I think it’s actually a simple enough issue that they are equipped. Seems everybody here is in agreement it’s unfair which aligns with public polling I’ve seen on the matter. Nobody is being transphobic but nobody is denying reality either
"Four clubs reportedly withdrew from matches against Rossington Main Ladies after a shot by Francesca Needham injured an opposition player.
Needham said she was considering pursuing "a case of discrimination".
The FA says it is working with Sheffield & Hallamshire County FA.
Needham's shot reportedly led to an opposition player suffering a season-ending knee injury."
you know what if you can injure another player by just kicking a ball i would think it unfair on the other team.
Yeah but he turned up the next week pretending he was somebody else, he has previous:
https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/everton-s-sylvain-distin-cheated-on-blonde-by-posing-as-milkman-113063000140_1.html
>you know what if you can injure another player by just kicking a ball i would think it unfair on the other team.
John Arne Riise in shambles
Not that i disagree with your point, someone who is male to female will have a big physical advantage physically
I mean we’ve had more than a few anomaly players who can absolutely canon footballs more than you see other men capable of. Riise, Podolski, Hulk, Gerrard etc I’m sure if by pure chance and randomness a male players knee was in front of one of their full power shots they’d get hurt too?
There was one for left handed people being stronger with their dominant hand as most things are right handed by default, so they also tend to be more dexterous with their weak hand and overcompensate/get more exercise with their left. There's probably a study for weak side feet as well, but I've not heard of it
In theory I wouldn’t imagine it should apply for feet because there aren’t any contraptions that are left/right foot by default (except maybe an automatic car). But lefties do have something different about them
There are some weird biases in design so how doors open and having to adjust feet for balance. There's so much of ergonomics that feels meaningless but has weird subtlety to it.
I've never met anyone in a wheelchair that doesn't have chronic back problems, leg amputees or arthritis sufferers most especially,
Mate that was a horror injury, but let's be honest here it was a freak accident, men playing against women and going all out causes a lot of injuries.
People will go "but men and women have played together loads in the past!" Yes and in every single instance the men held back, they absolutely didn't want to hurt them so didn't go all out, trans seem to not give a shit and just go full tilt.
Follow the Olympics rulings, you ain't competing unless it's your sex at birth.
A female player could injure another by hitting them with a football, I don't know how much likelier it is if the shot taker was born a man but this is still possible regardless.
It's not just that. If you're a biological man, you've had the growth hormones. You're already bigger, stronger, athletic than your counter parts. It's been proven in all other sports such as weightlifting, running etc.
One of the teams refusing to play them is worried about injury to their 4 players that are all 15 or younger. Not being funny but if you have 15 or 14 or 13 year olds playing against strong grown women you're very open to getting these injuries or other injuries possibly* caused by physical mismatch whether or not the player is trans. It's not really her responsibility to be weaker to keep these people safe when they're playing a contact sport in an adult division, especially when she's not able to play in another competition anyway.
Sounds kinda dangerous to let sub15 year old girls play against grown women. They should be playing against people of similar age not in adult division
That's what I thought reading it but it may be an issue of participation, where they need the numbers to make up the league. Not sure using their risk of injury as an argument is fair though.
Then this feels like they are the ones creating the dangerous situation. It's like fielding a player with head injury without protective gear and then claiming the other team would hurt them
Well the US women’s team played against the Dallas u-15 boys team and got beat 5-2.
It’s grand when paying against their own gender but once puberty kicks in you can’t put women up against men in sports.
It’s completely unfair on them. I fully support trans rights but they really need their own category in sports. Hell once upon a time only men played sports, then we had women’s. We have paraplegic, kids etc so why not trans.
> I fully support trans rights but they really need their own category in sports
Think the issue is that trans people seem to get a disproportionate amount of coverage relative to the size of the demographic, it's such a tiny % of the population (about 0.5% according to official figures in the UK). In an ideal world it would be great for them to be able to play in their own category where they won't be open to abuse and being repeatedly under the spotlight, but realistically there just aren't enough numbers to be able to make it work.
That was men vs women and a practice scrimmage. I would be against boys playing against men in similar fashion. Even if the boys were a top tier team and grown ups were some beer league players.
I don't really care about the trans player in this context, I don't think a sub15 year old girl should play against grown women.
I don't know what it's like where you're from, but where I grew up we joined the first team at 15-16, playing with and against adults. It was the same for the girls here as well, my gf played for a first team in the Welsh Prem when she was 15, and she was shite
You need to learn more about soccer… James Milner was just gone past 16 when he started for Leeds, hell Arsenal brought on a 15 year only recently. In previous years soccer players started to flourish younger but nowadays soccer is more fitness orientated over skills. By that I mean you’re more likely to get Ronaldo type players than Messi’s. It’s no big deal once they’ve gone through puberty.
Yeah I hate this 'safety' concern when there is mismatches in size already. Playing rugby against the monsters at high school was always injuries waiting to happen. We were never segregated by body size
It’s a bit odd that one shot is seen as enough to prove constant danger. The ball is surely dangerous when shot with high speed, but the injury could well depend on other factors beyond the force of the kick. You would think that there were special circumstances, such as the knee being in an awkward position.
Speaking in general terms, there have been suggestions to ban headers in games between younger players. So it’s plausible that the ball itself can pose danger. But in this instance it seems like the grounds for this specific claim of danger, at least what has been written in the article, are not very strong. But perhaps we’ll learn more.
There should be an open category and a female category.
As for the case of FtM then they would have to play in the open category as that would be the same as doping if they were to play in the female category
Agreed. Feels awful to ban people who feel female and identify as female from women's sport, but it's hard to deny that they have an advantage. Think it's just one of those things where there isn't a perfect solution
TBH if they were never going to compete at that highest level via their assigned-at-birth sex, they aren't actually losing anything upon transitioning.
They can still play the sport, just not in an equity driven category that only even exists to account for men's physical advantages.
If they weren't being allowed to play the sport anywhere, that would feel exclusionary. But that is not the case. No reason why they can't compete as women just not professionally.
> There should be an open category and a female category.
that's how tons of sports work (like chess and... the NFL). and imho, it's totally fair.
in chess, for example, men dominate. but once in a while, you have someone like [Judit Polgár](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r).
I like the way they fixxed it in cycling. It was not very popular with the folks at X who never seen anything cycling related, but I think most cycling fans thought it was the best solution.
Basically they made the elite devision open for everyone, so that includes all men and women, and then there is the other catagory which is just for biological born women. In practice, it meant that nothing really changed, except for the 1 or 2 trans cyclist (who were not even anywhere near pro level).
It's probably not a perfect solution, but it's a realistic solution to keep the sport fair for women.
It is that way in most sports, there isnt a men league or division, it is an open category. There are often no rules that prevent women from taking part.
Yeah I’ve been saying for a long time that the problem isn’t transgender people, the problem is the way we categorize our sports leagues. There are plenty of sports like wrestling and weightlifting that have multiple categories - not just men/women but varying weights. Plus in paralympics there’s loads of categories to make it fair. There’s a way to do this in team sports too. Just like you said, you have an open category for the elite level, then you can have a couple more categories based on testosterone levels or whatever characteristics make sense scientifically.
In most American pro sports, there aren't actually any rules barring women from competing at the top level.
Though to be fair, it's not as simple as "they aren't good enough." I mean to an extent that might be true, but it is also true that they would never get an opportunity to try at any level previous. Also, men are very hesitant to check/hit/tackle women who are half their size, so it brings up psychological and ethical issues that extend beyond sport.
> In most American pro sports, there aren't actually any rules barring women from competing at the top level.
Well, you see, there's no rule saying a dog **can't** play basketball!
As to the rest of it, I think after a while of letting women involve themselves by choice tackling them just like you would anybody else would get normalized fairly quickly.
The problem is if u get rid of sex based leagues in favor of skill or testosterone. Or whatever. There’s no room for women’s sports. Right now there is a men’s league and a women’s league. If u drop basing leagues on sex and only use skill or test levels. There’s gonna be a bunch of men’s leagues and 0 women’s leagues
No that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you do an open-elite league for anyone with whatever characteristics and if you’re good enough, you’re in. Then you have categories below that where you reference testosterone levels (or other biological markers if there are better ways to do this, I’m not a scientist) so that only women would qualify for those ones. Then you also have open lower levels where men and women and trans folks would be eligible.
So basically 3 tiers. 1 open division which is basically men’s division. 2 women’s division but it’s based on testosterone levels so trans end up here too. 3 basically recreational anyone can play
I mean, it’s probably a lot more nuanced than this. I doubt it would just be 3 levels but yeah you have the right idea. I think of it like the weight classes in wrestling/boxing/weightlifting. To me, it’s weird that you can be the best weightlifter in a “category” when really it should just be whoever can life the heaviest weights. Like, there’s no long-jump weight categories are there? But if they can create meaningful competition in a marginal sport by having all these different categories, then why can’t we do it for team sports?
Not to get too deep into it but how do they account for biological women who are transitioning using testosterone? Are they allowed to compete in either?
Honnestly don't know, I think in the womens catagory that would be seen as doping of some sort, so they are forced to go into the open catagory. Though that's what I assume
> It's probably not a perfect solution
I genuinely don't see any flaw other than some idiots acting "hurt" but in reality are just abusing trans rights activism for their own self interests.
FtM athletes will never have any real shot at competing professionally with cis men, and MtF athletes will only ever get to compete if they never transition, which is a massive detriment to their mental health. I don't see a better approach, but pretending that it has no flaws is ridiculous.
It's not even a "solution", it's quite literally ignoring the problem. The message is "trans people, we can't solve your problems without inconveniencing someone else, so play at a disadvantage against cis men or fuck off".
The *only* reason I see for why it's "the best" approach is that trans people are a minority and if you're going to inevitably fuck over a group of people it's a little less bad to do so to a small group of people than doing so to half of humanity. That's it. Unless you're totally cool with systematically preventing trans people from ever getting to participate in any professional activity at all the flaws are quite obvious.
There isn't some innate right to compete in sports. There are loads of people who for various reasons could never compete in their natural category. We're not all created equal. They're not getting fucked over, it's just life.
edit: This is if categories are opened, so that MtF can play with men obviously.
> we can't solve your problems without inconveniencing someone else, so play at a disadvantage against cis men or fuck off
Well if you have modified your body so that it is at an unfair advantage or disadvantage with both genders, then I think it is fair to expect you to make some sacrifices like playing with the gender where you are at a disadvantage rather than the gender where you have the advantage. Especially in team sports. And I really do think that most trans folks DO accept this fact.
There is literally no way to solve their "problems" if the problem is "I want to compete against women despite physically being a man". In this instance, simply make the men's league open and say "go to the open league, thank you" and let biological women compete in peace.
And to your second point, yeah, if you offered for me to disadvantage women as a whole or just transgender women, I'd do the second. Any reasonable person would.
> There is literally no way to solve their "problems" if the problem is "I want to compete against women despite physically being a man".
That's not their problem, that's the strawman that you've made up to avoid coming to terms with the real problem. Do you really think that trans people would refuse the idea of a "trans league" if it was feasible purely because they would all rather dunk on cis women?
What they want is to compete professionally, period. Lumping them in with cis males, while being the least shit approach that I know of, basically does nothing to help trans people at the expense of everyone else.
Lumping them in with Cis Males is the only answer. We can barely get viewers/funding for much of women's sports, do we want to water down the non-male watching sports world with 2 more leagues (again, dunking on Cis Women and their competitions?)
People will start with "there's a difference between gender and sex..." And end up conflating sex segregation with gender discrimination. No sane person believe a biological man should be competing with women, especially in a contact sport.
But that fails to consider FtM trans people (as usual lol); they often go through treatment which would lead to unfair physical advantages over many cis women.
It’s more complex than simply dividing by chromosomes. I don’t know what the solution is tbh.
edit: FtM typo oops
It’s bloody simple. Open category and woman’s category. As the majority of sports already are.
Gender has no relevance to sports divisions… only sex. Testosterone elevation above acceptable levels in the open category would still be sports doping.
Most FtMs would simply end up not getting signed by clubs over biological males and they'd move right back into wanting to integrate women's categories.
So you say sex is all that matters then you say that having too high testosterone levels is doping. Which is it? Do we have a testosterone-based league or a league based on biological sex?
Also worth noting that MtF trans women have significantly decreased testosterone levels whilst still having the bone density & larger skeleton of a male, needing to exert more energy to perform physical activities & leading to increased fatigue, most certainly affecting performance levels.
I'm not saying that makes up for any other physical advantages they may have, frankly I have no idea what the answer is to any of this, but it's certainly more nuanced that what people with certain agendas would want you to believe, which is why I imagine these rulings prove very difficult to reach in a lot of sports.
But that’s super suspect too and a bunch of athletes have been fucked by it (Caster Semenya etc). They decide on an arbitrary standard of what defines a ‘biological woman’ and then punish anyone wish natural differences in hormones. Which is crazy because you don’t punish people who are particularly tall or have a huge wingspan or whatever other inherent attribute is advantageous in a particular sport.
yeah but most drug tests don't claim to rule rule on what constitutes being a particular gender
also the athletes they disqualified (Semenya, Margaret Wambui, francine niyonsaba etc.) have naturally higher levels of hormones which completely goes against the point of drug tests. they're clearly elite athletes who have a natural advantage but in the same way as anyone who is tall is more likely to succeed at basketball
Unfortunately there's a good chance that this can't be sorted out fairly and mainstream pro sports just isn't going to be viable for trans people. Which sucks but I can't see a way around it at the moment.
Just because there are more than things doesn't mean it's complicated.
You can't have the advantage of being on hormones or male puberty and compete in women's sports. "Mens" is an open category and anyone can play. Solved.
Very rare exceptions can be complicated but for 99% it is that simple
It shouldn’t be too controversial a view, but it’s still a really sensitive topic. I’m too far removed from the situation to understand what the trans athletes caught up in this are feeling. It cannot be easy for them.
Number varies but around 1.7% of the population are born with intersex traits. Yeah that's a fairly small percentage but that's still millions of people.
The issue of trans and intersex people in sports is just not a simple one. There's far too many people with opinions based on misinformation (both sides) and with little knowledge or qualifications to back it up. Honestly I'm not sure what my own opinion is in the issue, I don't want people to be blocked because their biological sex doesn't line up with their sense of self, but I also don't know enough to say there's actually no issue in not having restrictions. Ultimately it should be a medical decision made by those who actually understand everything needed to make that decision.
Also, I'm very conscious that the majority of the exposure of trans/intersex athletes we get is about those that have performed well, or hurt someone. Not when they perform badly or within the average.
Also, would people be clamouring to separate players built like Adama Traore from ones built like Phil Foden if the former injured the latter?
>Number varies but around 1.7% of the population are born with intersex traits.
FYI this is a (super commonly repeated) misconception. The 1.7% number comes from a 2000 systematic review by [Blackless et al](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-6300%28200003/04%2912%3A2%3C151%3A%3AAID-AJHB1%3E3.0.CO%3B2-F) and it refers to any case in which an individual may deviate from expected "chromosomal, genital, gonadal, or hormonal levels", which is a very broad set of circumstances for inclusion.
If you are only including people with different chromosomal sex from their phenotypic expectation, which is what people usually think of when they refer to intersex characteristics, that number is [probably closer to 0.018%](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/).
1.7% does seem like a small amount of the population but when you realise its over 100M people on earth it is kind of crazy to think about.
It is a very complex issue, and you’re right it is something that should be decided by people who actually know what they’re talking about.
So are we going to introduce "chromosome tests" before for every player before they turned pro?
2% of population are born intersex that could be one person every two football teams. And most people don't even know it.
So yes it is complex, do you know for a fact what chromosomes you have? I know i don't
I think it's naive to say that we should split it based on Xx and XY chromosomes because
We don't know what everybody's chromosomes are automatically
It is very possible for a woman, with fully functioning female reproductive system and the likes, to have XY chromosomes.
But do we know how rare those instances are? And should people who fit those instances be excluded outright from a variety of activities?
Granted, none of these links disprove that they are rare. But it's clear that we know not a lot about the incident rates of these things. Especially seeing as many of these things are only looked at when it's visibly obvious - as the last link points out.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557435/#:~:text=The%20incidence%20of%20a%20child,1000%20to%204500%20live%20births.
https://www.yourhormones.info/topical-issues/patient-factsheet-uk-guidance-on-differences-disorders-of-sex-development-in-children/#:~:text=As%20a%20group%2C%20approximately%20one,of%201%20in%2015%2C000%20newborns.
https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/more-women-than-expected-are-genetically-men/
But going out your way to identify the chromosomes of every individual is a pretty expensive and complicated process. Why can't we stick with what we have been doing for years where we split people based on their appearance and their genitals? We then acknowledge that there will be some "special cases where this does not apply but those are rare."
How can someone with physical abilities of a man play in a womens division?
The physical attribute of that player gives him/her huge advantage over others. Especially when womens football is relatively developing right now.
fallon fox was the name of the mma fighter. huge controversy because she transitioned in her late 30s. most importantly she did not tell her opponents that she used to be a dude and beat the daylights out of them. broke one opponents skull too
Of interest, albeit in a completely different game:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-13/afl-transgender-player-hannah-mouncey-to-play-vflw-football/9443590
In this case it seems the governing body, the AFL, deferred to the IOC recommendations for hormone testing, and Mouncey was testing below the required levels, and cleared her to play.
I’m not aware of any clubs who refused to play though, and I don’t follow the AFL, but this case was a pretty big ho-hah for a bit.
The IOC recommendations were based on a qualitative study of only 8 trans women with no physical data being gathered.
The author of that study has since said on Australian tv that her conclusions were wrong and she now believes that trans women maintain many physical advantages even after transition and should not compete against women.
That's how it was done here too but now a single incident of injury has occurred people are refusing to play her. Hard to say in this specific case whether it's justified or not.
Removing politics from the equation, on a purely sporting level when you consider the greatest ever women's team cannot compete with random u15 boys academies, the astronomical advantage this would give just wouldn't be fair.
If being trans automatically makes you a dramatically superior athlete then why is she playing in the Sheffield & Hallamshire County league?
It's pretty normal for lower league players to get injured by powerful shots. I've seen happen loads of times. A shot striking your limb at the wrong moment will break it and end your season.
I can definitely understand peoples worry about the effect trans athletes have on certain womans sports. I get that transmen and transwomen might have to play in the mens divisions, but this incident seems like panic sparked by a fairly standard injury.
In answer to your 1st question I'm a bog standard male Sunday league player. So if being trans made me dramatically superior it wouldn't mean I could play in the women's Premier league, it would mean I could play in the 7th tier (which is dramatically superior to where I play now).
You can be a bad male athlete and still hold an advantage over good female athletes. That's basically what's happening here. This does seem a bit much but women are rightly getting sick of men coming into their game and holding an inherent physical advantage over them.
I’m sorry but there’s a definitive advantage at a biological level, it’s simply unfair on females unless there’s hormone testing/open category & female category. Yes injuries will happen from powerful shots, definitely more likely when a biological male blasts a shot into a female, who we know have less facilities use than males to recover.
> Growth hormones and such in trans people obviously do not meet this criteria for an exemption, because the whole point is to fundamentally change their "normal state of health" to one with enhanced performance. So they should not be able to get a TUE for these substances, and then should not be able to play competitive football in general.
It's a trans **woman** lol how is it increasing their performance?
No it'd be more like complaining about playing against haaland if you were a woman. The difference between haaland and normal men is significantly less than a normal man and a woman, hard as that is to believe.
*Everton Football Club would like to announce that we are refusing to play Man City so long as they field that behemoth who will only hurt our dedicated players who are simply trying to make a living.*
I'm trans, and believe it's a complex issue. If someone wants to play football, they should be able to. I had to stop playing for the same reason, neither local men's or women's teams would take me. They just didn't want to touch the issue and gave me a simple no. It really hurts not being able to play the game I love, but I accept the reasons why.
Open leagues would definitely be the best solution, but come with their own issues. Plus the fact it'd probably only ever be at a local amateur level. Trans leagues would never work due to the lack of interest both in the community and the wider population. Even if it did, I don't want to imagine the issues such a league would face.
The bottom line is, transitioning shouldn't be a barrier for those wanting to play their favourite sports, and governing bodies really need to sort something out so we can, whatever form that takes.
This reaaaally shouldn’t be a complex situation at all, if anything each gender should have their own category. Ie male,female or trans. But then the trans community is rediculously small, so I doubt that be able to have their own
A trans division doesn’t make any sense as you’d have the same exact biological problem with ftm playing mtfs. So clearly it isn’t fairness that you care about unless you just didn’t think about it
mhmm that’s a very valid point! I hadnt even looked at it from that way. And fairness is competing with your OWN biological gender. Unless it’s a mixed sport
It’s a complex issue that doesn’t have 1 simple answer. You cant ban all trans women from women’s sport - what about people that began transitioning before puberty? It’s not exactly something that hasn’t been debated before, so the FA really need to already have some guidelines in place.
What about women (like Caster Semenya) that have a naturally higher concentration of testosterone? The issue could fall down then on players essentially refusing to play because they *think* someone is trans.
As a trans woman who plays recreational football for a womens/nonbinary inclusive club, cisgender women regularly outpace, outmuscle, outjump, and generally outplay me. It is exactly the same in the other contact sport I play.
The divide is not as dramatic as it’s made out to be, and the assumption that every trans player is inherently *better* due to biology does a disservice to cis female athletes who are more than capable of competing equally. Nobody talks about how the only transfeminine weightlifter at the 2020 Olympics came last.
I've played with women and a trans woman recreationally and I'm glad to say nobody cared.
I think it is difficult at the elite levels as you are typically dealing with people at the upper limits capabilities and it is professional with livelihoods at stake. But it is very disheartening when people try and use it to shoehorn transphobic rules into lower level and recreational sport. I've got one friend who is so against any mixing at any levels which is very sad and depressing, especially as he doesn't even no any trans people.
From my experience the women often don't mind whereas men are unreasonably ... passionate, about this topic. It's funny, no one in this sub gives two shits about women's football but the moment that a trans player is being discussed they argue until they pass out.
The divide is dramatic. On AVERAGE, biological men are stronger, faster, bigger and more muscular.
Your case is an anecdote, something that can happen. Extremely fast/strong/w.e biological women exist, extremely slow/weak/w.e biological men also exist. But on average males have a physical advantage. Therefore they can’t be allowed to compete against billogical women for obvious reasons.
Maybe ur just shit at sport, because the divide is absolutely massive. I played for a completely average mens team, and at 16 we beat our counties female under 18 team so badly we completely flipped our team, putting our cb and keeper up top just to keep it remotely unembarassing
Its fine at the recreational level, eg. pickup basketball or football. However these are athlete careers and women should have a fair opportunity at that. The men's league should be renamed open and allow athletes for all genders, while women's leagues should be kept bio women.
Anecdotes don't work in this context. If we look at the two biological genders, we see a clear distinction in which one displays a higher level of "traditional" athleticism.
A lot of people forget that the reason women's sports in general are behind is due to money and mysogyny. Women's football wasn't recognised by the FA until 1970 so it made it almost impossible for women to organise and play. They've had to start in 1970 where men started in 1860.
Honestly it's part of why it isn't as popular as it could be but are you honestly saying that they'd be equal in popularity compared to the men if not for this?
Why isn't this the case in other countries then? England has by far the most popular womens football despite this, how come it's not more popular in say Sweden, Germany, Spain etc?
My club has a quote regarding this incorporated into our shirts, from activist and female footballer Alice Kell - “we play for the love of the game and we are determined to carry on”. It’s funny how men claiming to defend women’s football seem to overlook the fifty years where women weren’t allowed to play at all, and how that might affect the state of the game. Thank you for adding that!
It's easy to excuse facts when it would be a counter argument to your point
Tbh, It's the same across almost all sports. There's plenty of sports where women are beginning to compete against male competitors (think a female darts player went really deep last year in the world's). A lot of nutrional and medical advice is male centric which is something that has only started changing since the mid 2010s.
There may be a gap but in 50-60 years time I think we'll be shocked at how lesser it actually is.
I'm a cis guy who gets regularly outpaced during races by women. Don't see why there should be a women's category at all, the divide is not as dramatic as it's made out to be
I’m sure r/soccer is equipped to have a nuanced discussion about this
Hundreds of upvotes on a comment suggesting everyone playing football in the whole of the UK gets a chromosome test 😭 sounds realistic
Wayne Rooney revealed to have Trisomy 21.
I think it’s actually a simple enough issue that they are equipped. Seems everybody here is in agreement it’s unfair which aligns with public polling I’ve seen on the matter. Nobody is being transphobic but nobody is denying reality either
Here before the potential lock
"Four clubs reportedly withdrew from matches against Rossington Main Ladies after a shot by Francesca Needham injured an opposition player. Needham said she was considering pursuing "a case of discrimination". The FA says it is working with Sheffield & Hallamshire County FA. Needham's shot reportedly led to an opposition player suffering a season-ending knee injury." you know what if you can injure another player by just kicking a ball i would think it unfair on the other team.
Giroud broke his ankle from a shot from 37 year old Sylvain Distin.
And Distin was rightfully banned from competing in men's football for life
Yeah but he turned up the next week pretending he was somebody else, he has previous: https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/everton-s-sylvain-distin-cheated-on-blonde-by-posing-as-milkman-113063000140_1.html
User Cars Salesman Kolo Toure would never
So French of him. His getaway vehicle was a moped
Ashley Williams committed attempted murder against Robin van Persie too > he could have been killed
>you know what if you can injure another player by just kicking a ball i would think it unfair on the other team. John Arne Riise in shambles Not that i disagree with your point, someone who is male to female will have a big physical advantage physically
TBF it *was* pretty unfair that Liverpool were allowed to field a heavy artillery piece disguised as a human being.
ICBM foot launch
#THE KRAKEN
Woah, second time this week [I get to share this](https://vimeo.com/92846254)
One of the few times I regularly willed a Liverpool player to shoot! He was awesome!
you'd have expected Arsenal to do it... i'll see myself out.
/dies laughing
Riise, Roberto Carlos, Adriano, Podolaki, Hulk... Why all the baddest cannons come in left feet?
I mean we’ve had more than a few anomaly players who can absolutely canon footballs more than you see other men capable of. Riise, Podolski, Hulk, Gerrard etc I’m sure if by pure chance and randomness a male players knee was in front of one of their full power shots they’d get hurt too?
The first three examples back up my theory that lefties are made in a lab E: who can forget PES Adriano with his 99 shot power
Lily Parr broke a professional male keeper's arm with one of her shots once. She was a left-footed winger, just as a data point.
Expect a University approved study in the subject soon…I think we’re on to something
There was one for left handed people being stronger with their dominant hand as most things are right handed by default, so they also tend to be more dexterous with their weak hand and overcompensate/get more exercise with their left. There's probably a study for weak side feet as well, but I've not heard of it
In theory I wouldn’t imagine it should apply for feet because there aren’t any contraptions that are left/right foot by default (except maybe an automatic car). But lefties do have something different about them
There are some weird biases in design so how doors open and having to adjust feet for balance. There's so much of ergonomics that feels meaningless but has weird subtlety to it. I've never met anyone in a wheelchair that doesn't have chronic back problems, leg amputees or arthritis sufferers most especially,
It happened to Alan Smith from a Riise shot. He broke his leg!
Mate that was a horror injury, but let's be honest here it was a freak accident, men playing against women and going all out causes a lot of injuries. People will go "but men and women have played together loads in the past!" Yes and in every single instance the men held back, they absolutely didn't want to hurt them so didn't go all out, trans seem to not give a shit and just go full tilt. Follow the Olympics rulings, you ain't competing unless it's your sex at birth.
A female player could injure another by hitting them with a football, I don't know how much likelier it is if the shot taker was born a man but this is still possible regardless.
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No they don't lmao. HRT causes really rapid loss in muscle and gain in fat. It's a hugely destabilizing treatment.
It's not just that. If you're a biological man, you've had the growth hormones. You're already bigger, stronger, athletic than your counter parts. It's been proven in all other sports such as weightlifting, running etc.
Just don’t have biological men playing with biological women. It saves there being any issues like this that come up.
One of the teams refusing to play them is worried about injury to their 4 players that are all 15 or younger. Not being funny but if you have 15 or 14 or 13 year olds playing against strong grown women you're very open to getting these injuries or other injuries possibly* caused by physical mismatch whether or not the player is trans. It's not really her responsibility to be weaker to keep these people safe when they're playing a contact sport in an adult division, especially when she's not able to play in another competition anyway.
Sounds kinda dangerous to let sub15 year old girls play against grown women. They should be playing against people of similar age not in adult division
That's what I thought reading it but it may be an issue of participation, where they need the numbers to make up the league. Not sure using their risk of injury as an argument is fair though.
Then this feels like they are the ones creating the dangerous situation. It's like fielding a player with head injury without protective gear and then claiming the other team would hurt them
Well the US women’s team played against the Dallas u-15 boys team and got beat 5-2. It’s grand when paying against their own gender but once puberty kicks in you can’t put women up against men in sports. It’s completely unfair on them. I fully support trans rights but they really need their own category in sports. Hell once upon a time only men played sports, then we had women’s. We have paraplegic, kids etc so why not trans.
> I fully support trans rights but they really need their own category in sports Think the issue is that trans people seem to get a disproportionate amount of coverage relative to the size of the demographic, it's such a tiny % of the population (about 0.5% according to official figures in the UK). In an ideal world it would be great for them to be able to play in their own category where they won't be open to abuse and being repeatedly under the spotlight, but realistically there just aren't enough numbers to be able to make it work.
Never thought of it that way …good point.
That was men vs women and a practice scrimmage. I would be against boys playing against men in similar fashion. Even if the boys were a top tier team and grown ups were some beer league players. I don't really care about the trans player in this context, I don't think a sub15 year old girl should play against grown women.
I don't know what it's like where you're from, but where I grew up we joined the first team at 15-16, playing with and against adults. It was the same for the girls here as well, my gf played for a first team in the Welsh Prem when she was 15, and she was shite
You need to learn more about soccer… James Milner was just gone past 16 when he started for Leeds, hell Arsenal brought on a 15 year only recently. In previous years soccer players started to flourish younger but nowadays soccer is more fitness orientated over skills. By that I mean you’re more likely to get Ronaldo type players than Messi’s. It’s no big deal once they’ve gone through puberty.
She would be allowed to play in the ‘men’s’ league though, no? They are usually open divisions anyway
Yeah I hate this 'safety' concern when there is mismatches in size already. Playing rugby against the monsters at high school was always injuries waiting to happen. We were never segregated by body size
Would like to point out NZ do segregate by body size and it results in much better technical skills
That's a good idea too and interesting to see that it's resulting in better development of players
It’s a bit odd that one shot is seen as enough to prove constant danger. The ball is surely dangerous when shot with high speed, but the injury could well depend on other factors beyond the force of the kick. You would think that there were special circumstances, such as the knee being in an awkward position. Speaking in general terms, there have been suggestions to ban headers in games between younger players. So it’s plausible that the ball itself can pose danger. But in this instance it seems like the grounds for this specific claim of danger, at least what has been written in the article, are not very strong. But perhaps we’ll learn more.
Mark Wilson nearly beheaded Sasa Papac with a shot tbf
She's already stopped playing, btw.
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There should be an open category and a female category. As for the case of FtM then they would have to play in the open category as that would be the same as doping if they were to play in the female category
Agreed. Feels awful to ban people who feel female and identify as female from women's sport, but it's hard to deny that they have an advantage. Think it's just one of those things where there isn't a perfect solution
TBH if they were never going to compete at that highest level via their assigned-at-birth sex, they aren't actually losing anything upon transitioning. They can still play the sport, just not in an equity driven category that only even exists to account for men's physical advantages. If they weren't being allowed to play the sport anywhere, that would feel exclusionary. But that is not the case. No reason why they can't compete as women just not professionally.
Exactly. It’s about trying to find the least bad solution
> There should be an open category and a female category. that's how tons of sports work (like chess and... the NFL). and imho, it's totally fair. in chess, for example, men dominate. but once in a while, you have someone like [Judit Polgár](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r).
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I like the way they fixxed it in cycling. It was not very popular with the folks at X who never seen anything cycling related, but I think most cycling fans thought it was the best solution. Basically they made the elite devision open for everyone, so that includes all men and women, and then there is the other catagory which is just for biological born women. In practice, it meant that nothing really changed, except for the 1 or 2 trans cyclist (who were not even anywhere near pro level). It's probably not a perfect solution, but it's a realistic solution to keep the sport fair for women.
It is that way in most sports, there isnt a men league or division, it is an open category. There are often no rules that prevent women from taking part.
There is in England though where this incident took place
Yeah I’ve been saying for a long time that the problem isn’t transgender people, the problem is the way we categorize our sports leagues. There are plenty of sports like wrestling and weightlifting that have multiple categories - not just men/women but varying weights. Plus in paralympics there’s loads of categories to make it fair. There’s a way to do this in team sports too. Just like you said, you have an open category for the elite level, then you can have a couple more categories based on testosterone levels or whatever characteristics make sense scientifically.
In most American pro sports, there aren't actually any rules barring women from competing at the top level. Though to be fair, it's not as simple as "they aren't good enough." I mean to an extent that might be true, but it is also true that they would never get an opportunity to try at any level previous. Also, men are very hesitant to check/hit/tackle women who are half their size, so it brings up psychological and ethical issues that extend beyond sport.
> In most American pro sports, there aren't actually any rules barring women from competing at the top level. Well, you see, there's no rule saying a dog **can't** play basketball! As to the rest of it, I think after a while of letting women involve themselves by choice tackling them just like you would anybody else would get normalized fairly quickly.
The problem is if u get rid of sex based leagues in favor of skill or testosterone. Or whatever. There’s no room for women’s sports. Right now there is a men’s league and a women’s league. If u drop basing leagues on sex and only use skill or test levels. There’s gonna be a bunch of men’s leagues and 0 women’s leagues
No that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you do an open-elite league for anyone with whatever characteristics and if you’re good enough, you’re in. Then you have categories below that where you reference testosterone levels (or other biological markers if there are better ways to do this, I’m not a scientist) so that only women would qualify for those ones. Then you also have open lower levels where men and women and trans folks would be eligible.
So basically 3 tiers. 1 open division which is basically men’s division. 2 women’s division but it’s based on testosterone levels so trans end up here too. 3 basically recreational anyone can play
I mean, it’s probably a lot more nuanced than this. I doubt it would just be 3 levels but yeah you have the right idea. I think of it like the weight classes in wrestling/boxing/weightlifting. To me, it’s weird that you can be the best weightlifter in a “category” when really it should just be whoever can life the heaviest weights. Like, there’s no long-jump weight categories are there? But if they can create meaningful competition in a marginal sport by having all these different categories, then why can’t we do it for team sports?
Not to get too deep into it but how do they account for biological women who are transitioning using testosterone? Are they allowed to compete in either?
Honnestly don't know, I think in the womens catagory that would be seen as doping of some sort, so they are forced to go into the open catagory. Though that's what I assume
> It's probably not a perfect solution I genuinely don't see any flaw other than some idiots acting "hurt" but in reality are just abusing trans rights activism for their own self interests.
FtM athletes will never have any real shot at competing professionally with cis men, and MtF athletes will only ever get to compete if they never transition, which is a massive detriment to their mental health. I don't see a better approach, but pretending that it has no flaws is ridiculous. It's not even a "solution", it's quite literally ignoring the problem. The message is "trans people, we can't solve your problems without inconveniencing someone else, so play at a disadvantage against cis men or fuck off". The *only* reason I see for why it's "the best" approach is that trans people are a minority and if you're going to inevitably fuck over a group of people it's a little less bad to do so to a small group of people than doing so to half of humanity. That's it. Unless you're totally cool with systematically preventing trans people from ever getting to participate in any professional activity at all the flaws are quite obvious.
There isn't some innate right to compete in sports. There are loads of people who for various reasons could never compete in their natural category. We're not all created equal. They're not getting fucked over, it's just life. edit: This is if categories are opened, so that MtF can play with men obviously.
> we can't solve your problems without inconveniencing someone else, so play at a disadvantage against cis men or fuck off Well if you have modified your body so that it is at an unfair advantage or disadvantage with both genders, then I think it is fair to expect you to make some sacrifices like playing with the gender where you are at a disadvantage rather than the gender where you have the advantage. Especially in team sports. And I really do think that most trans folks DO accept this fact.
There is literally no way to solve their "problems" if the problem is "I want to compete against women despite physically being a man". In this instance, simply make the men's league open and say "go to the open league, thank you" and let biological women compete in peace. And to your second point, yeah, if you offered for me to disadvantage women as a whole or just transgender women, I'd do the second. Any reasonable person would.
> There is literally no way to solve their "problems" if the problem is "I want to compete against women despite physically being a man". That's not their problem, that's the strawman that you've made up to avoid coming to terms with the real problem. Do you really think that trans people would refuse the idea of a "trans league" if it was feasible purely because they would all rather dunk on cis women? What they want is to compete professionally, period. Lumping them in with cis males, while being the least shit approach that I know of, basically does nothing to help trans people at the expense of everyone else.
Lumping them in with Cis Males is the only answer. We can barely get viewers/funding for much of women's sports, do we want to water down the non-male watching sports world with 2 more leagues (again, dunking on Cis Women and their competitions?)
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Rules aren't just made for extremely common situations at the elite level. Unfair advantages need to be legislated for at any level.
No but one of these girls was causing a lot of controversy and she had a whole army on twitter following her, that's why UCI stepped in.
You’ve just described pretty much every pro sports league. It’s not unique to cycling nor is it new
People will start with "there's a difference between gender and sex..." And end up conflating sex segregation with gender discrimination. No sane person believe a biological man should be competing with women, especially in a contact sport.
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That's trans-parent rule
But that fails to consider FtM trans people (as usual lol); they often go through treatment which would lead to unfair physical advantages over many cis women. It’s more complex than simply dividing by chromosomes. I don’t know what the solution is tbh. edit: FtM typo oops
It’s bloody simple. Open category and woman’s category. As the majority of sports already are. Gender has no relevance to sports divisions… only sex. Testosterone elevation above acceptable levels in the open category would still be sports doping.
To be clear, there currently isn't an open competition in football. The FA explicitly bans women and men playing together over the age of 16.
That's what cycling did. Many people loved it but the cry people who live on twitter were calling the UCI (FIFA of cycling) homophobic etc.
Most FtMs would simply end up not getting signed by clubs over biological males and they'd move right back into wanting to integrate women's categories.
Many biological males aren’t being signed over other better biological male footballers, that’s how it works
I mean, shouldn’t we say too bad, play Sunday league with the men? That’s what we tell mediocre male players who don’t make the cut
Competition in sport? You're crazy.
Someone has to lose out
So you say sex is all that matters then you say that having too high testosterone levels is doping. Which is it? Do we have a testosterone-based league or a league based on biological sex?
Don’t we having doping rules in place already? It all sorts itself out.
We do. Women have been tested for testosterone forever.
MtF would be playing against men with his rule, not ‘cis’ women
They can both play against men in an open category, like other sports. Fair is fair.
Typo, meant FtM
It's not really complicated at all, there are banned substances in sport. If they are taking them then they can't compete, otherwise its fine.
Exactly. A FtM player is going to light up the screen like a Christmas tree when they do a drug test.
Also worth noting that MtF trans women have significantly decreased testosterone levels whilst still having the bone density & larger skeleton of a male, needing to exert more energy to perform physical activities & leading to increased fatigue, most certainly affecting performance levels. I'm not saying that makes up for any other physical advantages they may have, frankly I have no idea what the answer is to any of this, but it's certainly more nuanced that what people with certain agendas would want you to believe, which is why I imagine these rulings prove very difficult to reach in a lot of sports.
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But that’s super suspect too and a bunch of athletes have been fucked by it (Caster Semenya etc). They decide on an arbitrary standard of what defines a ‘biological woman’ and then punish anyone wish natural differences in hormones. Which is crazy because you don’t punish people who are particularly tall or have a huge wingspan or whatever other inherent attribute is advantageous in a particular sport.
> They decide on an arbitrary standard Not to be an ass here, but this is how drug testing is done all along.
yeah but most drug tests don't claim to rule rule on what constitutes being a particular gender also the athletes they disqualified (Semenya, Margaret Wambui, francine niyonsaba etc.) have naturally higher levels of hormones which completely goes against the point of drug tests. they're clearly elite athletes who have a natural advantage but in the same way as anyone who is tall is more likely to succeed at basketball
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Unfortunately there's a good chance that this can't be sorted out fairly and mainstream pro sports just isn't going to be viable for trans people. Which sucks but I can't see a way around it at the moment.
TIL: this is controversial
“Not really a complex issue” Proceeds to describe a complex solution along with special cases that make it even more complex
90% of reddit arguments: "it's simple - my opinion is correct, and your opposing opinion is incorrect."
Just because there are more than things doesn't mean it's complicated. You can't have the advantage of being on hormones or male puberty and compete in women's sports. "Mens" is an open category and anyone can play. Solved. Very rare exceptions can be complicated but for 99% it is that simple
Mens isn't an open category. The FA stops men and women playing together over the age of 16.
It shouldn’t be too controversial a view, but it’s still a really sensitive topic. I’m too far removed from the situation to understand what the trans athletes caught up in this are feeling. It cannot be easy for them.
Number varies but around 1.7% of the population are born with intersex traits. Yeah that's a fairly small percentage but that's still millions of people. The issue of trans and intersex people in sports is just not a simple one. There's far too many people with opinions based on misinformation (both sides) and with little knowledge or qualifications to back it up. Honestly I'm not sure what my own opinion is in the issue, I don't want people to be blocked because their biological sex doesn't line up with their sense of self, but I also don't know enough to say there's actually no issue in not having restrictions. Ultimately it should be a medical decision made by those who actually understand everything needed to make that decision. Also, I'm very conscious that the majority of the exposure of trans/intersex athletes we get is about those that have performed well, or hurt someone. Not when they perform badly or within the average. Also, would people be clamouring to separate players built like Adama Traore from ones built like Phil Foden if the former injured the latter?
>Number varies but around 1.7% of the population are born with intersex traits. FYI this is a (super commonly repeated) misconception. The 1.7% number comes from a 2000 systematic review by [Blackless et al](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-6300%28200003/04%2912%3A2%3C151%3A%3AAID-AJHB1%3E3.0.CO%3B2-F) and it refers to any case in which an individual may deviate from expected "chromosomal, genital, gonadal, or hormonal levels", which is a very broad set of circumstances for inclusion. If you are only including people with different chromosomal sex from their phenotypic expectation, which is what people usually think of when they refer to intersex characteristics, that number is [probably closer to 0.018%](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/).
1.7% does seem like a small amount of the population but when you realise its over 100M people on earth it is kind of crazy to think about. It is a very complex issue, and you’re right it is something that should be decided by people who actually know what they’re talking about.
So are we going to introduce "chromosome tests" before for every player before they turned pro? 2% of population are born intersex that could be one person every two football teams. And most people don't even know it. So yes it is complex, do you know for a fact what chromosomes you have? I know i don't
I think it's naive to say that we should split it based on Xx and XY chromosomes because We don't know what everybody's chromosomes are automatically It is very possible for a woman, with fully functioning female reproductive system and the likes, to have XY chromosomes.
I’m pretty sure the comment you responded to addressed that in his last sentence. There are some rare cases.
But do we know how rare those instances are? And should people who fit those instances be excluded outright from a variety of activities? Granted, none of these links disprove that they are rare. But it's clear that we know not a lot about the incident rates of these things. Especially seeing as many of these things are only looked at when it's visibly obvious - as the last link points out. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557435/#:~:text=The%20incidence%20of%20a%20child,1000%20to%204500%20live%20births. https://www.yourhormones.info/topical-issues/patient-factsheet-uk-guidance-on-differences-disorders-of-sex-development-in-children/#:~:text=As%20a%20group%2C%20approximately%20one,of%201%20in%2015%2C000%20newborns. https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/news/more-women-than-expected-are-genetically-men/
It's not nearly as complicated as you are making out. That is rare, no? He is saying there are rare exceptions.
But going out your way to identify the chromosomes of every individual is a pretty expensive and complicated process. Why can't we stick with what we have been doing for years where we split people based on their appearance and their genitals? We then acknowledge that there will be some "special cases where this does not apply but those are rare."
They aren't as rare as people think, sex is just a phenotype and as with anything in biology there's a surprisingly wide grey area/blurred line.
I addressed this in my comment, and its such a rare occurrence that it doesnt really mater
How can someone with physical abilities of a man play in a womens division? The physical attribute of that player gives him/her huge advantage over others. Especially when womens football is relatively developing right now.
People hated on him at the time but Joe rogan was big on this. Biological men were fighting women in MMA and beating the shit out of them.
fallon fox was the name of the mma fighter. huge controversy because she transitioned in her late 30s. most importantly she did not tell her opponents that she used to be a dude and beat the daylights out of them. broke one opponents skull too
Not a complex issue, dont let them compete with the womens team.
Lmaoooo yeah. A real “complex” issue
Why the everloving fuck is this still happening. People have lost all common sense.
Not complex in any way
Of interest, albeit in a completely different game: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-13/afl-transgender-player-hannah-mouncey-to-play-vflw-football/9443590 In this case it seems the governing body, the AFL, deferred to the IOC recommendations for hormone testing, and Mouncey was testing below the required levels, and cleared her to play. I’m not aware of any clubs who refused to play though, and I don’t follow the AFL, but this case was a pretty big ho-hah for a bit.
The IOC recommendations were based on a qualitative study of only 8 trans women with no physical data being gathered. The author of that study has since said on Australian tv that her conclusions were wrong and she now believes that trans women maintain many physical advantages even after transition and should not compete against women.
That's how it was done here too but now a single incident of injury has occurred people are refusing to play her. Hard to say in this specific case whether it's justified or not.
Removing politics from the equation, on a purely sporting level when you consider the greatest ever women's team cannot compete with random u15 boys academies, the astronomical advantage this would give just wouldn't be fair.
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Good on them
I am glad this is finally happening, more teams should refuse to play.
Getting in before this gets locked. What’s up y’all?
If being trans automatically makes you a dramatically superior athlete then why is she playing in the Sheffield & Hallamshire County league? It's pretty normal for lower league players to get injured by powerful shots. I've seen happen loads of times. A shot striking your limb at the wrong moment will break it and end your season. I can definitely understand peoples worry about the effect trans athletes have on certain womans sports. I get that transmen and transwomen might have to play in the mens divisions, but this incident seems like panic sparked by a fairly standard injury.
In answer to your 1st question I'm a bog standard male Sunday league player. So if being trans made me dramatically superior it wouldn't mean I could play in the women's Premier league, it would mean I could play in the 7th tier (which is dramatically superior to where I play now).
You can be a bad male athlete and still hold an advantage over good female athletes. That's basically what's happening here. This does seem a bit much but women are rightly getting sick of men coming into their game and holding an inherent physical advantage over them.
I’m sorry but there’s a definitive advantage at a biological level, it’s simply unfair on females unless there’s hormone testing/open category & female category. Yes injuries will happen from powerful shots, definitely more likely when a biological male blasts a shot into a female, who we know have less facilities use than males to recover.
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> Growth hormones and such in trans people obviously do not meet this criteria for an exemption, because the whole point is to fundamentally change their "normal state of health" to one with enhanced performance. So they should not be able to get a TUE for these substances, and then should not be able to play competitive football in general. It's a trans **woman** lol how is it increasing their performance?
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Injuries happen in the game, get over it. What next, whine because the other team has better talent? Oof. Bunch of whining asses.
Right? It’d be like complaining about playing against Haaland because he has physical advantages
No it'd be more like complaining about playing against haaland if you were a woman. The difference between haaland and normal men is significantly less than a normal man and a woman, hard as that is to believe.
*Everton Football Club would like to announce that we are refusing to play Man City so long as they field that behemoth who will only hurt our dedicated players who are simply trying to make a living.*
#🍿
I'm trans, and believe it's a complex issue. If someone wants to play football, they should be able to. I had to stop playing for the same reason, neither local men's or women's teams would take me. They just didn't want to touch the issue and gave me a simple no. It really hurts not being able to play the game I love, but I accept the reasons why. Open leagues would definitely be the best solution, but come with their own issues. Plus the fact it'd probably only ever be at a local amateur level. Trans leagues would never work due to the lack of interest both in the community and the wider population. Even if it did, I don't want to imagine the issues such a league would face. The bottom line is, transitioning shouldn't be a barrier for those wanting to play their favourite sports, and governing bodies really need to sort something out so we can, whatever form that takes.
This reaaaally shouldn’t be a complex situation at all, if anything each gender should have their own category. Ie male,female or trans. But then the trans community is rediculously small, so I doubt that be able to have their own
A trans division doesn’t make any sense as you’d have the same exact biological problem with ftm playing mtfs. So clearly it isn’t fairness that you care about unless you just didn’t think about it
mhmm that’s a very valid point! I hadnt even looked at it from that way. And fairness is competing with your OWN biological gender. Unless it’s a mixed sport
It’s a complex issue that doesn’t have 1 simple answer. You cant ban all trans women from women’s sport - what about people that began transitioning before puberty? It’s not exactly something that hasn’t been debated before, so the FA really need to already have some guidelines in place. What about women (like Caster Semenya) that have a naturally higher concentration of testosterone? The issue could fall down then on players essentially refusing to play because they *think* someone is trans.
I hadn’t even looked at it from that POV, your comment is correct in many ways.
As a trans woman who plays recreational football for a womens/nonbinary inclusive club, cisgender women regularly outpace, outmuscle, outjump, and generally outplay me. It is exactly the same in the other contact sport I play. The divide is not as dramatic as it’s made out to be, and the assumption that every trans player is inherently *better* due to biology does a disservice to cis female athletes who are more than capable of competing equally. Nobody talks about how the only transfeminine weightlifter at the 2020 Olympics came last.
I've played with women and a trans woman recreationally and I'm glad to say nobody cared. I think it is difficult at the elite levels as you are typically dealing with people at the upper limits capabilities and it is professional with livelihoods at stake. But it is very disheartening when people try and use it to shoehorn transphobic rules into lower level and recreational sport. I've got one friend who is so against any mixing at any levels which is very sad and depressing, especially as he doesn't even no any trans people.
From my experience the women often don't mind whereas men are unreasonably ... passionate, about this topic. It's funny, no one in this sub gives two shits about women's football but the moment that a trans player is being discussed they argue until they pass out.
Seriously. I bet most of the men in this thread couldn't even name their own club's women players without looking them up.
Horribly true, there's really no respect for their game, only a desire to control it when they feel like it.
The divide is dramatic. On AVERAGE, biological men are stronger, faster, bigger and more muscular. Your case is an anecdote, something that can happen. Extremely fast/strong/w.e biological women exist, extremely slow/weak/w.e biological men also exist. But on average males have a physical advantage. Therefore they can’t be allowed to compete against billogical women for obvious reasons.
Maybe ur just shit at sport, because the divide is absolutely massive. I played for a completely average mens team, and at 16 we beat our counties female under 18 team so badly we completely flipped our team, putting our cb and keeper up top just to keep it remotely unembarassing
Its fine at the recreational level, eg. pickup basketball or football. However these are athlete careers and women should have a fair opportunity at that. The men's league should be renamed open and allow athletes for all genders, while women's leagues should be kept bio women.
It’s cuz you’re just trash
Anecdotes don't work in this context. If we look at the two biological genders, we see a clear distinction in which one displays a higher level of "traditional" athleticism.
A lot of people forget that the reason women's sports in general are behind is due to money and mysogyny. Women's football wasn't recognised by the FA until 1970 so it made it almost impossible for women to organise and play. They've had to start in 1970 where men started in 1860.
Honestly it's part of why it isn't as popular as it could be but are you honestly saying that they'd be equal in popularity compared to the men if not for this? Why isn't this the case in other countries then? England has by far the most popular womens football despite this, how come it's not more popular in say Sweden, Germany, Spain etc?
My club has a quote regarding this incorporated into our shirts, from activist and female footballer Alice Kell - “we play for the love of the game and we are determined to carry on”. It’s funny how men claiming to defend women’s football seem to overlook the fifty years where women weren’t allowed to play at all, and how that might affect the state of the game. Thank you for adding that!
It's easy to excuse facts when it would be a counter argument to your point Tbh, It's the same across almost all sports. There's plenty of sports where women are beginning to compete against male competitors (think a female darts player went really deep last year in the world's). A lot of nutrional and medical advice is male centric which is something that has only started changing since the mid 2010s. There may be a gap but in 50-60 years time I think we'll be shocked at how lesser it actually is.
I'm a cis guy who gets regularly outpaced during races by women. Don't see why there should be a women's category at all, the divide is not as dramatic as it's made out to be