Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
thelawnet
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

Tangled Metal wrote:Still, one good thing about him/her. She's pi$$ing off a few reactionary types. Whether or not I agree with her competing as she does at least she's doing one good thing there.

Carry on complaining. She appears to meet all requirements placed on her to be allowed to compete as a woman. As long as that's the case she's got the right to compete. Plus she's still got to train and put in more effort into her sport than people here are probably doing. It's not like she cuts off her member, takes hormones / suppressants, calls herself a woman and suddenly becomes so much better than the women she competes with.


you what?

I don't think that McKinnon is only annoying reactionaries (though he certainly is annoying them - see this rather amusing spoof https://babylonbee.com/news/motorcycle- ... ing-record ). He recently posted his joy that Deborah Orr had died of breast cancer. Orr was a Guardian journalist for many years and not by any means a reactionary.

I don't think that people like Julie Bindel are best described as reactionaries either. I don't think Bindel has too much time for men though, and she correctly identified that McKinnon behaves exactly like one.

There are quite a few paedophiles who claim to now be transwomen, often while still in prison. There is no way to determine for sure whether a claim to be transgender is true, because being transgender is not of itself a meaningful statement in that it could apply to someone who has normal male anatomy and hormone levels, and has merely claimed that they possess female gender identity.

McKinnon is playing a bit of a game in that his achievements in winning the World Masters 35-39 are being shouted by him out of proportion to their significance in sporting terms, and there seems to be a mutual cycle of outrage and him revelling in the same. In other words while he obviously trains for his wins, the level is some way short of actual World Champion - he's noising up an amateur competition which is otherwise people doing it for the fun and love of the sport

As far as meeting requirements goes, that's not really here nor there. I remember when I was a child my sister, two years older, always used to physically dominate me, had larger shoes, etc. At some point puberty hit and I was both bigger and stronger than her and that would no longer happen. We are both of slightly above average height for our sex, so the difference is purely down to the effects of male vs female puberty.

Sexual dimorphism persists no matter what you do to your body after puberty - I once saw a photo of a group of transmen (FTM) and transwomen (MTF) and it was immediately visually jarring because all the male-looking people were smaller than all the female-looking people.

In competitive sporting terms it's completely absurd to imagine that the innate height/size advantage that males have over females can ever be reversed by merely reducing testosterone to a normal female level, because that doesn't change the body that was shaped by tested rather than ovaries.

What the rules say is somewhat besides the point when there are obvious and insurmountable fairness issues. Nobody wants to see third-rate super-heavyweight boxers fighting top-class flyweights, for example.
pwa
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by pwa »

Tangled Metal wrote:Still, one good thing about him/her. She's pi$$ing off a few reactionary types. Whether or not I agree with her competing as she does at least she's doing one good thing there.

Carry on complaining. She appears to meet all requirements placed on her to be allowed to compete as a woman. As long as that's the case she's got the right to compete. Plus she's still got to train and put in more effort into her sport than people here are probably doing. It's not like she cuts off her member, takes hormones / suppressants, calls herself a woman and suddenly becomes so much better than the women she competes with.

This could mean the end of boxing as a sport for women born female if this inclusiveness is extended to that sport. That is what bothers me about this, the threat to sport for women born female. Maybe I should be less "reactionary" and stop caring about females born female having a chance.

Maybe the time has arrived to do what they do with paralympic sport and have more than two categories, in this case meaning two extra gender related categories. So male born male, female born male, male born female and female born female. After all, aren't we constantly being told not to consider gender to be binary?
Tangled Metal
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Tangled Metal »

thelawnet wrote:
Tangled Metal wrote:Still, one good thing about him/her. She's pi$$ing off a few reactionary types. Whether or not I agree with her competing as she does at least she's doing one good thing there.

Snip


you what?

I don't think that McKinnon is only annoying reactionaries (

I never said only. If you can understand what I said without jumping to conclusions you'll see that. To clarify.

One good thing about him/her is that he/she is pi$$ing of a few reactionary types. I did not say who they were but left it to you to think that for yourselves. It is telling when you're mentioning names like julie bindell. Assuming you think of her as some arch feminist and her opposition confers greater weight to any opposition.

Tangled Metal wrote:Carry on complaining. She appears to meet all requirements placed on her to be allowed to compete as a woman. As long as that's the case she's got the right to compete. Plus she's still got to train and put in more effort into her sport than people here are probably doing. It's not like she cuts off her member, takes hormones / suppressants, calls herself a woman and suddenly becomes so much better than the women she competes with.


As to the rest as long as he/she operates within the rules of sport this whole thread is purely complaining for complaining sake by now. Is there really anything new? He/she keeps winning, how many wins before you see there's no point discussing it here? There's rules for the sport, anyone operating in them is eligible to work hard send achieve according to their abilities. I bet everyone on that podium works hard at their sport and are much more capable at it than any of us. Probably puts more time into their sport than we do (unless tinkering on the bikes in the shed between riding them counts if course :wink: ).
landsurfer
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by landsurfer »

I wish all to that I now identify as a "TransTinkering"..... :lol:
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
thelawnet
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

Tangled Metal wrote:
thelawnet wrote:
Tangled Metal wrote:Still, one good thing about him/her. She's pi$$ing off a few reactionary types. Whether or not I agree with her competing as she does at least she's doing one good thing there.

Snip


you what?

I don't think that McKinnon is only annoying reactionaries (

I never said only. If you can understand what I said without jumping to conclusions you'll see that. To clarify.

One good thing about him/her is that he/she is ****** off a few reactionary types. I did not say who they were but left it to you to think that for yourselves. It is telling when you're mentioning names like julie bindell. Assuming you think of her as some arch feminist and her opposition confers greater weight to any opposition.


it wouldn't be that hard to spell her name correctly, when I have already done it for you, surely?

my only intention was to clarify that McKinnon is not only annoying people on the right but also those on the left.

whatever weight their names might or might not have was not really the point I was making.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Tangled Metal »

thelawnet wrote:
Tangled Metal wrote:
thelawnet wrote:
you what?

I don't think that McKinnon is only annoying reactionaries (

I never said only. If you can understand what I said without jumping to conclusions you'll see that. To clarify.

One good thing about him/her is that he/she is ***** off a few reactionary types. I did not say who they were but left it to you to think that for yourselves. It is telling when you're mentioning names like julie bindell. Assuming you think of her as some arch feminist and her opposition confers greater weight to any opposition.


it wouldn't be that hard to spell her name correctly, when I have already done it for you, surely?


my only intention was to clarify that McKinnon is not only annoying people on the right but also those on the left.

whatever weight their names might or might not have was not really the point I was making.

That ****** me off too. I corrected it 4 times on my phone before I gave up. Auto correct thinks her name is spelt wrong.

New phone hasn't learnt my typing style yet. Still having trouble getting it to remember and forget what I want it to. Miss my old one. After 3 years it could read my mind as I typed, then put in the odd extra letter b for me.
thelawnet
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

cancelling the autocorrect can be annoying, you normally have to notice it straightaway and press backspace once to undo the autocorrect - if you're already on a new word then it will just keep repeating the error
Tangled Metal
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Tangled Metal »

Tell me about it. Add in the accidental delete a word function and you're stuffed having up to type in a word you commonly use repeatedly because it wants to change the correct word to one you accidentally typed or swyped in straight after the correct word got deleted.

Trust me I've experienced all kinds of spellchecker balls up corrections. At one work PC carcinogenicity became carcinogen city. Not good in technical correspondence with customers. Beijing customer possibly thought it our nickname for their city!

Even better ones allow for misunderstanding. I bet you'll find good examples online for classic autocorrect mistakes. And for everyone that gets through there's many more you catch. Or there's one's like that name in my post, you correct manually si many times that the last case of auto correct you give in and let it through. As someone with a commonly misspelt name you rarely get annoyed after the first few hundred cases.
thelawnet
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by thelawnet »

the UCI has confirmed that it is reducing its testosterone limit to 5nmol/l instead of 10nmol/l.

https://www.uci.org/inside-uci/press-re ... ticipation

this is still above the normal healthy female level which is between around 0.5 and 2.0 nmol/l

it also doesn't affect someone who has, for example, a male skeleton and body structure, but suppresses testosterone to 5 nmol/l, as they will obviously retain advantages over women whose testosterone level has never at any time been in the male range
Marcus Aurelius
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Marcus Aurelius »

The thing I find most telling about this issue, is the complete absence of any WTM trans athletes. I wonder why that is?
alexnharvey
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by alexnharvey »

I would guess that's because they have no performance advantage and so they don't hit the news because they don't win things. Or because being biorn Fermale they have more sense?
Vorpal
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Vorpal »

Marcus Aurelius wrote:The thing I find most telling about this issue, is the complete absence of any WTM trans athletes. I wonder why that is?


There is not a complete absence. Transgender athletes are competing at all levels of sport. Like most folks, they just want to get on with life & enjoy what they are doing. They only make headlines when someone thinks a transgender person has done something controversial, like winning.

Vorpal wrote:Transgender men do compete against other men.

They are less likely to make the news or be as prominent. The ones that are prominent, for the most part, are also activists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Mosier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuyler_Bailar

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/04/04/t ... r-compete/

Also http://www.ncaa.org/static/champion/a-t ... ransition/
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Carlton green
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Carlton green »

Vorpal wrote:
Transgender athletes are competing at all levels of sport. Like most folks, they just want to get on with life & enjoy what they are doing. They only make headlines when someone thinks a transgender person has done something controversial, like winning.



In general I think that we get too ‘hung up’ about most things in life and should focus more on helping our fellow human to achieve their best. Male and Female might appear to be a clear split in ‘sex’ but in reality many of us share much in common. The strongest woman is far stronger than the weakest man and some men are far more caring than some women - sex at birth isn’t necessarily the totality clear binary distinction we believe it to be and (also) some children are actually born (but not recorded as) intersex.

As for winning how is it ever possible to make things fair? There will always be complaints that a strong (butch?) woman has un-natural advantage in sports but nobody complains that a naturally weaker man is disadvantaged when competing against his fellow man. ‘I only beat him because he is naturally disadvantaged by his hormonal mix’ are not words that I’ve ever heard from a male winner.

I can’t say that I like the LGBT + whatever community but as I grow older I question my - mostly taught to me - prejudices, look at the people I know in that ‘group’ and urge other people to simply find better ways forward; as a society we need to ‘live and let live’ more.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Marcus Aurelius
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Marcus Aurelius »

Carlton green wrote:
Vorpal wrote:
Transgender athletes are competing at all levels of sport. Like most folks, they just want to get on with life & enjoy what they are doing. They only make headlines when someone thinks a transgender person has done something controversial, like winning.



In general I think that we get too ‘hung up’ about most things in life and should focus more on helping our fellow human to achieve their best. Male and Female might appear to be a clear split in ‘sex’ but in reality many of us share much in common. The strongest woman is far stronger than the weakest man and some men are far more caring than some women - sex at birth isn’t necessarily the totality clear binary distinction we believe it to be and (also) some children are actually born (but not recorded as) intersex.

As for winning how is it ever possible to make things fair? There will always be complaints that a strong (butch?) woman has un-natural advantage in sports but nobody complains that a naturally weaker man is disadvantaged when competing against his fellow man. ‘I only beat him because he is naturally disadvantaged by his hormonal mix’ are not words that I’ve ever heard from a male winner.

I can’t say that I like the LGBT + whatever community but as I grow older I question my - mostly taught to me - prejudices, look at the people I know in that ‘group’ and urge other people to simply find better ways forward; as a society we need to ‘live and let live’ more.

I’d agree with you on most of that. The only thing that winds me up, is when someone who is physically pretty much a large man, cheats ( in my opinion ) and enters a women’s event under the LGBTQLampostUnicornwhatever banner, and wins.

Image

I mean look at the size of the Trans woman, in comparison to the actual women. It’s a joke.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Transgender woman wins cycling championship

Post by Tangled Metal »

I do not know enough about the trans sports community and any physiological advantage they might have over the cisgender opponents (I think I've used that right).

What i have read about this individual i do not like. She comes across as a nasty piece of work. Real concerns over various issues by some very respected gender academics gets written off by her by petty name calling. Attempts to engage in discussion gets feminists being called TERFs or worse. She doesn't seem willing to actually listen to people but shouts them down using twitterati back up.

Then there's the objectionable comment on Twitter or Facebook about , iirc, dancing on the grave of a respected gender studies academic and feminist writer who had just died after a period of illness (during which I believe she was getting grief from that athlete and her supporters.

All that worries me a lot. Especially when people are only engaging in open debate. If you're resorting to insults and abuse in a debate or discussion it feels to me like you've lost the argument. And let's face it there's serious issues to debate here. It's not a simple topic to reconcile all affected.
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