Nini Manumua - know her name

[oimissus]

Nini Manumua is a young woman who should have been going to the Olympics to represent her country, New Zealand, in her sporting discipline of weightlifting. But she isn't. Her place has been taken by someone who has no business on a women's team.

I won't name that person.

I would like everyone to know her name instead.

[TheCat]

Not many people will be willing to raise their head above the parapet on this issue I suspect.

Of course I fully support anyone's right to live as whatever gender they desire....but I think there needs to be more honest conversations in public forums on the practical challenges/limitations that such a transitions raise. The concept of pretending that a trans persons life before transition did not exist seems to raise a lot of problems.

As in this case, its certainly does seem like an unfair advantage.

[JohnL]

Paralympics has a multitude of divisions - maybe that's where we are headed for main Olympics - either way there should be a solution.

But then I don't have much interest in Olympic Sport or individual sport in general - Lance Armstong spoilt it for me a little.

[MrsR]

oimissus - I hear you

[fishbiscuits]

Nobody is claiming that trans issues are simple. That finding the correct place for a trans athlete to compete, or the correct prison for trans inmate to serve time is straightforward and clear cut. Quite obviously, crudely categorising all trans women (at any stage of their transition) as female is problematic.

But one thing does seem clear cut to me, "oimissus" - you seem to have a particular issue with trans women. Your recent claim that men cross dress in order to get into women's prisons was profoundly offensive. You have now decided to start another thread to air your views.

Tell me... were you a keen follower of the sport of weightlifting, before this story hit the news?

My thoughts are that people disproportionately focus on fringe issues (such as trans elite athletes or the fairly trivial debate of public toilets) in order to vent their underlying intolerance.

[oimissus]

I didn't claim that. That is your interpretation of what I said, which is that increasing numbers of male sex offenders are claiming to be trans in order to get housed in the women's prison estate or have their sentences reduced. This is a known *fact*, prison governors have been raising this for a while. The issue there is with self ID and the potential, which has already been realised, for it to be abused by predators. There is nothing offensive in what I said. I didn't mentioned what they wear - clothes aren't what make someone female, after all.

I care about women and girls. I care about women's safe spaces, women's prisons, women's refuges and women's sports. There is a lot of hyperbole around this, claiming that transpeople are being banned from competing. They aren't - they merely have to compete according to their sex, just like everyone else. Otherwise, I assume you think it's fine for a heavyweight boxer to compete in the flyweight class, or an adult play on a children's football team.

For anyone who is genuinely interested, Ross Tucker is a good person to follow on Twitter, and he has a piece in The Times today discussing it.

[JohnL]

Deleted as it's even more complicated - flow charts here - but notice all the acts of parliament the police (and others) must comply with.

https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/sites/default/files/2019-02/trans_and_non-binary_people.pdf

[fishbiscuits]

I don't have an answer for the correct place for a trans weightlifter to compete. I acknowledge it is a difficult problem.

However, this is the second time in recent days you've chosen specifically to start negative conversations about trans women. And I also believe that, in this case, you are concentrating on a VERY fringe issue, which really impacts very few people.

Any discussion of male inmates fraudulently identifying as female in order to access female prisons (source?) should be counterbalanced by the facts about assaults AGAINST transgender inmates. Which actually far outnumber those transgender prisoners suspected of carrying out attacks.

[oimissus]

No, they won't. Why do many police forces record sex as whatever the arrested person says it is, no questions asked, certainly no GRC or diagnosis required?

We absolutely do need to listen to prison governors - I find that extraordinary that anyone would want to ignore the voices of those on the ground.

[oimissus]

I started a thread celebrating the efforts and talent of a young woman, who has been denied the opportunity she has worked towards for many years.

I'm sorry that you don't think that's worth anyone's time. I'm sorry you regard women's and girls' sport as 'a fringe issue'. However, you don't need to stay here, you know.

(I've been on the EDF for many years, though I haven't posted for a long while. I have very real concerns about women's and girls' rights and have decided to speak up and speak out on them. Of course there will always be those who don't want those concerns raised, and that deserves scrutiny of its own. Women's and girls' sport isn't a fringe issue - that's incredibly dismissive.)

[JohnL]

It would be an abuse of human rights I guess if they couldn't compete anywhere - i'd feel it was anyway even though I don't care for that type of competition.

[fishbiscuits]

oimissus Wrote:

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> I started a thread celebrating the efforts and talent of a young woman

Glad to hear you follow antipodean women's weightlifting so closely.

[malumbu]

It would be helpful if someone can simply explain what the issue is. I can't work out if someone who was born XY has replaced an XX, or vice versa. Thanks (yes I know some people aren't born either, but I expect that is irrelevant in this case, as someone has transitioned)

[oimissus]

This article by the aforementioned Ross Tucker lays it all out (share token) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9b297206-d2bc-11eb-b50d-ece47261907f?shareToken=59149129aeb801fc084a51e627daffd0

[malumbu]

Haven't got time to read that so I will not contribute to the discussion. Sorry, but please can you summarise your points better before starting a new thread.

[oimissus]

malumbu Wrote:

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> Haven't got time to read that so I will not

> contribute to the discussion. Sorry, but please

> can you summarise your points better before

> starting a new thread.

I'm not your secretary, malumba. It's a shame you can't spare 5 minutes to read this article, which lays everything out far better than I can, and from someone who's an expert in the field, but that's OK, you don't have to comment.

[JohnL]

I remember when I was younger East Germany won everything going - I knew their anthem off by heart it was played so often.

Is it really much different now ? If you think the Olympics is about fair play and winning - you're wrong.

I actually remember this one ...

"The Spanish basketball team at the 2000 Paralympics pretended to be disabled to win the gold medal."

[oimissus]

Wow. I?m actually really shocked at how little some people think of women athletes. You have no idea, or more likely couldn?t care less, at how much of an advantage male people, even if they have transitioned (and the IOC require very little in the way of meaningful transition), have over women in sport. The requirement is simply to lower testosterone to a level that is still over 3x higher than that of a woman, and disregards every other advantage that male athletes have, such as greater heart and lung capacity, narrower pelvis, longer limbs.

In answer to your question, however, Sharron Davies has experience of competing against doping East Germans, and she has been a strong voice in this debate, standing up for the rights of women and girls to compete safely and fairly.

As she has just said today on Twitter ?those who stay silent are complicit, if you?re not part of the solution you?re part of the probem.? And judging by Twitter, and indeed this thread, there are plenty out there for whom that fits the Bill exactly.

[fishbiscuits]

You should not be surprised at people's reluctance to endorse your obvious agenda here.

[hammerman]

I was reading the newspaper this morning and came across a small article in the sports pages which caught my eye. It was headed 'Fury as Kiwis pick trans weightlifter for Tokyo'.

Very interesting reading.

[TheCat]

JohnL Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Paralympics has a multitude of divisions - maybe

> that's where we are headed for main Olympics -

> either way there should be a solution.

>

> But then I don't have much interest in Olympic

> Sport or individual sport in general - Lance

> Armstong spoilt it for me a little.

so you're saying that someone who transitions is disabled? so should go to the Paralympics? categoty pink1C

[JohnL]

No - The Olympics could have many sections though - for all kinds of people.

Overweight 50 somethings discus.

Why Not - What;s the difference between categories in the Paralympics and categories for the rest of us - maybe an FTP test and you participate against people of your own level.

It's the taking part that counts.

A bit radical I know - but in my lifetime the Olympics has been just a hotbed of cheating and drug taking.

[peckman]

New Zealand women's transgender weightlifting team ? That must be peak edf .

[SpringTime]

fishbiscuits Wrote:

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> You should not be surprised at people's reluctance

> to endorse your obvious agenda here.

If there's an agenda then what's wrong with it? If I've understood this correctly a man who wants to be considered a woman, and might well consider himself to be a woman, is being allowed to compete as a woman in a women's sport. Surely this gives him (yes, I said him) an unfair advantage over women who were born as women in that sport. Identifying as a woman is his choice but to oust the competition - by really being a man having not been born a woman, and then being able to compete with born-women - must be wrong. Like JohnL says there should simply be another category.

[oimissus]

On Radio 4 yesterday a man who identifies as a woman, Joanna Harper, who was involved in the IOC decision in 2015, stated on Woman's Hour that in 2015 the data wasn't especially robust but never mind, it was more important to allow men who identify as women to compete as women than consider the impact on women, and in another programme, compared this situation with lesbians taking the place of straight women. This second programme was The Moral Maze, who had 4 male people as the 'experts', discussing participation in women's sport. Where was Emma Hilton? Where was Sharron Davies?

Yes, I have an agenda. My agenda is standing up for the rights of women and girls, wherever they are in the world.

Yes, I'm angry. This situation has come about by ever allowing a man to call himself a woman. We have been shouting from the rooftops about this for years, to be continually shut down with cries of 'bigot', 'transphobe', 'unkind', 'it'll never happen'.

Enough. I'm done with being kind or polite about this. I'm done with watching women and girls being dumped on by the kind and inclusive brigade who care nothing for them.

I daresay this post will be reported, and I daresay that Admin will delete it. But if one woman or girl reads it and knows that there are people out there standing up for them, that's enough. If one person who's starting to feel disquiet about what they're reading in the papers and this encourages them to find out more, that's enough.

WOMAN

noun

adult human female