the work of a dialectical poetaster by eating sheep guts look like fun. Who would not want to enliven it with a general election?

Its weel seen ye canna richtly scribe the Southron leid gin ye dinna ken the odds atween 'dialectical' and 'dialect'.

TimS

LostPassword said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

A scenario I find plausible is using a January election date to disrupt the primarily activist-based campaigning of Labour and, particularly, the Lib Dems, while leaving a Tory campaign based on online advertising largely unhindered.

You might argue that the benefits of that would be outweighed by the public ridicule, but I think that Sunak is exactly the sort of person most likely to make such a miscalculation.

A January election will see many likely Tory voters spend several days with their woke children and even woker grandchildren. Conversation will naturally turn to politics and the election, and probably a few arguments. Will this?

a. drive youth voter turnout when they realise how important the election is,
b. persuade those grandmas and grandpas to change their votes to opposition parties for the sake of the children,
c. reinforce the grandparents' suspicions about the woke snowflake generation and their silly ideas and galvanise them to vote Tory or Reform,
d. make no difference?

Nigelb

EPG said:

Nigelb said:

A reminder to Republicans saying the US shouldn't "second guess" Israel.

Ronald Reagan paused the delivery of F-16s to Israel after it bombed an Iranian* nuclear reactor in 1981. Then, after Israel invaded Lebanon and bombed Beirut in 1982, Reagan refused to deliver 75 F-16s and limited military aid until Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanon.
https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1788389468413763846

(* actually Iraqi)

Yes, a lot of people seem to have a cognitive block about the 1980s Israel-Iran partnership.

There's also the whole Iran/Contra mess.

The point is, though, that while today's Republicans still regard his as one of the greatest presidents, they are at odds with an awful lot of what he did.

wooliedyed

Keith Mason of Rugby League and Peaky Blinders fame standing in Wakefield for WPB

LostPassword

TimS said:

LostPassword said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

A scenario I find plausible is using a January election date to disrupt the primarily activist-based campaigning of Labour and, particularly, the Lib Dems, while leaving a Tory campaign based on online advertising largely unhindered.

You might argue that the benefits of that would be outweighed by the public ridicule, but I think that Sunak is exactly the sort of person most likely to make such a miscalculation.

A January election will see many likely Tory voters spend several days with their woke children and even woker grandchildren. Conversation will naturally turn to politics and the election, and probably a few arguments. Will this?

a. drive youth voter turnout when they realise how important the election is,
b. persuade those grandmas and grandpas to change their votes to opposition parties for the sake of the children,
c. reinforce the grandparents' suspicions about the woke snowflake generation and their silly ideas and galvanise them to vote Tory or Reform,
d. make no difference?

All the worst Brexit arguments against the backdrop of the Christmas Turkey happened after the referendum, so my guess is that the most contentious arguments will be over whether the Tories deserve to lose for having foisted Truss on the country, or for having stymied her efforts to save the country.

Either way, I don't think Sunak wins many votes from a family argument at Christmas.

bondegezou

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

Ive loopked at the first and its an interesting and useful study. It is also only a single small study. It says itself that you need more research. I think you're overclaiming again talking as if that has settled everything.

megasaur

Carnyx said:

megasaur said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I don't see why all those groups would be pissed off. January is by an order of magnitude the worst month of the year, so dismal that it makes the celebration of the work of a dialectical poetaster by eating sheep guts look like fun. Who would not want to enliven it with a general election?

Its weel seen ye canna richtly scribe the Southron leid gin ye dinna ken the odds atween 'dialectical' and 'dialect'.

Mebbe, but I can see the want of odds between Charlemain and Charlemagne.

williamglenn

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Carnyx

megasaur said:

Carnyx said:

megasaur said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I don't see why all those groups would be pissed off. January is by an order of magnitude the worst month of the year, so dismal that it makes the celebration of the work of a dialectical poetaster by eating sheep guts look like fun. Who would not want to enliven it with a general election?

Its weel seen ye canna richtly scribe the Southron leid gin ye dinna ken the odds atween 'dialectical' and 'dialect'.

Mebbe, but I can see the want of odds between Charlemain and Charlemagne.

He was tbf a highly political writer and nearly got the chop/free trip to Oz for it. But too early to be a 'dialectical' one.

Carnyx

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Someone self-identifying as both sexes and seven persons at once? Pull the other plonker (so to speak).

SirNorfolkPassmore

Mexicanpete said:

kinabalu said:

david_herdson said:

17s might be just about value but I really don't see a Jan election, pissing off media, public and activists alike.

There comes a point when prolonging the agony just feeds into the narrative and makes things worse still. I don't see polling day going any later than Dec 12.

(And I still think Nov 14 is most likely, with a mid-Oct date next)

I think 24th Oct to 12th Dec is the range. Not my most exciting call, that, admittedly.

He'll have a disappointing Diwali if he goes for 24th October and loses. It has to be January 23rd.

Will he? I'd have thought celebrating Diwali poolside in California would be very pleasant.

ydoethur

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Someone self-identifying as both sexes and seven persons at once? Pull the other plonker (so to speak).

Leon's in much better physical shape than I realised!

megasaur

Seriously I can understand people resenting GEs when they are unnecessary (Brenda of Bristol in 2017) and when they interfere with and distract from other things like summer holidays or the world cup or Christmas shopping. Neither applicable to a January election, but the second point rules out December. It's September October November or January. PM 2022-25 looks 33% better in the history books than 2022-24. I am on at 20 but 17 still looks value

SirNorfolkPassmore

Jim_Miller said:

On topic, sort of: Does Prime Minister Sunak celebrate Christmas?

Apparently so, "I always brine then cook the turkey — I hate the cooking, but no one else will do it! — and watch The Snowman with my daughters on Christmas Eve followed by The Holiday on Christmas Day."

I mean he is Hindu of course, but clearly a lot of non-Christian and indeed non-religious people in the UK just enjoy Christmas as a festival.

Nigelb

Completely OT, but a very interesting story.

Adam and Eve Existed: They Created the Genetic Code
https://www.vineyardbooks.blog/p/adam-and-eve-existed-they-created
How did life on Earth begin? Recent scientific advances suggest that all living beings are descended from a single gene that existed around 4 billion years ago. This gene produced two proteins that created the genetic code, the universal language of life that marks the separation from the inanimate world. The scientists who discovered these proteins, recognizing their central role at the dawn of existence, gave them familiar names: Adam and Eve...

BatteryCorrectHorse

I recall @CorrectHorseBattery predicting a 30 point lead before the next election, albeit he'd predicted it many times without success before

Mexicanpete

Nigelb said:

Completely OT, but a very interesting story.

Adam and Eve Existed: They Created the Genetic Code
https://www.vineyardbooks.blog/p/adam-and-eve-existed-they-created
How did life on Earth begin? Recent scientific advances suggest that all living beings are descended from a single gene that existed around 4 billion years ago. This gene produced two proteins that created the genetic code, the universal language of life that marks the separation from the inanimate world. The scientists who discovered these proteins, recognizing their central role at the dawn of existence, gave them familiar names: Adam and Eve...

Would you Adam and Eve it?

Mexicanpete

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I recall @CorrectHorseBattery predicting a 30 point lead before the next election, albeit he'd predicted it many times without success before

I name checked him this morning.

megasaur

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

Jim_Miller said:

On topic, sort of: Does Prime Minister Sunak celebrate Christmas?

Apparently so, "I always brine then cook the turkey — I hate the cooking, but no one else will do it! — and watch The Snowman with my daughters on Christmas Eve followed by The Holiday on Christmas Day."

I mean he is Hindu of course, but clearly a lot of non-Christian and indeed non-religious people in the UK just enjoy Christmas as a festival.

That sounds like a LLM written by an extraterrestrial trying to do intimate and relatable and coming up with creepy and dysfunctional. If he can watch crap movies with his children why can't he get them to help with the cooking? If the non dom won't do turkey could she not at least be responsible for the sprouts? Why not employ a cook if you can afford one?

isam

https://x.com/youwouldknow/status/1788499283521556812?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

148grss

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Big_G_NorthWales

I have long since expected it to be on the 14th November or the 12th December and simply do not think Sunak is daft enough, even for him, to wait to January

My only caveat is circumstances, including more defections, force his hand then in that case all bets are off (mind you I have not put a bet on anything in my 80 years)

I would just say my personal hope would be an early election and let the country move on under Starmer

DougSeal

isam said:

https://x.com/youwouldknow/status/1788499283521556812?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

Rather harsh on Crispin Blunt IMHO

Nigelb

isam said:

https://x.com/youwouldknow/status/1788499283521556812?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

Well he can help with the China policy ?

Mexicanpete

...

isam said:

https://x.com/youwouldknow/status/1788499283521556812?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

The red line is Farage.

148grss

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

Ive loopked at the first and its an interesting and useful study. It is also only a single small study. It says itself that you need more research. I think you're overclaiming again talking as if that has settled everything.

It is one of the more recent studies, and I did couch it in "may be" - I am not claiming it is settled but instead referring to recent research that has been reviewed and published in a journal. But the "men bigger and stronger therefore trans women must be too" claim is also not settled. And, as you can see from other posters on this - there position seems to be because one of the researchers is trans and doesn't meet their standard of what being visibly a woman should be - that the research they contributed to has no worth.

Nigelb

She had her Weetabix this morning.

Trump lawyer to #StormyDaniels: NECHELES: “You know there is no way to check on the details of what you said happened. DANIELS: "Sure there is. Your client, Donald Trump, can take the stand and testify if he has a different story to tell."
https://twitter.com/brianpia/status/1788586587229446520

Smart lawyers know that if a cross examination isn't helping, it's hurting them.

williamglenn

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

rcs1000

Nigelb said:

She had her Weetabix this morning.

Trump lawyer to #StormyDaniels: NECHELES: “You know there is no way to check on the details of what you said happened. DANIELS: "Sure there is. Your client, Donald Trump, can take the stand and testify if he has a different story to tell."
https://twitter.com/brianpia/status/1788586587229446520

Smart lawyers know that if a cross examination isn't helping, it's hurting them.

That's a pretty good line.

Of course, Trump doesn't want to take the stand because then he is open to being questioned about all his other lying... and there's no shortage of lying.

Stuartinromford

Isn't the usual TLDR here that May 2 was the last only-slightly-terrible election date?

If he wants something before the end of June (and school holidays in some places), he has until about Wednesday to call the election, with last dissolution on Wednesday 22nd.

His next opportunity is basically call in September, lose in late October/early November. If he really still believes in Rwanda being a game changer, you can see the point. It probably won't be, but even if it is, that's a whole lot more people paying mortgages at Trussified levels.

As for another NI giveaway, there's no money and the last two have had approximately zero impact on the polls. Never had so much been borrowed for so little benefit.

Mexicanpete

Big_G_NorthWales said:

I have long since expected it to be on the 14th November or the 12th December and simply do not think Sunak is daft enough, even for him, to wait to January

My only caveat is circumstances, including more defections, force his hand then in that case all bets are off (mind you I have not put a bet on anything in my 80 years)

I would just say my personal hope would be an early election and let the country move on under Starmer

What has Sunak got to lose? He'll only being 8 months behind Johnson's PM longevity if he hangs on until late January.

Nigelb

Absolutely insane, if true.

TRUMP ASKED OIL CEOS AT MAR-A-LAGO TO RAISE $1 BILLION FOR HIS CAMPAIGN, VOWED TO TARGET EVS - WASHINGTON POST
https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1788541185407033675

Cyclefree

https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4776315#Comment_4776315

And

https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4776310#Comment_4776310

148grss

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

AugustusCarp2

A January election would give the country exactly what it wants - a General Election, without a General Election Campaign.

Sunak dissolves Parliament in the second week of December; it then takes a week to wind up the outstanding regulatory business. after that, it's the third week in December - a time for Christmas Parties, shopping, and generally getting ready for the holidays. So neither the party volunteers nor the voters will be keen on canvassing, leafletting etc. After that, it's Christmas week - not an ideal time for campaigning. Then comes the New Year, and all the activity has to get crammed into three weeks at the most.

Meanwhile, the Tories go hard on an on-line campaign. Social media is where it's at, these days (according to the people who decide these things) and they have already upped the spending allowance to £35 million.

Any activity before Christmas will be on Facebook, Twitter/X etc. I expect most people's screen-time will be down a bit just then, but the adverts they see will mainly be Conservative ones.

A January election might just turn out to be a rather good idea. They are still going to get pummelled, but perhaps less so if the electorate sees less of them.

JosiasJessop

Cyclefree said:

https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4776315#Comment_4776315

And

https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4776310#Comment_4776310

I have responded on the previous thread.

Cyclefree

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Men playing in women's sports are cheats, whatever label you give them.

If you have just one sporting category with men competing against women then men will win all the prizes and women will be injured.

Either of these policies are hideously unfair to women and girls at all levels of sport.

Fiddling around with hormones is irrelevant. Women are not a sort of lesser version of men with slightly less testosterone. Men's bodies are made differently and those differences matter from childhood onwards, even before puberty, and very definitely thereafter.

williamglenn

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

Nigelb

Not sure whether this is overcapacity as a result of state subsidy of the industry (though the increasing volumes of batteries delivered argues a bit against that), or a large improvement in the efficiency of the manufacturing chain.
Possibly a combination of both.

Incredible and so gooood! Full system battery prices drop 50% in China in 2024, compared to 2023!

Now below key $100 per kilowatt hour level, where batteries become super competitive. h/t @Guay_JG and @SolarInMASS
https://twitter.com/johnrhanger/status/1788565964117705053

Either way, it's hugely consequential for worldwide electrical grid design.

Carnyx

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

You've just, today, effectively claimed, knowingly or otherwise, that a single person has committed serious scientific fraud.

Have another look at your post at 4.38 pm and my reply to it.

viewcode

Nigelb said:

isam said:

https://x.com/youwouldknow/status/1788499283521556812?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

Well he can help with the China policy ?

Depends what you mean by "help"...😀

Cyclefree

For @JosiasJessop - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/24/spanish-men-self-id-gender-law-access-female-care-service/

Foxy

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

Jim_Miller said:

On topic, sort of: Does Prime Minister Sunak celebrate Christmas?

Apparently so, "I always brine then cook the turkey — I hate the cooking, but no one else will do it! — and watch The Snowman with my daughters on Christmas Eve followed by The Holiday on Christmas Day."

I mean he is Hindu of course, but clearly a lot of non-Christian and indeed non-religious people in the UK just enjoy Christmas as a festival.

I don't doubt that he celebrates Christmas as a secular excuse for a party (though there is a strand of Hinduism that recognises Jesus as an incarnation of Vishnu). I thought he was vegetarian though.

stodge

YouGov data tables:

https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/TheTimes_VI_240508_HungP_W.pdf

The England sub sample is Labour 48%, Conservative 19%, Reform 14% and LD 10%.

That's a 22% swing from Conservative to Labour and a 13% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat.

A 22% swing makes Epping Forest a marginal....

williamglenn

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

You've just, today, effectively claimed, knowingly or otherwise, that a single person has committed serious scientific fraud.

Have another look at your post at 4.38 pm and my reply to it.

The principal contributor and author of the write-up is the person in the photo.

I haven't alleged fraud, but it's a fact that the only reason the paper exists is because the author(s) wanted to further an ideological position regarding the participation of trans women in female sports.

viewcode

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Point of order: if you have a connection to the subject of the study then you are expected to declare it and I assume they did. If they uploaded the underlying data (and many journals do these days) then you could download it and repeat the calculations. I doubt that anybody who published in this subject doesn't have some kind of connection, tbh.

Cleitophon

If the defections pick up then Sunak can wave bye bye to a January election... then it might be forced on him.... I am not at all sure he can limp on for that long.

malcolmg

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

What these halfwits never admit is that MEN and WOMEN get abused all the time but these nutters never give that a second's consideration. Barking. Just because teh odd person gets abused does not mean any Tom, Dick or Harry should be allowed free access to woman's refuges, toilets, changing areas etc.

Carnyx

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

You've just, today, effectively claimed, knowingly or otherwise, that a single person has committed serious scientific fraud.

Have another look at your post at 4.38 pm and my reply to it.

The principal contributor and author of the write-up is the person in the photo.

I haven't alleged fraud, but it's a fact that the only reason the paper exists is because the author(s) wanted to further an ideological position regarding the participation of trans women in female sports.

You said 'This is the author' not 'principal contributor and author' when you referred to a paper with SEVEN authors. If you are going around claiming that academic work is dodgy and to be ignored, then you should at least be clear what you are talking about.

Edit: you may not realise that accusing people of publishing under the wrong name, and affiliation, is itself accusation of fraud. Yet you said that this one person was all seven. No doubt carelessness, but it doesn't help your argument, believe me.

williamglenn

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

You've just, today, effectively claimed, knowingly or otherwise, that a single person has committed serious scientific fraud.

Have another look at your post at 4.38 pm and my reply to it.

The principal contributor and author of the write-up is the person in the photo.

I haven't alleged fraud, but it's a fact that the only reason the paper exists is because the author(s) wanted to further an ideological position regarding the participation of trans women in female sports.

You said 'This is the author' not 'principal contributor and author' when you referred to a paper with SEVEN authors. If you are going around claiming that academic work is dodgy and to be ignored, then you should at least be clear what you are talking about.

The text itself is signed by a single author.

Carnyx

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

You've just, today, effectively claimed, knowingly or otherwise, that a single person has committed serious scientific fraud.

Have another look at your post at 4.38 pm and my reply to it.

The principal contributor and author of the write-up is the person in the photo.

I haven't alleged fraud, but it's a fact that the only reason the paper exists is because the author(s) wanted to further an ideological position regarding the participation of trans women in female sports.

You said 'This is the author' not 'principal contributor and author' when you referred to a paper with SEVEN authors. If you are going around claiming that academic work is dodgy and to be ignored, then you should at least be clear what you are talking about.

The text itself is signed by a single author.

All authors are equal and all are in the header. This bit might have escaped you:

"Contributors BH, FMG and YPP designed the study. Material preparation, reporting and critical revision of the work were performed by BH, PGB, FMG and YPP. Data collection was performed by CC-C, AB, SM-M and BH. BH wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors critically revised subsequent versions until all authors could approve the final manuscript. YPP is the guarantor."

viewcode

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

Ive loopked at the first and its an interesting and useful study. It is also only a single small study. It says itself that you need more research. I think you're overclaiming again talking as if that has settled everything.

Point of order. The minimum size of a study is dictated by the size of the effect and/or the test applied to the result.

Northern_Al

Sunak won't wait till January. He's repeatedly said the GE will be "in the second half of the year"; this will be repeatedly thrown back at him if he delays to 2025.

Personally, I'm a bit torn. The sooner we get rid of this lot, the better. On the other hand, if he delays until January I'd enjoy the spectacle of there being so few Tory MPs.

Leon

Why are 85% of Italians charming?

It is a definite thing, and no other country has anything like it

williamglenn

viewcode said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Point of order: if you have a connection to the subject of the study then you are expected to declare it and I assume they did. If they uploaded the underlying data (and many journals do these days) then you could download it and repeat the calculations. I doubt that anybody who published in this subject doesn't have some kind of connection, tbh.

Then it’s a problem that no conflict of interest was declared.

Carnyx

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

You've just, today, effectively claimed, knowingly or otherwise, that a single person has committed serious scientific fraud.

Have another look at your post at 4.38 pm and my reply to it.

The principal contributor and author of the write-up is the person in the photo.

I haven't alleged fraud, but it's a fact that the only reason the paper exists is because the author(s) wanted to further an ideological position regarding the participation of trans women in female sports.

You said 'This is the author' not 'principal contributor and author' when you referred to a paper with SEVEN authors. If you are going around claiming that academic work is dodgy and to be ignored, then you should at least be clear what you are talking about.

The text itself is signed by a single author.

PS Do you mean this? The bit beginning with a big X? That's just the designated social media account. Like the article designates someone else as the sole email contact (very common in papers btw). This thing X is what used to be called Twitter, and all.

'[...] of gender-affirmative care on sports performance problematic.

X Blair Hamilton @BlairH_PhD

Acknowledgements We thank Associate Professor Ada Cheung of the
Department of Medicine (Austin Health) at the University of Melbourne, Australia for
her valuable review of this work prior to publication.
Contributors BH, FMG and YPP designed the study. Material preparation [...]'

Carnyx

williamglenn said:

viewcode said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Point of order: if you have a connection to the subject of the study then you are expected to declare it and I assume they did. If they uploaded the underlying data (and many journals do these days) then you could download it and repeat the calculations. I doubt that anybody who published in this subject doesn't have some kind of connection, tbh.

Then it’s a problem that no conflict of interest was declared.

But they do declare conflicts of interest. Look at the wording.

megasaur

Northern_Al said:

Sunak won't wait till January. He's repeatedly said the GE will be "in the second half of the year"; this will be repeatedly thrown back at him if he delays to 2025.

Personally, I'm a bit torn. The sooner we get rid of this lot, the better. On the other hand, if he delays until January I'd enjoy the spectacle of there being so few Tory MPs.

But what conceivable harm does the repeated throwing back inflict on him?

Sunil_Prasannan

YouGov? Must be an outlier! Shirley!

bondegezou

148grss said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

Ive loopked at the first and its an interesting and useful study. It is also only a single small study. It says itself that you need more research. I think you're overclaiming again talking as if that has settled everything.

It is one of the more recent studies, and I did couch it in "may be" - I am not claiming it is settled but instead referring to recent research that has been reviewed and published in a journal. But the "men bigger and stronger therefore trans women must be too" claim is also not settled. And, as you can see from other posters on this - there position seems to be because one of the researchers is trans and doesn't meet their standard of what being visibly a woman should be - that the research they contributed to has no worth.

There are a range of opinions on PB. Sadly, a few people are just offensive. I generally ignore them.

williamglenn

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

You've just, today, effectively claimed, knowingly or otherwise, that a single person has committed serious scientific fraud.

Have another look at your post at 4.38 pm and my reply to it.

The principal contributor and author of the write-up is the person in the photo.

I haven't alleged fraud, but it's a fact that the only reason the paper exists is because the author(s) wanted to further an ideological position regarding the participation of trans women in female sports.

You said 'This is the author' not 'principal contributor and author' when you referred to a paper with SEVEN authors. If you are going around claiming that academic work is dodgy and to be ignored, then you should at least be clear what you are talking about.

The text itself is signed by a single author.

All authors are equal and all are in the header. This bit might have escaped you:

"Contributors BH, FMG and YPP designed the study. Material preparation, reporting and critical revision of the work were performed by BH, PGB, FMG and YPP. Data collection was performed by CC-C, AB, SM-M and BH. BH wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors critically revised subsequent versions until all authors could approve the final manuscript. YPP is the guarantor."

Then they can all take responsibilty for a badly designed and executed study.

The transwomen used in the sample are on average older and fatter than the cis women.

Malmesbury

megasaur said:

Northern_Al said:

Sunak won't wait till January. He's repeatedly said the GE will be "in the second half of the year"; this will be repeatedly thrown back at him if he delays to 2025.

Personally, I'm a bit torn. The sooner we get rid of this lot, the better. On the other hand, if he delays until January I'd enjoy the spectacle of there being so few Tory MPs.

But what conceivable harm does the repeated throwing back inflict on him?

It would damage his sterling reputation for reliability and political skill.

Hmmm… there’s something there I can’t quite put my finger on.

williamglenn

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

viewcode said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Point of order: if you have a connection to the subject of the study then you are expected to declare it and I assume they did. If they uploaded the underlying data (and many journals do these days) then you could download it and repeat the calculations. I doubt that anybody who published in this subject doesn't have some kind of connection, tbh.

Then it’s a problem that no conflict of interest was declared.

But they do declare conflicts of interest. Look at the wording.

It doesn't say that any of them are active competitors who personally stand to benefit from a liberal policy on trans participation in female sports.

Sunil_Prasannan

Leon said:

Why are 85% of Italians charming?

It is a definite thing, and no other country has anything like it

78.65% of statistics are made up on the spot.

MattW

Nigelb said:

Stormy Daniels: Show me where I said instrumental.
Trump's lawyer Necheles: Here's your tweet, "Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down."
Daniels: It doesn't say Trump, just orange turd. If you want to interpret it that way...
https://twitter.com/innercitypress/status/1788574734113722710

Stormy having fun - but not being entirely helpful to the prosecution, I suspect.

That tweet is shorn of context. Stormy Daniels' response was to a Trump supporter who called her a "human toilet".

“Show me where I said I would be instrumental in putting president Trump in jail”, Stormy Daniels said.

Susan Necheles then pulled up a tweet from 27 March in which someone called Ms Daniels a “human toilet”.

Ms Daniels responded, saying: “Making me the best person to flush the orange turd down.”

The former porn star said she hadn’t used the term “instrumental” or “jail”.

“It doesn’t say president Trump, it says ‘orange turd’”, she said.

“I’m also not a toilet”.

She added: “If they want to make fun of me, then I can make fun of them”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/05/09/stormy-daniels-donald-trump-trial-live/

Carnyx

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

Carnyx said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

Nigelb said:

Massive crackdown on popular dissent in Georgia.

Things have been developing quickly over the past 2-3 weeks in Georgia, but in the last couple of days, they have progressed at an unimaginable speed. The ruling Georgian Dream party has employed various tactics targeting civil society, escalating to an extreme level. ..
https://twitter.com/EtoBuziashvili/status/1788278445224464886

This goes one of two ways.

How do

148grss said:

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

williamglenn said:

148grss said:

malcolmg said:

bondegezou said:

148grss said:

david_herdson said:

148grss said:

DougSeal said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

isam said:

148grss said:

isam said:

Watching this race, it came to me that you could remake every Competitive Dad sketch from The Fast Show with a trans ‘woman’ as the Dad, and an actual woman as the kids, and it would work perfectly

🚨BREAKING🚨

A trans-identified male dominated the Girls Varsity 400m at the Portland Interscholastic League Championship Semi-Finals yesterday.

Aayden Gallagher will now compete in the finals as a “girl.”

(Joint release with @ThePublicaNow)

https://x.com/reduxxmag/status/1788286633650868612?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

And? The record for under 18 400m for girls is like 50 seconds; for men it's closer to 45 seconds. That this girl runs 400 m in 56-57 seconds makes her, like, a good amateur?

https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/sprints/400-metres/all/women/u18?regionType=world&timing=electronic&page=1&bestResultsOnly=true&firstDay=1900-01-01&lastDay=2024-05-09&maxResultsByCountry=all&eventId=10229511&ageCategory=u18

https://www.athletic.net/athlete/24853874/track-and-field/high-school

I assume that OR, like many places that allow trans athletes to compete, have rules around when students can participate (from what I can find students have to have been transitioning consistently and cannot participate in the same year they started their transition). I have no idea how old this girl is - but this is a tenth grade competition, so she is likely 15-16. If she's on HRT muscle mass and strength typically is one of the first things to fall in line with new hormones (3-6months).

He’s not on HRT, so it’s literally a boy competing in the girls race

I couldn't find any information on if she was on HRT or not (that's why I said if) - can you give me a citation for that assertion?

His calves.

Can you see how this could be seen as just straight up misogyny and why people like me say that this policing of women's bodies is bad for cis and trans women? Are you saying any woman who has calf definition similar to this athlete is actually a man? You can "just tell" who is a trans or cis woman by looking at them?

This isn't policing women's bodies. It's straight up fairness. You cannot have a fair competition between men and women in sports that involve the deployment of muscle mass. There is a lot of generalisation but splitting sports between the sexes, while by no-means perfect, is the best way we have to create something of a level playing field (pun intended).

I'm someone who competed at a reasonably high level in sprint events when I was a teenager, trained with boys and girls my own age, and my lived experience (which is all that counts these days apparently) is that it would have been unfair for us to compete with one another in events that mattered.

We do not know if this young athlete is on HRT and, if so, for how long she has been. For all I know she could have never had a testosterone based puberty - she may have been on puberty blockers and got straight onto HRT. To say that you can tell this girl is "really a boy" just by looking at her is completely misogynist - in the same way that those who call Michelle Obama "secretly a man" is. Many cis women who do not conform to feminine beauty standards will be insulted by calling them men; many cis women have been harassed, in toilets and other public spaces, because they were considered too manish and people thought they were trans. It's all the same thing - policing women's bodies based on expectations of femininity.

We don't need to go into observed physical attributes. The original report notes that s/he is a biological male. The what-iffery is beside the point. Men should not be in women's races, and boys - post about 11 - should not be in girls' ones. Or, at least, should not be allowed to compete to win or to set records.

Transphobes call women who have been on HRT most of their life and have had gender affirming surgeries "biological males" - it doesn't mean anything. Again - we have no idea if this athlete even had a testosterone based puberty. She may have been on HRT for years, and it is known that muscle mass is one of the first things to fall within a typical cis women's range when trans women start HRT (as noted, 3 - 6 months). Calling her a "biological male" in reporting (reporting from right wing / "independent" news orgs) is, again, just transphobia

148grss, you have repeatedly made this point that maybe she’s been on HRT for years and not experienced a testosterone-based puberty. So, are you saying that these things matter? If she had only started HRT the day before, would it then be unfair for her to compete against ciswomen?

Are you (implicitly) proposing that transwomen should only be able to compete against ciswomen under certain circumstances relating to their transition and hormone use?

what is this ciswoman mince, can you not just say it as it is "woman". rather than using the bollox ( pun not intended ) PC crap.

A cis woman is a woman who isn't a trans woman; it's pretty simple. Cis and trans are Latin prefixes used to denote closeness to and farness away from (the usage for cisalpine Gaul in the Roman period to mean those Gauls on the Roman side of the Alpines, and transalpine Gaul for those Gauls on the far side of the Alpines from Rome, for example).

When you put it like that, isn’t the term transwoman transphobic because it implies distance from womanhood?

Language is weird - but the trans in this context is farness from assigned gender at birth.

Do you think that the practice of assigning gender at birth should be abandoned?

Surely it's outrageous for a parent to make assumptions about a child's religion, sexual orientation or gender until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I think there is a difference between making an assumption and then forcing their kids. Most people are cis, most people are straight, etc. But if your kid comes out and you basically say "no" - that's a problem. Even if that child is "going through a phase" or "experimenting" - what's the issue with saying "sure, okay, keep talking to me and know I'm here for advice" rather than saying "no your not, I know you, that's not possible, no child of mine, etc!"

Firstly, it's a joke. Possibly a very poor one, but obviously a joke.

Secondly, everyone should be treated (and called) what they wish to be called. If you want me to call you "Janice" and "she/her", then I will obviously comply, because to do otherwise would be incredibly rude and disrespectful. This isn't complicated. I don't care what your views on "trans" are, you treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself.

Thirdly, it is - or should be - a free world. You want to wear a dress, or whatever, knock yourself out. And if a child wants to experiment, good for them. As a parent I would obviously be 100% supportive if my child said "I don't know if I'm really an [x]". Although, I always ask "what characteristic of [x] is it that makes you feel that way?"

Fourthly, this has nothing to do with changing rooms. Safe spaces for women exist for a reason: it's because people with penises will lie in order to access women's only spaces. The simple solution - which they've implemented brilliantly in the changing rooms in the Olympic Pool in Stratford - is private changing areas. We should have more of those, albeit it's a long road to get there.

Fifthly, sports is separated into men's and women's because there are certain physical advantages that come with XX rather than XY. It's not separated according to how you feel, but by the genetic advantages that accrue to a certain biological sex. Change the names if you like: it's the XX Tennis Champion, and the XY Tennis Champion, but it's nothing to do with how you feel or identify, and all about whether you have genetic physical advantages.

Points 1-3 I will take.

Point 4 - trans women should be barred from refuges because it may be abused by cis men? Why? There is no evidence that trans women are more of a threat than cis women to other women, and they have more in common with cis women in terms of being victims of sexual abuse and being perpetrators of sexual assault. If an individual is a concern entering a refuge, that is fair and should be managed. A women's refuge wouldn't still allow in a same sex partner of an abused woman - so being a woman isn't the only qualification to get in to a woman's refuge.

Point 5 - The advantages are not related to chromosomal type, they are associated with the effect of hormones on the body, which you can change. Taking cross sex hormones make trans peoples' bodies more in line with the typical cis body associated with those hormones. I have already detailed some of the changes that happen and how long people have to be on hormones to experience those changes, such as muscle mass in trans women being more in line with cis women within 3-6 months of taking HRT. Also - cis women are being policed based on their testosterone levels and other things - not their chromosomal type. So women are policed in sports beyond sex - it is based on a "standard" woman that, itself, is restrictive to the right "kind" of woman.

OK.

Point 4 is where we get to a very difficult point.

I completely agree that many trans women are abused. I completely agree they should be protected.

But how do you prevent an abuser from claiming to be a trans woman to gain access to a refuge? It's the same issue with prisons: non-trans abusers will - and have - used self ID to abuse women. This isn't about trans women being pervy. They are not. It is about sexual predators lying. How do you solve this issue?

Point 5, you are factually wrong. Even if you take hormones, you will still have a womb, and your body will still be using energy to keep the womb warm at the expense of the extremeties. Men, by contrast, don't have this. That's because women's bodies are designed to keep babies alive at the expense of a finger lost to frostbite.

FPT:

How do women's refuges currently prevent potentially abusive women from entering a space? They will do a safeguarding check. Trans women have been going to women's refuges for all my life, using women's toilets and changing rooms, etc etc. The issues are rare - there is no pattern of behaviour that suggest trans women are a unique threat.

I'm gonna get out my citations again: recent studies show that trans women may be at biological disadvantages to cis women:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029.abstract

And that most advantages that may exist early in transition are just that, seen early in transition, and declines the longer that trans women are on HRT:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577

This is the author of the paper that preposterously claims that trans women may have a biological disadvantage against cis women. In any other context you would be very suspicious about bias and vested interests.

Glad to see that this is totally based on an understanding of articles and journals and not just bigotry.

Why are you so deferential to anything published in a journal (provided that it confirms your preconceived view)? What's your view on the replication crisis in academia?

I'm deferential to journals and peer review because that alternative is believe in your gut? Like, it's an imperfect method - but it's the best we've got. And it's certainly better than going "that person looks are somehow more important than their research (which was conducted with lots of other researchers, reviewed and deemed suitable for publication)".

My thought on replication crisis is to do more research - keep trying the same experiments, scenarios, etc and collate bigger data sets. Try to broaden the people represented in research, by age range, by class, by race, by gender, etc etc. We make models of understanding based on the research we have, we obviously have uncertainty, but at the end of the day it's the best system we have of understanding how things work.

The alternative isn't to believe your gut but to use your brain.

If research funded by a tobacco company said that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, you would be the first to smell a rat and come up with elaborate theoretical explanations for why the research should be dismissed out of hand.

You've just, today, effectively claimed, knowingly or otherwise, that a single person has committed serious scientific fraud.

Have another look at your post at 4.38 pm and my reply to it.

The principal contributor and author of the write-up is the person in the photo.

I haven't alleged fraud, but it's a fact that the only reason the paper exists is because the author(s) wanted to further an ideological position regarding the participation of trans women in female sports.

You said 'This is the author' not 'principal contributor and author' when you referred to a paper with SEVEN authors. If you are going around claiming that academic work is dodgy and to be ignored, then you should at least be clear what you are talking about.

The text itself is signed by a single author.

All authors are equal and all are in the header. This bit might have escaped you:

"Contributors BH, FMG and YPP designed the study. Material preparation, reporting and critical revision of the work were performed by BH, PGB, FMG and YPP. Data collection was performed by CC-C, AB, SM-M and BH. BH wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors critically revised subsequent versions until all authors could approve the final manuscript. YPP is the guarantor."

Then they can all take responsibilty for a badly designed and executed study.

The transwomen used in the samply are on average older and fatter than the cis women.

Doesn't change the fact that you completely misread the paper and made unjustifiable accusations as a result.