Emily Bridges calls British Cycling "failed organisation", says trans women have been "banned" as new 'Open' category announced

On 1., I'd be wary of suggesting that. People can deeply, genuinely believe all sorts of things, especially when cocooned in self-selecting, often online, bubbles which encourage the idea that anyone who doesn't believe 110% is A LITERAL NAZI !!

Of course, one extreme begets another, and they reinforce each others' entrenched positions. But they're still genuinely held (in most cases).
I fear that Emily - still young and having had a difficult time - is surrounded by people who encourage ever more outrage, rather than suggesting a more considered approach. I hope there there are calmer presences around.

On 2., of course, you're 110% correct and thus not A LITERAL NAZI (at least on this point).

All of that, well said.
At the bottom of all this is an absolute trans female obsession with bring treated EXACTLY as a woman in every way.
I get it (they'll all scream NO YOU DON'T of course), to feel you were born in the wrong body and then feel truly set free when you declare you're a woman, must be a huge thing for you, and even more so when you are fully accepted as such. Part of your transition and acceptance will be to be fully accepted as a female athlete. Sorry, but you can never be. I went bald early, my teeth are wonky and I have a small todger, that's my reality and there's nothing I can do about it. Life's a b***h sometimes, just hold your head up and surround yourself with good people.
Oh, and don't go looking on social media for support, SM has a large proportion of haters who love to make you feel bad. It's because they're pathetic, it's THEY who are to be pitied, NOT YOU. 95% of people are GOOD people, ignore the 5% who love to hurt you for the sake of it.

When you have an obsession (which Emily clearly has, just check out the language she's using), deceiving yourself is exactly what you do unfortunately.
I admire her strength in what she's gone through, she's a good looking girl (no I'm not being patronising and certainly that would be important to her) and she can have a fulfilling life as a woman, with relationships, job career and all the rest of it, as a trans woman who to nearly all intents and purposes IS a woman.
But demanding to be allowed to compete in women's sport is a step too far, and hurts women. Sorry Emily but that's true.

Testosterone has already caused physiological differences to occur in males from birth onward. Lung size, skeleton, etc. The effects, in terms of performance, become profound in puberty. Teenage boys circa ~15 outperform adult women (as a population; also at the highest level).

Don't forget brain development too. Testosterone will mould your way of thinking. Even if you take testosterone blockers later on, there'll still potentially be that male mindset.

Yes I'm an old-man and according to athletic data still outperform the vast majority of female athletes. The advantage of being a man is unreal. I think the book 'exercised' says that, on average, men have 61% more muscle than women, with 75% more upper body muscle. A woman, literally, has to be an Olympic athlete just to get near. I still get my ass handed to me though when I go fell-running.

VIPcyclist wrote:

Yes I'm an old-man and according to athletic data still outperform the vast majority of female athletes. The advantage of being a man is unreal.

Yep it definitely is. I've got Strava data on some popular training climbs to compare myself against a certain female Olympic gold medallist. I'm at about the same level as her. Admittedly, she's not a climber, but... I'm pretty certain any male gold-medal track or sprint star would absolutely smoke me on a climb.

I've sat on the wheel of her brother a few times, when he's happened to pass me on his training rides while I'm commuting. He's a /very/ good cyclist on the track, with a world record to his name I think, but he did not /quite/ make it to the absolute top-level in male terms. I would be dying in his slipstream, while he is in low Z2. Moment the incline went up, he would just power away, while I was absolutely out in the red - he would just remain in Z2, doing his base training.

The difference is just _vast_.

I think your analogy is flawed as the doper is trying to cheat the rules of the sport and the transitioner attempting to live their life, whilst also cycling competitively.

There may be a niche of a niche case where someone transitions for physical advantage, but I haven't seen any sincere reporting of that.

As for what is fair is what the science dictates the rules to be - transpeople in sports is relatively new and therefore the science and data is still being compiled. IMO removing trans people from their gender category will never give the data to determine that there is a problem or if it's part of a culture war.

The analogy is about the advantage that testosterone gives. I use that analogy because it highlights the lasting physiological changes that give a compelling advantage to cis-males regardless of how they later choose to live their lives.

bennettkaru wrote:

As for what is fair is what the science dictates the rules to be - transpeople in sports is relatively new and therefore the science and data is still being compiled.

We have quite good data on the population performance differences between men and women. We also have data on the reduction in performance on competitive MtF trans-athletes from hormone treatment.

The reduction in the latter is less than the former.

We also have non-rigorous, but fairly obvious, empirical data from a number of sports, where people have competed as men and then as women (cycling, weightlifting, swimming - are some I can think of): The person's relative ranking increases significantly.

It is not true to say we do not have data, and/or that there is no evidence of a retained performance advantage.

British Cycling ought to be showing the source material to justify their decision then, no?

The source material is not hard to find. Sports scientists with sidelines in explaining science to popular audiences have covered the ground too - e.g. see Ross Tucker's Science in Sport blog - he's been covering this issue on and off for a while.

Really, the argument that we do not know whether trans-gender MtF on 12+ months of hormone treatment have an advantage is untrue. They generally have somewhere between a large to massive advantage across a range of sports. Though, not all sports. Cycling though, they do.

I say this respectfully - I think we both have an angle on this, I'd like BC to have shared their findings in order to allay this discussion.

If the findings show it is irrefutable and there's a permanent vs the current year+ on hormones then obviously something would have to change.

However I would draw back to the point of - female sports are not being dominated by transwomen and removing them from the race means we'll never know if they could be. Presumably BC again would have this data?

But surely after many years of women trying to get recognition in sports it is not right to allow men to compete in the female category. I see no problem with a new category. Let's not lose sight of the fact that biological women have the right to compete against other biological women and should not be forced to compete against men, no matter how much those nen have been chemically altered.

There is no source material. As much as anything else it's a pragmatic and philosophical decision, based upon societal norms and values.
And I don't mean simply you were born a man, therefore you'll always be a man, end of.
Society, at least in this country, is basically hugely tolerant and empathetic.
If there were a way of removing every male physical advantage from a trans female athlete which was 100% fair on female athletes, and which didn't totally wreck trans female athletes' performance to the extent of just making them come last in every women's race, then BC would be all over it like a rash, and the fair-minded majority would be in agreement.
But it's simply not possible, it's too much of a grey area where someone will always be hard done by, and the results always skewed.
It's not enough just to say look, see how some trans women are losing against women, and some are winning, therefore the new testosterone limits we brought in must be fair.
It'll just never work.

I'll just pick up on "Society, at least in this country, is basically hugely tolerant and empathetic."

Society in the UK has changed a deal over the decades. It may appear to be tolerant. However this "hugely tolerant" still includes a great deal of hatred directed towards some and indeed sexual violence. Mostly directed towards women, LGBTQ+ (not sure of initiallism now) people.

In one sense the change trans people are looking for is straightforward - just treat people as who they say they are. Simples. On the other hand I think the full extent of this is a major societal change. Our empathy is limited simply because our psychology means we are "essentialists" - we find it hard to believe that people can completely change from one category to another for many categories.

This isn't just adding a new category - it's challenging our assumptions about how the system works. From the comments it's clear many of us are struggling with the language at least - if not also the concepts - of sex, sexuality, gender identity...

I hope this turns out not to be a zero sum game but it's hard to see how right now.

There are plenty of examples where mediocre male athletes then identify as women and go on to win at a high level. I'm sure not all are genuine transgender women. In the same way not all transgender male sex offenders are not genuine transgender women. Its a convenient loophole for cynical men.

As I say - BC can present studies and data used to that effect, to justify their decision. I don't think blurring the lines of trans offenders does you any justice and only sours this discussion - where my sole point is that:

Justify the decision please BC, using science and/or race data.

Without this I do fear the charge of being drawn into a culture war is fair

I think the challenge with Emily is that she was far from an average male rider. She was on the BC world class performance plan, represented her country as a male. 

My assumption is that BC, UCI etc. knew that allowing Emily to compete as a woman would blow the lid off the trans sport argument; she would be utterly dominant in women's races.

I empathise with Emily's position, but I equally understand why this action has been taken and why Emily has been the catalyst for it.

She does raise some good points though... as much as its easy to focus on the fairness argument, we should also be aware that we are being led by the media and will inadvertently be pawns used to push wider anti-trans arguments. 

Where is the evidence that this is being led by the media. Its a fact that MtF trans athletes have a large advantage over biological women. The problem is that the radical trans rights groups are just that. Radical. They use ridiculous language like genocide and take any perceived slight or treatment that doesn't stick fingers in ears and shout "trans women are identical to biological women" as an attack and transphobic.

They are like the extreme end of any spectrum. Nutters that should be treated as such. 

Yes it sucks that your gender identity prevents you from doing what you love in a way that you would like but unfortunately thats life and in this case its absolutely required to keep womens sport viable. 

The thing that amazes me is that anyone who has competed in sports at a reasonable level knows there is a huge difference between men and women as soon as you hit puberty. These people know that they are competing in womens sport and have a large advantage and they just don't care. I can't rationalise that. I can't rationalise that they play the victim whilst knowingly having an unfair advantage over their peers. I can't rationalise the fact that they desperately want to be treated as a biological woman and yet are happy to take the right of fair competition away from other biological women. 

mctrials23 wrote:

The thing that amazes me is that anyone who has competed in sports at a reasonable level knows there is a huge difference between men and women as soon as you hit puberty.

There is a measurable difference pre-puberty too. Nowhere as huge, but it's there. Young boys (as a population) are slightly stronger and faster than girls. The differences start with a spurt of testosterone in gestation, and another spurt in the first 6 months.

Really?  Based on what evidence?  I dont think either side of the debate has the evidence to suggest that this is "the end of competitive sport"

Hysteria on either side doesnt help anyone.

Why do you accuse me of being hysteric? I say this as cool as a cucumber.

IF in a society the gender distinctions based on biological sex become unacceptable, because discriminatory one way or the other or the third or all of them at once, then this ultimately (not today, not tomorrow, but in the logical conclusion) means the end of any distinctions based on biological sex.

Seeing what competitive sport has become (or always was), it wouldn't be a great loss. Above and beyond that, the way our whole society is based on competition is profoundly detrimental not only to us, but the whole living world.