Transgender Sportswomen in Sport

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SWP's back

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read this from Samuels in today’s Mail:

“Maxine Blythin, the transgender cricketer with ambitions to represent England's women, also plays at club level for a local men's team.

For Chesham second XI, she has an average for 15. For her women's team, St Lawrence and Highland Court, her average is 129.

At the weekend Blythin made 145 not out against Ansty, who were all out for 155. Her numbers in men's 2nd XI cricket suggest a distinctly average talent. Transported to the Women's Southern League Premiership, however, she becomes a star, and a county player for Kent.

Blythin identifies as a woman, which is her right. Only those in complete denial, though, would refuse to concede this raises serious issues around the future of women's sport.”

It’s certainly a tricky one I know but surely transgender women shouldn’t be able to compete with and against biological women?
 
inchy14 said:
Amazingly none of the transgender women seem to want to compete against the men, always transgender men competing against women, funny that........
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I know what you’re saying but I think you’ve got your classification the wrong way round.

Transgender woman (someone born a man and now living as a woman) - such as in the OP where she competes against women.

Transgender man (the reverse of the above)
 
The years of focus and debate against Castor Sumenya by other female athletes and the governing body has pretty much lead to her being hounded out of the sport. If men who identify as women expect to compete then I would expect a far bigger backlash from women in those sports. For me it just shouldn’t be allowed and would make a mockery of the sport.
 
SWP's back said:
read this from Samuels in today’s Mail:

“Maxine Blythin, the transgender cricketer with ambitions to represent England's women, also plays at club level for a local men's team.

For Chesham second XI, she has an average for 15. For her women's team, St Lawrence and Highland Court, her average is 129.

At the weekend Blythin made 145 not out against Ansty, who were all out for 155. Her numbers in men's 2nd XI cricket suggest a distinctly average talent. Transported to the Women's Southern League Premiership, however, she becomes a star, and a county player for Kent.

Blythin identifies as a woman, which is her right. Only those in complete denial, though, would refuse to concede this raises serious issues around the future of women's sport.”

It’s certainly a tricky one I know but surely transgender women shouldn’t be able to compete with and against biological women?
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has someone removed his/her bails
 
He did another piece about it last week as well. It just seems so glaringly obvious to me that biological men should not be playing in women's sport, as this case with Blythin proves.

GENDER ISSUE THAT COULD RUN AND RUN by Martin Samuel
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...-Chelsea-crash-Frank-Lampard-gets-burned.html

As the rules stand, it is very unlikely Maxine Blythin will play cricket for England. She can, however, play for Kent. And does, opening the batting for much of this season, with reasonable success.

'Two innings-anchoring scores of 43 and 48 from opener Maxine Blythin...steered Kent Women to two wins in their final two matches of the season in the Vitality Women's County T20,' it was reported in June.

Blythin averages more than 30 for Kent this season across all competitions and also plays for St Lawrence and Highland Court in the Women's Cricket Southern League, where she averages 123, including four centuries and a top score of 152 not out.

The reason Blythin is unlikely to be an international contender is because she is transgender. She identifies as a woman, meaning she would not pass the ECB's test for testosterone limits. Next year, when the Women's Hundred begins in a semi-professional format, maybe Blythin will have to stop playing for Kent, too.

As it stands, beyond the England team, the ECB's policy is not medically driven, but socially inclusive. A person identifying as a woman, is a woman. Only at professional level is self-definition no longer enough. Kent flirt with professionalism from next season.

A women's rights pressure group, Fair Play For Women, has already seized on Blythin's involvement in county cricket as unreasonable.

'Letting males who self-ID as women play in women's competitions is demonstrably unfair,' it said. 'The ECB knows males have a performance advantage over females. This is why it lets women use lighter and smaller cricket balls and why boundaries are set closer.'

They have a point. As a county cricketer Blythin is one grade below the England team — Kent's captain is Tammy Beaumont, a current England cricketer, World Cup winner and MBE — and opening bat is a specialist position with limited opportunities.

Inclusivity is important. Yet what of the player Blythin is keeping out of the Kent team, who might work just as hard but lack her physical strength? How is inclusivity working for her?

Against this, if the ECB widens its testosterone test, where is the boundary? County? Club? Village? If Blythin could not play for her club, let alone her county, where is she to go?

Gender issues in sport are becoming almost impossibly complex and, as governing bodies stumble through the moral maze, they are not served by intransigent attitudes and incendiary language.

It is 10 years since Caster Semenya came to international prominence at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin. The sport is still struggling with her circumstances and those of other intersex athletes. Yet asked about the case this week, Dr Payoshni Mitra, an athletes rights activist who has testified for Semenya against the IAAF, said: 'The witch hunt of young women with high testosterone is going on…'

Witch hunt? What rubbish. This is sport's governing bodies trying to find balance and fairness in competition. They mean no harm, no ill to any individual. They make no judgment on personal choices beyond the way they might impact the playing field.

And no doubt they wish they did not have to rule at all. But they do. There is no right and no wrong, but there must be rules. So here we all are.
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willipp said:
The years of focus and debate against Castor Sumenya by other female athletes and the governing body has pretty much lead to her being hounded out of the sport. If men who identify as women expect to compete then I would expect a far bigger backlash from women in those sports. For me it just shouldn’t be allowed and would make a mockery of the sport.
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This is a really tricky subject but I think it's important to not muddy things further. Let's be clear from the start that Caster Semenya is not transgender.
 
Mon Autre said:
This is a really tricky subject but I think it's important to not muddy things further. Let's be clear from the start that Caster Semenya is not transgender.
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No, but she does have testicles. As you say though, it’s a very different conversation.
 
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