I think it's pretty easy, really.

If you still have a penis and testicles and are not taking hormones, you cannot compete in women's sports.

If you don't, and you are taking female hormones, then you can.

Not really that difficult.

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It's not about a simplistic idea of gender, actually. It's about unfair advantages. I suppose we could just legalise steroids to have an even playing field, but then, what's the point? An even playing field offers skill. An uneven one could result in significant upsets to the sport.

I'm ambiguous myself, being intersexed, so the idea that I have a 'simplistic' view of gender is really kind of amusing. Of course, you've pretty much decided I'm Uncle Tom in this, and so I must have a 'simplistic' view, rather than believing that testosterone could give an MTF an unfair advantage.

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My point was quite straightforward. It is not a question of whether some people WILL have an 'unfair' competitive advantage, as clearly SOME will (although this may have little or nothing to do with gender or gender reassignment). My concern is with how this advantage will be judged, and by whom. It is clear from the proposal document that if someone excels at a particular sport, AND is 'gender reassigned', there are grounds PURELY ON THE BASIS OF REASSIGNMENT to ban them from competing. There is NO mention of hormones, surgery, or cross-dressers. Reassignment is the ONLY criterion mentioned, and by the current definition could equally apply to CD, non-op, recently post-op, long term post-op, or inter people, as long as they have sought or recieved, voluntarily or involuntarily, some form of 'treatment'.

This also appears to weaken the Gender Recognition process, are people with GRC's to be outed and be put off competing? I am legally 'female', and if I wasn't an out GenderQueer I would certainly be put off entering competitions on these grounds. And remember, I can get a GRC without surgery OR hormones, so if GRC's are immune from this issue this exception is doubly meaningless.

Sports is ALL ABOUT biological advantage (otherwise we'd all come first ). Consider for example two woman-born-women high jumpers. One is six feet tall and one is four feet six. Clearly the taller one will have a biological advantage, being able to jump higher. This is considered fair, the tall woman has a biological advantage, which is WHY she is a winner. Her gender is not the deciding factor in this situation and it is likely she could also beat a short male-born-man (and she could certainly beat me, I'm pants at jumping). But what if the six footer is a ten year post op TS woman who transitioned at an early age? Suddenly this height could be seen as an unfair advantage, and purely on the basis of reassignment, as defined above, this athlete COULD be be barred from competing.

Athletes are competitive and many will use ANY advantage to win (including untraceable steriods - hormones, not that any do of course). If the shorter high jumper is competing against the woman-born-woman, she has to deal with it. If she is competing against the M-F she doesn't and could appeal. If the deciding body are transphobic, (not that anyone is nowadays,) we can guess what their decision might be. And given the current IOC issue with gender testing, and the upcoming London Olympics, the IOC could easily be in a position of having to enforce a law THEY ALREADY KNOW is meaningless and unenforcable.

Those who know me know that I don't support the two-gender system, I believe it is based on bogus and discredited 'science' and is primarily a social construction. There is some basis for this belief. All people have a phallus, in some it is called a penis, and in others it is called a clitoris. Which it is called depends on a value judgement, there is an arbitrary cut-off point, and I do mean cut off. Several of my inter colleagues feel particularly strongly about this small point. Hormones are no absolute guide to gender, as many people are unresponsive to their 'gendered' hormone and thus gain no advantage. Chromosomes can be mosaic, a mixture of XX and XY in the same body, they could test positive for XY yet have the musculature of an XX. A M-F may be far less competitive than a male-born-man, less driven, so despite having 'male' musculature be less able to win.

I understand the arguments that are being made, and on some levels I agree with them all; as they are framed they are absolutely correct. But I am an active sports person so I have some authority when I say sport isn't equal by definition, and I am CONCERNED when I see laws that will actively discriminate against SOME (but not all) trans and inter people making sport LESS equal. But I am still SHOCKED (and you'd think that after ten years of making these points I'd be used to it) when I hear and see trans and inter people arguing for support of these sort of discriminatory laws. It is not M-F trans people who are the problem, that is just more of the inadvertant scapegoating that trashes important political movements, the problem is the innappropriate use of the genders these laws seek to shore-up.

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