March 25, 2023

"Decisions are always difficult when they involve conflicting needs and rights between different groups, but we continue to take the view that we must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations."

Said Sebastian Coe, president of the World Athletics Council, quoted in "Transgender track and field athletes can't compete in women's international events" (NPR).

Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations — those are strong words.

55 comments:

phantommut said...

Sanity? Finally!

Rusty said...

"Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations — those are strong words."
Common sense is now "strong words". What world we've made.

Enigma said...

In other news, a THE YOUNG TURKS host is coming under fire for asking to be described as a "woman" rather than a bodily function:

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/im-woman-left-wing-host-ana-kasparian-triggers-woke-mob-over-trans-exclusionary-language


The left-trans ideology is imploding in real time. France experienced the Reign of Terror with guillotines. We experienced a Reign of Twitter with heads metaphorically exploding.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

finally some sanity.

donald said...

Fantastic. About damned time.

minnesota farm guy said...

About GD time that someone in organized sports did this. If trans men are allowed to compete in women's sports, women's sports are dead. Where the hell are the feminists when you need them?

Misinforminimalism said...

It's hard to name a principle more important to athletics than fairness.

Yancey Ward said...

A courageous and correct stand to take. Let's see if it holds.

Old and slow said...

What a vile bigot. Doesn't he understand that trans women ARE women? How is this shit even questionable? I remember when this trans crap first started being bandied about, and it was not very long ago. I wondered how this could possibly be taken seriously. I guess I should have taken it more seriously. When the left gets a notion, things happen.

Mr. Majestyk said...

Hooray for common sense!

MartyH said...

Great news! My wife has competed against transgenders and it really pisses her off. One of her friends didn’t understand what the fuss was until she lined up against a transgender. Then she viscerally understood my wife’s ire when she saw the size and build of her competitor.

n.n said...

Dissonant diversity. Women... and children... babies... fetal-babies, first. NOW what.

n.n said...

trans/neo/pseudo/quasi/sim etc. females. trans/homo females do not physically benefit from their cisgender class.

Jim said...

My daughter played competitive high school volleyball. She was recruited by DI schools. I’ve watched her play hundreds of hours. There’s no way I’d let a boy with testicles who thinks he’s a girl play against her.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Coe was a great runner! He is right - fairness for the athletes needs to be the top priority. By

DavidUW said...

As a reminder. The fastest woman who ever existed on this planet would not have even QUALIFIED to race in the finals of the boys’ state meet in California in the 100/200. Would have gotten last place in the 400 and not a single world record holding woman would have won a race. In a boys’ state meet.

Hey Skipper said...

Stop playing by the gender dysphoria community rules, which boils down to question begging in the first degree.

Not “trans women”

Ersatz women. No need for scare quotes.

Zavier Onasses said...

The decision is a breath of fresh air, a harbinger of hope for return to sanity.

The rational is of course bullshit. There is no definable absolute "Fair." The very use of the word offends.

Breezy said...

It’s WOMENS sports FFS. Not difficult to comprehend unless you don’t understand basic biology. Push back with gusto. Mock and shame for ignorance. Laugh at them. Have empathy until it’s unfair to others.

JAORE said...

"...those are strong words."

Strong words are called for.

Let the law suits begin... sigh.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

It's not that intellectually defensible, but I love his "I dare you to come at us on this one" attitude.

Sebastian said...

"Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations — those are strong words.

It will take strong men and strong organizations to back them up.

But then, Europe and the US don't control all international sports organizations.

Lilly, a dog said...

Fairness= strong words? Yes indeed. Let's improve on the 1976 East German Women's swim team by adding some feminine penises. It's called progress.

madAsHell said...

I'm sorry!!

I fail to understand genital mutilation, and then winning sports medals. What compels one to do such??

Salvation through genital mutilation. I'm at a loss........

Richard said...

Nothing stops them from competing in the men's events.

Will Cate said...

"At the center of the issue is whether transgender women athletes have a physical advantage over other female competitors"

No, NPR, not "other" female competitors. Just... female competitors.

Josephbleau said...

"Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations — those are strong words."

Yes, you can say that perhaps safety among other things are more important than fairness. But if sports don't have fairness then what good are they.

Female sports are a handicap system that recognizes that females are less able to win at some things. But females need the character building challenge that fair competition brings, like men have. Otherwise, just let them play against men, and let them know that they will usually loose, based on the statistics.

Freeman Hunt said...

Thank goodness!

Michael said...

Fine for now. But this bit in the article is worth examining: “The World Athletics Council plans to form a working group to consider the issue of transgender inclusion over the next year. The committee will speak with transgender athletes to seek their perspective, review research on the matter and submit recommendations to the council.”
So expect equivocation or a reversal. Probably the latter. For fairness.

Michael K said...

Nice to see some guts, for once.

Terry said...

As DavidUW noted, world class female runners have times comparable to male high school runners. The same holds true in Texas.

But it is even worse than that.

These are essentially professional female runners who train professionally, have first-class facilities for workouts and probably even expert nutritionists and other ancillary coaches.

On the other hand you have male high school students whose time is taken up with large chunks of Algebra I, English Lit, Am History, etc. with vastly inferior support personnel

Jupiter said...

"Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations — those are strong words."

Well, yeah. I suspect that if pressed, he might allow as how "Fairness for female athletes" might not be more important than the survival of life on the planet. It would be interesting to ask him how it stacks up against, oh, say, ending the war in Ukraine, or eliminating poverty. But all he really means is that it's more important than the feelings of some perverted freaks and their "allies".

Political Junkie said...

I like it. I remember him from way back. Think he was a top long distance runner.

Temujin said...

As a society, as a global civilization, we've destroyed the concept of rights and included all wants and needs to the box. Wants and needs, demands and entreatments are not rights.

Rights are those natural rights, given to us as living humans, not by a government, not by declaration of an athletic governing board, but by God or just by your very presence as a human: the right to live your life for your own sake, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others to live for their own sake. Changing your gender and wanting to compete against the gender that you know to be weaker than you physically, is not a right. It's not even a sound want. That it's even considered should be recognized for what it is: Intellectual weakness.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

It only takes a few key people with some power, to take a stand, for sanity to return.

Some boxing federation said they would not allow men to box women.

That's it.

Gahrie said...

I like it. I remember him from way back. Think he was a top long distance runner.

He was more of a middle distance runner. The longest race he ran on a regular basis was the 1,500 meters. Long distance would be 3K and up.

gpm said...

>>"Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations — those are strong words."

C'mon, Althouse! Don't we need to consider those "strong words" in the "context" in which they were expressed, i.e., fake "female athletes" competing against, you know, *real* female athletes?

--gpm

mxgreen said...

"Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations."

Not really that strong of words. The ruling guarantees that a female will win the competition among females. The ruling also guarantees that males who present themseelves as female may compete - albeit against other males - but they probably won't because they are not good enough.

wendybar said...

We should follow the science. What does their DNA say they are??

Tina Trent said...

Yeah. Kinda like some judge being asked to speak about the latest set of decisions working through the courts and ending up getting screamed at that his daughters should be raped.

If there is a difference, define the difference.

gspencer said...

A breath of sanity.

boatbuilder said...

Yay.

Imagine if Bruce Jenner was 25 years old in 2023 instead of 1975. And decided to identify as a woman athlete.

Paul said...

They simply need Transgender sports. Just for the trans... but then no one would watch, right?

And Trans people would be stomped on in a male sports... hence... female is truly, in this case, the weaker sex and Trans people know it.

Oh.. and there is NO real 'Transgender'... it's male and female. Male trans are just cross dressers.. no more, no less.

Steven Wilson said...

I have been hoping for some time that a politicized coach could persuade half a dozen young men who were good basketball players to show up and identify as "women" at a small college, and then watch them absolutely overwhelm the opposition just to make the point that what's being done with men competing against women is a gross injustice to the women and proof of psychological damage in the male athletes identifying as female.

Even better would be thousands of men who aren't quite capable of getting college scholarships showing and identifying as women and scooping up thousands of scholarships nationwide. Do you think that might put this issue in perspective?

And damage is the word. If a man feels that competing against women in events where speed and strength are crucial and that winning those events is an accomplishment of which to be proud, then that man is damaged if only being so hypercompetitive that winning at all cost takes precedence over everything else. Of course, if you are doing this without undergoing hormone treatment or mutilation then the man is merely cynical and opportunistic. While I grant there do exist men who identify as women that disorder should under no circumstances act a waiver to compete against women. And I think, until it is proven otherwise, that the number of men who believe themselves to be women but yet feel a compulsion to compete athletically is vanishingly small.

Just think, if Bruce Jenner had come along thirty years later he could have transitioned and become the first person to win the decathlon as a man and as a woman. Wouldn't that have been something to be proud of?

Steven Wilson said...

I have been hoping for some time that a politicized coach could persuade half a dozen young men who were good basketball players to show up and identify as "women" at a small college, and then watch them absolutely overwhelm the opposition just to make the point that what's being done with men competing against women is a gross injustice to the women and proof of psychological damage in the male athletes identifying as female.

Even better would be thousands of men who aren't quite capable of getting college scholarships showing and identifying as women and scooping up thousands of scholarships nationwide. Do you think that might put this issue in perspective?

And damage is the word. If a man feels that competing against women in events where speed and strength are crucial and that winning those events is an accomplishment of which to be proud, then that man is damaged if only being so hypercompetitive that winning at all cost takes precedence over everything else. Of course, if you are doing this without undergoing hormone treatment or mutilation then the man is merely cynical and opportunistic. While I grant there do exist men who identify as women that disorder should under no circumstances act a waiver to compete against women. And I think, until it is proven otherwise, that the number of men who believe themselves to be women but yet feel a compulsion to compete athletically is vanishingly small.

Just think, if Bruce Jenner had come along thirty years later he could have transitioned and become the first person to win the decathlon as a man and as a woman. Wouldn't that have been something to be proud of?

Amadeus 48 said...

It has been amazing to watch much of the world cower before a a faction of mentally ill people. A boy who thinks he is a girl or a girl who thinks she is a boy is suffering from a delusion. The question is how to treat the delusion. The medical profession in the US has a lot to account for on this one. Certain sporting authorities likewise.

Does any of this give a normal person confidence in the advice he or she is getting from his or her physician? As for sports, Megyn Kelly has suggested that a male college tennis player declare himself a trans woman, turn pro, and win women's championships and prize money at Wimbledon, the Australian Open, the US Open, and the French Open. That would end this pronto.

Dude1394 said...

Finally someone in authority said it. Maybe the lynch/jihad mob stalking JKRowling can subside.

Dude1394 said...

"Where the hell are the feminists when you need them?"

The only reasonable answer is that they are cowards.

Dude1394 said...

So Daddy has taken care of it again, maybe that is what all of the feminists were waiting for.

TosaGuy said...

The women’s 400 meter record has stood since 1987. It is held by an East German who used steroids and other PEDs.

It’s telling that this record has not fallen in the post-drug track-and-field environment.

Tim said...

The entire trans-gender thing is bullshit. We used to treat mental illness but not now. If William Thomas claimed to be Queen of England he would be laughed out of the room. The lunacy of Admiral Levine or the luggage thief nuclear expert must have the CCP shaking.

Greg the Class Traitor said...

Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations — those are strong words.

It's " women's sports".

If you don't put fairness for the women above all other people, then it's no longer women's sports, it's co-ed sports

At which point, if you don't want it to become "men's sports with some chicks hanging around", you have to institute a whole number of rules whose purpose is to make sure that the women are actually involved with the play.

Oh, and it has too be a team sport, not an individual one.

But hey, if you want to completely destroy all women's sports, I'm perfectly fine with that. Having watched the left wing scum of the US National soccer team, I'm perfectly ok with all of them losing their places and getting replaced by men who decide to claim to be female

Big Mike said...

Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations

Strong? I think any self-described feminist who doesn’t completely agree is no feminist at all.

Big Mike said...

BTW, Sebastian Coe is no ordinary, run of the mill sports bureaucrat. He has back to back Olympic gold medals in the 1500 meters (1990, 1984) and a pair of silvers. When he speaks, it behooves people to listen.

Big Mike said...

BTW, Sebastian Coe is no ordinary, run of the mill sports bureaucrat. He has back to back Olympic gold medals in the 1500 meters (1990, 1984) and a pair of silvers. When he speaks, it behooves people to listen.