Emily Bridges: Documentary on transgender cyclist to be broadcast on ITV next week

CXR94Di2 wrote:

There are two biological sexes male and female. If a man or woman wants to alter their bodies. That's upto them. don't expect to use your biological birth advantage in competition

I think you meant to say that there are at least two biological sexes: https://www.joshuakennon.com/the-six-common-biological-sexes-in-humans/

Also, the term 'biological sex' seems to be misused, so I'd recommend that you should put your definition if you want to say something definitive about human biology. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth-of-biological-sex/

An interesting fact is that around 1-in-1000 babies are born with an extra finger. But it's still an accepted fact that humans generally have 5 fingers on each hand, isn't it? And how many people with 5 fingers claim to really have 6?

Just because the odd baby is born with a genetic sex chromasome anomaly doesn't give people who don't have the same issue the right to claim they are something they aren't. Does Emily Bridges have an anomalgous genetic makeup? If she doesn't, why are you citing this?

The question then remains why someone with a man's body is allowed to compete against women in a women's race.

Apparently because men's feelings are more important than fairness, safety and respect for women.

Two common biological sexes, plus 0.36% of the global population that sits outside those standard definitions.

I don't think 0.36% is a sufficient percentage to be muddying the waters as to what is the definition of a female, and poo pooing women's rights to viable sport. 

Which is what I take your argument to be... am I understanding your stance correctly? 

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

Two common biological sexes, plus 0.36% of the global population that sits outside those standard definitions.

I don't think 0.36% is a sufficient percentage to be muddying the waters as to what is the definition of a female, and poo pooing women's rights to viable sport. 

Which is what I take your argument to be... am I understanding your stance correctly? 

I don't really have a stance on sport, although I do think that splitting sports by sex is problematic - it's more logical to divide people up by ability. Modern sport is characterised by "unfair" competitions as ordinary people have very little chance of winning anything unless they are genetically gifted and have suitable training, equipment and motivation.

It just bugs me that people try to divide humans into just two groups when it's factually incorrect - hence my attempt to educate. Unfortunately, people jump to their political interpretation as this is an emotionally charged subject.

My take on the sports angle is that there's two fundamentally opposed requirements. Women that were assigned female at birth want to be able compete without being at a disadvantage for their hormonal exposure and transitioned women want to be treated and compete as 'women' without having to face all the usual intolerance that they've likely endured. Having separate competitions for transitioned people seems impractical due to the numbers involved and it also risks further marginalising people that have or want to transition.

hawkinspeter wrote:

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

Two common biological sexes, plus 0.36% of the global population that sits outside those standard definitions.

I don't think 0.36% is a sufficient percentage to be muddying the waters as to what is the definition of a female, and poo pooing women's rights to viable sport. 

Which is what I take your argument to be... am I understanding your stance correctly? 

I don't really have a stance on sport, although I do think that splitting sports by sex is problematic - it's more logical to divide people up by ability. Modern sport is characterised by "unfair" competitions as ordinary people have very little chance of winning anything unless they are genetically gifted and have suitable training, equipment and motivation.

It just bugs me that people try to divide humans into just two groups when it's factually incorrect - hence my attempt to educate. Unfortunately, people jump to their political interpretation as this is an emotionally charged subject.

And that, folks, is socialism in a nutshell. The harder you try, the more talented you are, the more you'll be penalised.

Who needs to divide people by clearly definable characteristics like if they're a bloke or woman, when you could separate them out by "ability" (aka hard work and talent) and give everyone prizes?

Now tools down and relax, no point in trying hard or we'll just move the goal posts and make it more difficult for you to achieve anything.

Thank you for continuing to try and educate in the face of such willful ignorance. ❤️

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

Two common biological sexes, plus 0.36% of the global population that sits outside those standard definitions.

I don't think 0.36% is a sufficient percentage to be muddying the waters as to what is the definition of a female, and poo pooing women's rights to viable sport. 

Which is what I take your argument to be... am I understanding your stance correctly? 

Just to put that 0.36% into context, it's more than the population of Australia.

hawkinspeter wrote:

CXR94Di2 wrote:

There are two biological sexes male and female. If a man or woman wants to alter their bodies. That's upto them. don't expect to use your biological birth advantage in competition

I think you meant to say that there are at least two biological sexes: https://www.joshuakennon.com/the-six-common-biological-sexes-in-humans/

Also, the term 'biological sex' seems to be misused, so I'd recommend that you should put your definition if you want to say something definitive about human biology. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth-of-biological-sex/

pretty much this. 
 

the overly simplistic childlike idea that there are only two sexes, based solely on a laughably poor idea that chromosomes are all that matters, is at the root of a lot of bigoted opinions here. 

Now totally meta-topic but I think there is a a deep human psychological trait at work in this topic.  One embedded from our early development are systems for categorising objects (and "animate things" especially) which are "essentialist" e.g. if something is an "x" there is something (its "essence") innate to it which you can't change - even if you change all the external features of "x".

So although we do apply "duck typing" - if we "knew" (someone told us, or our minds had already categorised) the water creature was really a type of pigeon and/or was born from a pigeon egg our "essentialist" system may take over.  Now we just can't see a duck.

We possess other systems for creating different kinds of categories and groupings and understanding others of course and humans are cognitively flexible.  However all that likely gets its foot in the door later in our development and later in our mental processing systems.  Plus they likely piggy-back of this more basic system.

Additionally there's also a lot of cognitive machinery devoted to the detection of "others" who might not cooperate or even might "cheat".  We are acutely sensitive to this.  I think this is activated when drivers see cyclists filtering past them or are slowed down by them!  Somehow they're on the road but not playing by the same rules and that's not fair. "Entitled!  They don't pay road tax!"

nosferatu1001 wrote:

pretty much this. 

 

the overly simplistic childlike idea that there are only two sexes, based solely on a laughably poor idea that chromosomes are all that matters, is at the root of a lot of bigoted opinions here. 

Even if we were to subscribe to the chromosome idea (despite biology being far more complex than that), there's still more than two sexes.

Quote:

The six biological karyotype sexes that do not result in death to the fetus are:

X – Roughly 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 people (Turner’s )
XX – Most common form of female
XXY – Roughly 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 people (Klinefelter)
XY – Most common form of male
XYY – Roughly 1 out of 1,000 people
XXXY – Roughly 1 in 18,000 to 1 in 50,000 births

When you consider that there are 7,000,000,000 alive on the planet, there are almost assuredly tens of millions of people who are not male or female.   Many times, these people are unaware of their true sex.  It’s interesting to note that everyone assumes that they, personally, are XY or XX.  One study in Great Britain showed that 97 out of 100 people who were XYY had no idea.  They thought they were a traditional male and had few signs otherwise.

There are still two sexes, with the various genetic abnormalities as you have described above. 

It is not a bigoted opinion. It is looking at the biological reality, that means it is unfair for men to compete as 'women'. Yes, people like Bridges may be upset about that, but could continue to compete (as earlier this year) against other men.  This would be much fairer to the vast majority of actual women.
 

MsG wrote:

There are still two sexes, with the various genetic abnormalities as you have described above. 

It is not a bigoted opinion. It is looking at the biological reality, that means it is unfair for men to compete as 'women'. Yes, people like Bridges may be upset about that, but could continue to compete (as earlier this year) against other men.  This would be much fairer to the vast majority of actual women.
 

*Citation required*

I suggest that it's more of a blinkered opinion rather than bigoted, but I'd be interested in seeing the scientific literature that supports your view that there are only two sexes.

What's your justification for putting men's feelings above fairness?

MsG wrote:

What's your justification for putting men's feelings above fairness?

That's a complete non-sequitor. Where on earth did you get that from?

I recall stating that there are more than two sexes and provided a couple of educational resources to back that up, but you've just spun out on a tangent.

Are you sure you're not replying to the wrong post?

Hmm... I thought "athlete" was precisely about using every biological advantage (and in cycling notably some "additive" advantages) as much as you could?

Skipping the debate again I do think that BC have managed to make an unholy mess of this situation.  There isn't an uncontroversial position here but sadly they've flip-flopped and it's the competitors - who have to jump through their hoops - who've been inconvenienced. (I use that last word because as far as I can see being a competitor in top level sport is precisely about a willingness to accept arbitrary rules and extremely tough discipline...)

Be careful what you say on here, I got banned for a while for speaking the truth and upsetting the woke brigade. 

EM69 wrote:

Be careful what you say on here, I got banned for a while for speaking the truth and upsetting the woke brigade. 

Well CRX94Di2 is mistaken about there being just two sexes, so it'd be better if they approached the subject with at least some understanding of the technical difficulties. Simply declaring things 'the truth' is more of a dogma than a discussion/exploration of the issues.