[Crabcakes]

BMA have serious reservations about the Cass review, particularly the methodology. Recommend not implementing a puberty blocker ban, note that trans healthcare in the U.K. is poor, and are pressing ahead with an even more thorough review. Be interesting to see what Streeting’s reaction is:

https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clini ... nt-advice/

[The Weeping Angel]

The BMA is a Trade Union not a clinical body this decision is based on idelology not science.

[kreuzberger]

Imane Khelif is a CIS woman. Always was, always will be, and has lost previous bouts against other women.

If you reckon she's a bloke, I suggest you tell her that to her face. (Pro-Tip; It looks like she has been training for the Olympics.)

[The Weeping Angel]

They're using their advantage to cheat the fact that they weren't allowed to compete at last year's world championships because they failed a gender test. It stinks

[Crabcakes]

The BMA is a Trade Union not a clinical body this decision is based on idelology not science.

No it isn’t, but thanks for your contribution.

[Crabcakes]

To expand, seeing as my reply could be read as saying I disagree the BMA is a trade union - I’m disagreeing it is ideological. Ideological is imposing a blanket ban on a treatment that not even the Cass report called for.

The BMA are calling for more evidence, and until a more thorough review of the Cass report and its methodology is complete they are suggesting not implementing what is essentially the most full-on interpretation of its findings.

Both the BMA and the Cass report conclude that evidence is lacking and trans youth have been repeatedly let down. So unless you’re fine with continuing to let down people who have just as much right to healthcare as you do, supporting a thorough review of a policy-changing report should be something of a no brainer. If it is robust, it will be found to be so. If it is methodologically flawed, these can be addressed and modified advice issued that results in better, evidence based care for those who need it.

[kreuzberger]

Boxing is complex, sport is complex. That is why it attracts so much attention.

Being a good boxer means remarkable mental, technical, and physical preparation so that you don't get a smack in the chops after 40 seconds and which reduces you to a bit-part in the bilious rantings of some mad bint who writes books about wizards. (Granted; her books have sold well, but so did Shakespeare's, and he also knew fuck all about boxing* or biology**.)

Of course, the genetic lottery also plays a part in sporting performance, but that is part of being human. It is why the places in the Marathon are largely predetermined, and why I was denied my birthright to pull on a Rangers shirt. To be honest, I am OK with that, although some people get really agitated by genetic advantage when watching sport in order to justify their prejudices.

Shakespeare didn't suggest;
* "All is fair in love and boxing"
** "If I be waspish, best beware of my right hook"

[The Weeping Angel]

Fair enough I would like to point out that other medicial bodies have taken a somewhat different view.

The reason why I came in feet first so to speak was being on a forum where they're quite trans people and trans activists you really come to realise just how utterly fundamentalist they're over this. In their view Cass is either a complete idiot or an evil TERF whose report is completely unscientific. When you try to politely disagree with them they just scream TERF at you or claim you're lying. A good example of this was when someone linked to a blog debunking claims about the Cass report they were accused of linking to a blog by a known TERF. Also when I linked to More or Less about the Cass Report one of the trans refused to even listen to it on the grounds it was biased.

[kreuzberger]

The reason why I came in feet first ...

In fairness, you only post utter shite when Labour are in office, and the last fourteen years have been relatively merciful.

I fear what we have a couple of decades' drivel to look forward to, while the country is being restored to its former glory and Imane Khelif remains a woman.

[The Weeping Angel]

I was responding to Crabcakes actually.

[The Weeping Angel]

Really good summing up of the whole mess.

[Crabcakes]

They're using their advantage to cheat the fact that they weren't allowed to compete at last year's world championships because they failed a gender test. It stinks

While I agree with the more recent post you added summing it up as a mess and that officials do just seem to hope things will go away, let’s be 100% clear here - she is not cheating in any way, shape or form. She was cleared to compete, and has not enhanced her performance to gain an advantage in any way. She (not they) is not trans, and was not born a man. In fact, she comes from a country where LGBT+ rights are woeful and being trans is illegal.

If you’re arguing it’s because she is ‘exploiting’ a natural advantage, then you also need to explain how literally every other competitor who is a bit taller, or more muscular, or even (in the case of a swimmer) has less hair somehow *isn’t* cheating but she is. Because otherwise what it boils down to is ‘she looks like a bloke’.

[Killer Whale]

Yes. There is nuance in the gender identity debate that is often wilfully ignored. In this case, however, there is none. She's a woman; was a girl. This is by any standards you might want to employ.
You may as well ban tall people from the basketball.

[Crabcakes]

Also, the IBA (the boxing org that banned Imane at the world championships in question, and also banned a Chinese female boxer who’d already won the bronze at the same event) are *extremely* questionable

…the IOC stripped the IBA of its Olympic status amid concerns about its integrity, finances, and governance. The IBA president at the time, Uzbekistan’s Gafur Rakhimov, had incurred U.S. sanctions for his alleged participation in the heroin trade and in a Eurasian crime syndicate. The IOC was also wary of the association’s dependence on funding from Gazprom, the Russian state energy firm. (The IBA has since dropped Gazprom as a sponsor.) Since the split, the IBA has taken on a new president, Umar Kremlev, who has accused Khelif and Lin of “trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women.”

If you’re after decisions based on ideology rather than evidence, there you go.

[Crabcakes]

Final word, I think, to the IOC

[Andy McDandy]

Boxing in iffy characters shock.

[Killer Whale]

I'm still shocked that this 'sport', where the object is to beat your opponent until they suffer brain damage such that they are rendered unconscious, continues to be part of the Olympics.

[Philip Marlow]

Imane Khelif is a CIS woman. Always was, always will be, and has lost previous bouts against other women.

In a way, this doesn’t even matter anymore. Khelif may not be trans but the rhetoric - a nefarious (‘smirking’, to quote that Rowling tweet) male has maliciously sought to cheat real women out of the rewards they’ve worked so hard for while a supine, captured regulatory body stands by and does nothing - is almost identical to what it would be if she was.

Emotions around this are obviously running a lot hotter since we’re talking about combat sports rather than, say, running (Caster Semenya being the highest profile athlete to have these questions aimed at her up to now); frankly I won’t even pretend to be an expert, but whatever statements the IOC come out with aren’t going to drive the narrative.

As a side note, I wonder if the people responsible for putting the Dutch squad together are secretly delighted that their selection of a child rapist to represent the Netherlands in beach volleyball is apparently no longer going to be the enduring scandal of Paris 2024.

[kreuzberger]

Final word, I think, to the IOC

If only. The comments are pure "Friendly Bombs" material, brood mares from the fly-over states being the loudest in their condemnation.

TERFs are also not going to earn any favours from their new besties with the far right gobshite caucasus.

The facts are simple; a woman in the "let's see who can get smacked hardest in the dish by another woman" competition got smacked hard in the dish and ran off in tears, despite being from a wealthy country with a highly developed sporting infrastructure which will have run the fancy computer numbers on every possibly opponent.

Sometimes, Italy can be so putrid.

[The Weeping Angel]

A fair summing up of the situation. FWIW the blame lies with the IOC for allowing this situation to develop.