Paula Radcliffe Angered by New Boston Marathon Transgender Policy

Please explain how being of the opinion that in sports, women category if there must be one should be defined on biological criteria (just like age group should be defined on biological age) is being transphobe. Any trans, gay, lesbian, wheelchair guy, master80, teenager or even - dare i say it - woman is welcome to race me and smoke me (that won't be too hard, even for a sub sub sub elite 70 years old woman) and i would embrace them all as superior athletes to me. But the winner of my age group better not be an age cheat, and i would prefer the winner of women category to be a biological woman. Is THAT considered being a transphobe is the US of A? Is that what you call liberty of opinion over here?

Ps: I'm not that big on age groups and sex categories. I still can live with being a back-of-the-pack guy any way.

Transgenders are people too. As a basic human right we should be entitled to identify however we choose. Society holds too many stigmas towards groups, and likes to divide people into categories. We are all equal. Transgenders deserve the same respect and appreciation as any other group of people. Why can't everyone have more ethics and morals. The world would be a better place.

Age is biology. You can't legally redefine your age.

But sex and gender are arbitrary, typically determined at birth by what will soon be seen as archaic methods.

This shouldn't be the ultimate determinative basis of a legal concept. The tides are turning to accept this.

Raising kids, genderless and vegan wrote:

Age is biology. You can't legally redefine your age.

But sex and gender are arbitrary, typically determined at birth by what will soon be seen as archaic methods.

This shouldn't be the ultimate determinative basis of a legal concept. The tides are turning to accept this.

Sex is biology as much as age is. It is defined at birth because you are born with it as a biological condition by virtue of your chromosomes and sex organs. These are not abolished by culture, ideology or fashion - or "identification". Just as you can't wish yourself to be the biological age you are not, you cannot wish away the biology you were born with.

Next some people will argue in favor of a womens category for office workers. Why do we let women make up their own categories to give more pay to themselves. One category for all is enough and fair

You can identify as you choose. But that doesn't enable you to become biologically what you are not. As a male Caucasian I can't become a person of colour - of either gender, no matter how much I might identify with that person. If I can change my gender through identification, then what is to prevent me from changing my race or my age? They are just as arbitrary - albeit they are also biologically determined.

Banana Bread wrote:

Transgenders are people too. As a basic human right we should be entitled to identify however we choose. Society holds too many stigmas towards groups, and likes to divide people into categories. We are all equal. Transgenders deserve the same respect and appreciation as any other group of people. Why can't everyone have more ethics and morals. The world would be a better place.

You can identify as you choose. But that doesn't enable you to become biologically what you are not. As a male Caucasian I can't become a person of colour - of either gender, no matter how much I might identify with that person. If I can change my gender through identification, then what is to prevent me from changing my race or my age? They are just as arbitrary - albeit they are also biologically determined.

There's nothing essentially imperative about chromosomes or sex organs. This can be modified by advances in medical technology. Indeed, even the aged-ness of your body can be revamped via telomeres. But your actual birth date can never be moved. People lie about it, but it's still a fact that you are born with.

Probably in a generation we will have the ability to extract consciousness from one entity and implant in another. Then all these debates will be academic. There will be no division between male/and female anymore, because the concept will be much enlarged above such a split.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Banana Bread wrote:

Transgenders are people too. As a basic human right we should be entitled to identify however we choose. Society holds too many stigmas towards groups, and likes to divide people into categories. We are all equal. Transgenders deserve the same respect and appreciation as any other group of people. Why can't everyone have more ethics and morals. The world would be a better place.

You can identify as you choose. But that doesn't enable you to become biologically what you are not. As a male Caucasian I can't become a person of colour - of either gender, no matter how much I might identify with that person. If I can change my gender through identification, then what is to prevent me from changing my race or my age? They are just as arbitrary - albeit they are also biologically determined.

Michael Jackson can(although he did the reverse)

You WILL be Absorbed wrote:

https://twitter.com/MavenOfMayhem/status/1115048700290654208

Quite right. We can't agree to disagree. Because you are wrong. You are not biological women. So there, we disagree. You can claim to be anything or anyone you want, but I won't be required to agree with you about that if the facts tell me otherwise.

The future is coming wrote:

There's nothing essentially imperative about chromosomes or sex organs. This can be modified by advances in medical technology. Indeed, even the aged-ness of your body can be revamped via telomeres. But your actual birth date can never be moved. People lie about it, but it's still a fact that you are born with.

Probably in a generation we will have the ability to extract consciousness from one entity and implant in another. Then all these debates will be academic. There will be no division between male/and female anymore, because the concept will be much enlarged above such a split.

So explain how you "modify" your chromosomes so as to become another person?

We don't deny what "is" on the basis of what "might be" in the future. You might one day be able to turn yourself into another species. But so far you haven't. So you remain as human as you always have - and biologically the sex you always were.

Raising kids, genderless and vegan wrote:

Age is biology. You can't legally redefine your age.

But sex and gender are arbitrary, typically determined at birth by what will soon be seen as archaic methods.

This shouldn't be the ultimate determinative basis of a legal concept. The tides are turning to accept this.

Oh boy you're ignorant.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

No...they don't. What are you talking about? Your "times" can't suggest you were using any specific performance aid or any performance aid at all. There's a higher threshold to meet than simply saying "X definitely used Y performance enhancing drug because look at how fast they ran!"

No but her off scores suggest that she was blood doping/using EPO so I would keep quiet if I were her. There should not be any age or sex divisions in distance running anyway especially when it comes to awarding prize money. So Radcliffe was also ridiculously overpaid by race organizers compared with the thousands of other runners who ran faster than her. So another reason for her to keep quiet. She also avoids paying taxes on her unjustified earnings by living in Monaco which is another reason ... you get the picture.

tryreading wrote:

I see that you didn't read the article at all. This is NOT ABOUT Worlds, and NOT ABOUT Olympics, and NOT EVEN ABOUT Boston podium. This is only about hobby jogger slots.

In that context, I am surprised that no one here laughed about Paula's joke:

Paula wrote:

The serious significance here is worse because Boston is notoriously difficult to qualify for.

Well, that's getting old, but still.

casual obsever wrote:

I am surprised that no one here laughed about Paula's joke:

Paula wrote:

Boston is notoriously difficult to qualify for.

In any track event, world record x 1.5 wouldn't win you a stale, half-eaten donut dug out of a trash can.

Banana Bread wrote:

Transgenders are people too. As a basic human right we should be entitled to identify however we choose. Society holds too many stigmas towards groups, and likes to divide people into categories. We are all equal. Transgenders deserve the same respect and appreciation as any other group of people. Why can't everyone have more ethics and morals. The world would be a better place.

In general, I fully agree.

But I do see a point for categories in sport. Just because aside from a few exceptions (some women in some sports, of some particularly experienced older people or talented younger people in some sports - see Kelly Slater in Surfing, although he's on the decline for both considerations at different steps of his career), there his just too much difference between sexes or age groups performances on average, and I think it is kinda cool people can compete and be ranked inside their category in addition to the big open picture.

As far as women are concerned in sport, I don't see any reason for a gender category. I do see a reason for a sex category though. Sex has an accepted scientific definition, that might be tweeked a bit for ease of control purposes, and that definition is not the definition of gender.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

This entire thing is disturbing. A sub-elite male could easily self-identify as a female, never do any other marathons besides Boston, and win the women's race since there are no hormone requirements to meet. This sets a very dangerous precedent.

A 2:19 male runner can self-identify with no steps taken to reduce their testosterone levels and have their name forever etched in history as the Boston Marathon women's record holder..if not the world record holder for women.

This

Sex is science, gender is culture. Sports is a crossroads between the two and that is where a lot of the grey area come from, but we as a society need to ground ourselves in something, and I choose science.

A simple fix for a complex issue., most likely just kicking the can down the road, but what would happen if every race changed their registration verbiage. Instead of a gender box that gets checked on the form it was a biological, sex box (funny name). Then state very specifically that no proof will be required unless a participant formally brings a complaint to the RD. Following a formal complaint, appropriate science based procedures will be followed to determine if someone miss identified their biological sex when registering. The expense for the test will be the responsibility for the accusing party if someone is wrongfully accused, but if someone is rightly accuses/caught, the expense will be billed to them. This will need to be communicated upfront, not just in the terms of competition but give it its on info section.

I know everyone is ready to jump up and down and say that this would invade peoples privacy, it is bigoted and I am trans-phobic, but no one is forcing anyone to participate in these events. To participate you have to meet some level of commitment. A simple example could be the time and location. If you don't like the time the race is held, the course it is held on, or the rules in which it determines its race categories, fine don't compete.

People who have gender dysphoria are miserable in their biological gender and many of them are suicidal. A male that becomes a female believes doing so will significantly improve the quality of her life. Bruce Jenner did not become Caitlyn Jenner because she wanted to bring attention to herself.

The physical ramifications of surgery or even just the hormone treatment, would be far too much of a sacrifice for a male runner talented enough to pretend to be a transgender woman to win a major. What a transgender female wants is to be accepted as being female. Some of them want to participate in marathons and being forced to run in the men's division is not being accepted. Their goal is not to make it easier to get QT.

A lot of the posters seem to think we're one step away from a 2:20 guy putting on a wig and running bra and winning the Boston Marathon, but that will never happen. There will never be such a moranic group of people with enough power to make that happen. It's also unlikely there will ever be a male talented enough to win the BM after hormone treatment and/or surgery.

The only downside to letting transgender females compete is that some cisgender females will be bumped from qualifying for the BM. The BM doesn't know how many are competing but it's likely to be less than 1%.

There is no one trying to game the system. The issue is whether transgender women should be allowed in the female division or prevented because it's unfair to the cisgender women on the cusp of qualifying. It's not an indication that crazy liberals want to destroy our sport.