Common Sense Prevails

[Ken4155]

What some of us were suggesting when this topic was last discussed on these pages.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/transgender-swimmers-in-elite-women-s-competition-effectively-banned-by-governing-body-as-new-open-category-created/ar-AAYDG1G?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=61987803868042ed91405cd4ef1f95a7

[New Judge]

//I don't think that trans should be forced out of competing in a sport they love or have ambition to compete in.//

They are not being forced out. They can compete in competitions for the sex they were born as.

//…you continue negotiation in the hope of arriving at a solution.//

There is no solution that can be negotiated that will be fair to women. Any sport which relies on physical strength or endurance will strongly favour people who have experienced puberty as a male (i.e. men) over those who have done so as a female (i.e. women). There is absolutely no way this can be altered by “negotiation, reconciliation, compromise” or anything else. There are some things which, unpalatable as it may seem, are inalienable.

//I'm not interested in gender definitions,..//

We seem to be getting somewhere. The concept of “gender” is now largely meaningless and redundant as it has been decreed that anybody can be whatever they want to be. So we have to revert to sexual identity. If certain sports want to introduce a category for men pretending to be women that’s fine by me. They could also introduce contests for women pretending to be men, though I doubt they would be so heavily contested. I'd be extremely unlikely to watch any such events, but so long as it does not jeopardise women’s sport then each to their own. That’s what I call compromise (and it’s as far as I suggest the administrators of any sport go).

[Atheist]

NJ; I know this won't work, but could you for once try to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes - someone perhaps who is gay, or does not feel that they are a man or woman despite what their bits are like, or someone who is poor and has little chance of improving their financial situation so that they can feed their kids, or someone with a physical or mental disability, or someone living in a country where all the police and authorities have a different skin colour from themselves, or.....
Without imagination or empathy you're missing so much.

[New Judge]

//...but could you for once try to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes//

I certainly can. I can imagine being a young woman who has spent, perhaps, ten years or more of her life, getting up at 6am four or five days a week to get down to her local swimming club, training before school, then more of the same in the evenings at at weekends. She begins in local club contests, graduates to perhaps county level competitions and then national contests. Then she sees a bloke like "Lia" thomas come along and enter her chosen events, clearly a man with all the physical advantages that men have, and she realises she has absolutely no chance of reaching the top step of the podium. That's the sort of empathy I have.

The young lady whose shoes I put myself in has no more choice in her gender identity than one who "...does not feel that they are a man or woman despite what their bits are like," So tell me, why should my young lady suffer her misfortune (shared by more than 99% of her fellow women), but your man, who wants to pretend to be a woman, shouldn't? Why should he insist in competing with people over which he clearly enjoys such an unfair physical advantage? A separate competition for him and his like is the answer.

[goodgoalie]

Ain't it funny that you never hear of someone who started their life as a woman who later transitions to become a man, then wanting to take part in male sport? I wonder why that might be.

[ToraToraTora]

so creating a third category, they say it's open but what it will be is blokes who have discovered that if they pretend to be women they can beat women. They did the right thing banning men from the women's events but it's a pointless sop to this madness by creating a third category for them. Let's hope this idiocy does not spread to other sports.

[naomi24]

Atheist, you don’t have the monopoly on empathy. Yours is just misplaced.

[Atheist]

I did suggest a third category for trans people; that would avoid claims that women were being unfairly treated, wouldn't it?
Empathy doesn't have to be aimed only at certain categories of people.

[naomi24]

Atheist, That women are being unfairly treated when men are allowed to compete against them isn't just a 'claim' - it's a fact. And empathy really ought to be balanced. It's all very well saying 'put yourself in someone else's shoes' but you need to try both pairs on.

[Atheist]

Naomi, there's a difference between empathy and sympathy.

[naomi24]

Why are you telling me that? I haven't mentioned sympathy.