Save Women's Sport
I was going to steer clear of the subject of trans women competing in women's sport, but I have just read the most ridiculous tweet of all time so I feel compelled to react (this will be long)
So I'll start of by breaking down the tweet, then I'll just highlight some truths and you can make up your own minds.
Tweet Begins:
I have been hearing more frequently the narrative that women's sport apparently exists as a 'protected category' so that women can win (because on this account without it no woman will ever win again) This is: a) *not* the reason why women's sport exists as a category,
and b) it is *not* true that women will never win again.
Now this is predicated by "which sport you choose to select." However, category for women's sport is very much a "thing" and while a reasonable argument can be made for some mixed sport, It is shameful to suggest that there aren't sports where mixing the sexes will never offer up a female winner.
Let's unpack this a little: A. Women's sport exists as a category because the dominance of men athletes was threatened by women competing. We see this over and over again in the history of sport...
Well no, the history of women's sport is extremely complicated, to reduce it to one sentence is, to say the least, disingenuous. But your theory will be very interesting.
Exhibit A1: Figure Skating 1902: Madge Syers enters the World Champs and comes 2nd (no rule preventing her, though no woman has ever entered before) 1903: Women banned from World Champs 1905: Segregated women's category
OK, this is definitely a sport where women are most definitely on an equal footing with men, let's add this to the list
1. Figure Skating
5/20 Exhibit A2: Skeet Shooting 1992 Barcelona: Zhang Shang wins the Gold Medal. The event had always been an open event (no gendered categories) 1996 Atlanta: women banned from shooting 2000 Sydney: Segregated women's category, fewer targets for women
Really hitting the most popular sports in Olympic history here, the argument for segregated sports isn't rooted in skill or flare. Its simple biology, but lets add Skeet shooting anyway.
1. Figure Skating
2. Skeet Shooting
6/20 Exhibit A3: Football 1920: Women's football thriving in the UK with 53000 strong crowds (men had been off fighting in WW1) 1921: FA bans women's football (men had returned from WW1) 1971: Fifty (50!) years later ban is lifted, women's football is still recovering
Swing and a miss here. You can't claim this one, Men had been removed from their homes and families to go and get slaughtered on the fields of Flanders.
Men built football, they built the stadiums, they built the teams and they watched the matches. Due to Men being required to go and die in pointless conflict, women stepped in and football continued to thrive.
Yes it was wrong to ban women's football, but to suggest that women had become a bigger draw and they out-competed men is quite honestly shameful.
7/20
More examples exist but the pattern is clear:
Where women were included (or simply included themselves) it was only when they started threatening men's dominance/entitlement that we were segregated into a separate category.
It is why we still see Sport & Women's Sport 
It's quite astonishing that you feel you've made a solid case thus far to be quite honest, but let's carry on.
8/20 Women's inclusion was on the terms of those in power. They didn't want women 'taking opportunities' away from men so they segregated women. It was never about a benevolent (still sexist) aim of supposedly 'giving women a chance to win'. It was about control.
Are you honestly suggesting that this was the ONLY reason women were segregated? Surely not!
And the narrative (B) about women being inherently physically inferior to men? Concocted as a reason to segregate us without threatening masculinity.
Oh I get it, you think that women, in general, are equally as strong as men? That's a bold claim. Is there any study you would like to show us that this is not the case?
10/20 There are once again actually greater fears here that women may start to challenge men’s dominance more broadly. Indeed we are already starting to see this...
Are we indeed? Let's see some proof.
She then links the following article
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/longer-race-stronger-we-get/
A very interesting read. And I will definitely take that as proof as a sport in which women can definitely compete with men. But, what the tweet fails to highlight is the fact that The best ultramarathoner in the world, is a man and men still win the majority of competition. But this is still another bad faith argument, just because women have endurance of a similar level to men, does not equate to them being physically equal.
1. Figure Skating
2. Skeet Shooting
3. Ultra marathoning
Then she posts this link
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/09/maya-gabeira-surfed-biggest-wave-year/616216/
And this link (skeet shooting again)
15/20 There are some really lovely real-life examples and research studies that show that the more men participate against women, the more they come to accept that women can be good athletes, e.g.
I don't know of any man that thinks a woman can't be a good athlete, I'm sure they existed more so in the past, and I am sure they exist now. But women have proven over countless decades that they can be fantastic athletes. I'll take a guess and say that 99% of men will readily admit that.
16/20 Inclusion is not only the right thing to do, but it also makes us *all* better. This is why I will always fight for the inclusion of trans women in women's sport.
Now we're coming to the end and the agenda is finally exposed, hold that thought.
17/20 Just as cis women are kept small, so too are trans women kept small. "The idea that women and girls have an advantage because they are trans ignores the actual conditions of their lives"
Women have fought a long, hard battle to be accepted as athletes in their own right. Yes, there is a shameful tradition of them being excluded from the credit they deserve, but we have made some amazing strides so let's not go backwards.
18/20 Sport isn't inherently gendered. We manufacture strict binary gendered differences, and then we naturalise them. Understanding and interrogating this helps us to understand the panic and fearmongering around women's sport right now, and where we might go next.
OK I'm sure that sounded really clever in your head as you typed this and while It can be reasoned that mixing certain sports would still be a fair competition, they are a very niche group of sports. Every sport is manufactured, every competition has been invented. In the vast majority of competition we have recognised binary difference and we have adapted our sporting world to reflect that.
Not all sports are created equal, when the competition involves physical strength, segregation is vital to the very foundation of women in sport.
19/20 I'll end with this paragraph on women's sport as a radically inclusive space
20/20 It is possible to have a different conversation here. Gender expansiveness gives us all permission to break free from - and take up space beyond - societal norms, and I'm very much here for that. Onward.
OK, that was the tweet. So what are we left with here? Well we have a list of sports where women can very easily compete with men
1 Figure skating
2. Skeet Shooting
3. Ultra marathoning
4. Err Surfing waves
4 sports, 4 very niche sports at that. But to be fair there are quite a lot of sports where women can compete alongside men and I personally think some mixing of sports would be a good thing just to cut down on the sheer number of events.
Curling at the winter Olympics has a mixed doubles, and a separate women's and men's team. Why?
Nobody would ever suggest that women can't compete in Curling on the same level as men.
But lets look at some facts though. Let's start with football
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/3268594/us-women-soccer-dallas-academy-5-2/
Women's football in the US has never suffered from a lack of funding, in fact! Women's football is played far more by girls than by boys. Should we just abandon women's football, bearing in mind, the tweet mentioned that women's football was banned from association football grounds in the UK in 1921, would it be reasonable grounds to advocate disbanding women's football now? It has had an equal footing for decades after all.
So let's get some facts. Let's look at the daddy (mummy) of all sporting contest the Summer Olympics. I'm sure everyone can agree that women have had plenty of opportunity over the course of many Summer Olympic cycles to prove they are equal to men. But let's get down to the nitty gritty of Track & Field
100m - Men 9.63 seconds Women 10.61
So, a fraction under 1 second, doesn't sound massive you might ask, but that's over a 10 metre winning distance in a 100 metre race
Note(s).
A) The women's world record stands at 10.49 seconds. 156 men have broken 10 seconds at time of this post.
B) Jesse Owens on a cinder track and wearing ancient running shoes still ran 10.3 seconds
C) Over 5,000 boys & men in the US alone broke the women's world record last year
200m - Men 19.19 Seconds Women 21.34
400m - Men 43.03 women 48.25
800 - Men 1:40.91 Women 1:53.43
1,500 - Men 3:28.32 Women 3:53.11
5,000 - Men 12:57.82 Women 14:26.17
10,000 - Men 27:01.17 Women 29:17.45
Marathon - Men 2:06:32 Women 2:23:07
110m Hurdles - Men 12.91 Women 12.26 (Women compete over 100m and have lower hurdles)
400m Hurdles - Men 45.94 Women 51.46
3,000m steeplechase - Men 8:03.28 Women 8:58.81
So that's the track. Does anyone notice a problem here if segregation were to be removed?
OK, let's add this little nugget also.
If any woman were able to match their current event world record in order to qualify for the Olympics. NONE of them would have run a fast enough time to qualify for ANY men's team.
In short. There would never be another woman representing their country in any track event ever again. And that is a FACT. For an even better comparison, the following link compares results of women's Olympic finalists in 2016 to that of High School Boys. Just keep remind yourself that this is fully adult women and the comparison is High School (boys 14-18)
How could that possibly help women in any way, shape or form? To even begin to suggest that women could compete with men if only they were given the opportunity is a disgrace to talented women the world over!
The same disparity bears out among field events. Biological women's track & field would cease to exist. Even events like the high jump and long jump are not even a remotely close competition across sexes
In the swimming pool, there is not one single event where women even come close to that of American college times, let alone being fast enough to qualify for an Olympic spot.
Do not denigrate women's sport. It is not there for anyone to use as an ideological football. Women had fought for years to be able compete in sport. And finally! Once they get to the stage where equal funding and support for women is the best it's ever been, someone wants to take it away from them.
We have choices moving forward, we either allow only biological women to compete in women's sports, or we just completely disband women's sports altogether.
And the worst part? This isn't the mythical "patriarchy" doing this. This is feminism eating itself alive In order to stick it to the man! You think I'm joking? The tweet I quoted was from a woman, there are hundreds just like her preaching this crap.
But hey! There's always skeet shooting I suppose...
There is no amount of testosterone suppression and the taking of oestrogen that would result in a level playing field for a Trans woman to compete with a woman.
https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-do-trans-athletes-have-an-advantage-in-elite-sport/a-58583988
Facts don't care about feelings.
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