"Why alienate 50 per cent of their audience?": Daley Thompson slams British Cycling for transgender athlete policy

trinityboy wrote:

None of that means that any human is not male or female - in my head at least, reality and biology be damned.

FTFY

Not with you?

What twaddle. You are what you are basically born with an nowt else. If you are one of the very infitesimaally few  who may have some variation to standard then there are several options. The main one being do something where it doesn't matter. Race a car or play snooker. Alternatively go with what you popped out with. Don't like it? Bloody well tough. Don't get compplicated trying to find loop holes to sort your own little minority. Chosen to do some sort of swap? Absolutely tough. Don't be an aberation then want things your own way as you no longer fit.  And of course the nice thing is that as , in this day and age, we are all entitled to our our opinions aree we not, you lot can't say a thing about this comment without being hypocritical. Either we all have freedom or we don't. 

That's not really how it works - you can say, for example, that someone is being unpleasant, aggressive, arrogant, and prejudiced, without denying their right to be it.

mattsccm wrote:

 And of course the nice thing is that as , in this day and age, we are all entitled to our our opinions aree we not, you lot can't say a thing about this comment without being hypocritical. Either we all have freedom or we don't. 

Everyone has the freedom to say what they like about your comment, I think you'll find. If you have the freedom to say it, others have the freedom to say it's an illiterate, needlessly aggressive, rather stupid and pointless melange of argument-free drivel. That's freedom for you.

I am free to say that this is a post that is completely lacking in empathy, compassion and understanding.  

I cannot imagine that you are pround of it on reflection.

It would be worth reviewing the issues that transgender/nonbinary individuals face and the mental health issues that they can have.

 https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/transgender-mental-health#suic...

mattsccm wrote:

What twaddle. You are what you are basically born with an nowt else. If you are one of the very infitesimaally few  who may have some variation to standard then there are several options. The main one being do something where it doesn't matter. Race a car or play snooker. Alternatively go with what you popped out with. Don't like it? Bloody well tough. Don't get compplicated trying to find loop holes to sort your own little minority. Chosen to do some sort of swap? Absolutely tough. Don't be an aberation then want things your own way as you no longer fit.  And of course the nice thing is that as , in this day and age, we are all entitled to our our opinions aree we not, you lot can't say a thing about this comment without being hypocritical. Either we all have freedom or we don't. 

Are you a member of some religion that doesn't agree with surgery, blood transfusions, etc? The modern world is simply filled with people who adjust what they are born with (wearing clothes is just one of the most obvious ones). Anyhow, lucky you were born with an internet-enabled device in your hands otherwise you'd never have been able to post your twaddle.

trinityboy wrote:

Thank you, but 'intersex' doesn't mean 'Not one of the two sexes'. It's a confusion of language, a bit like the way 'inflammable' doesn't mean 'non flammable'. There are a range of medical conditions covered by the rather unhelpful term 'intersex' that affect men (males) and women (females) quite distinctly. They can be mild, life threatening or difficult to manage, but they are sex specific.

Why, it's almost as if our language and categorisations are subjective, undefined, and don't necessarily have any foundation other than our own preconceptions....

We do have words that we use for the two sex classes, yes.

trinityboy wrote:

We do have words that we use for the two sex classes, yes.

Mmmmmm. And they are subjective, ill-defined, and their use is based on little more than our preconceptions, yes.

There's a little website, you may have heard of, called google. If you type into the search bar something along the the lines of studies of intersex mammals, you will find various studies you can critique with your in-depth and peer reviewed contradictory investigations, allowing the original scientists the right of response to your work.

Or you could keep trolling a cycling website 😉

Thanks - I think there's a misunderstanding in there, nobody is going to point to a peer reviewed article showing a third or further Sex because they don't exist.

trinityboy wrote:

Thanks - I think there's a misunderstanding in there, nobody is going to point to a peer reviewed article showing a third or further Sex because they don't exist.

I strongly suspect that you're not going to attempt to point to a relevant study on why people can be neatly into male and female binary categories because:
A) there is no credible study that exists to demonstrate this; and
B) you're enjoying an attempt to hit another three century in the comments, go on, admit it. 😉

Yes if you mean no study can show a human that is neither male nor female we'd agree.

Ooh science... yet I feel this is really a cry for some Marc Almond!

Quote:

Each night the men look so surprised
I change my sex before their eyes.
Tell me if you can what makes a man a man.

trinityboy wrote:

It's fun to think something simple is complicated, but there's a vast amount of misunderstanding and disinformation on this topic. For example, if somebody could point to a third sex category in any mamallian species that would be astounding.

Of course categories are man-made (including the category "mammals").

Nature really doesn't give a fack about how, or even whether, we understand things.

I appreciate this can be a fun philosophical exercise, but that doesn't change anything about our real lives as humans.

trinityboy wrote:

I appreciate this can be a fun philosophical exercise, but that doesn't change anything about our real lives as humans.

Our "real" lives as humans are also constructs, and pretty subjective. 

I think what you are trying to do is switch burden of evidence. You've made an assertion (2 sexes). now you have said that to disprove that someone else needs to provide a 3rd

I might accept that (the binary categorisation of humans) - only how did you define your categorisation? If anyone falls outside of it, your 2 sexes hypothesis is void unless taken as a mere generalisation

Nobody does fall outside it.

trinityboy wrote:

Nobody does fall outside it.

Depends on how you define it. Please define, and we'll see. If someone does your hypothesis fails.

I think you should look at this a bit like school - y'know, you start out with your "folk physics", then you learn some more detail (Galilean then Newtonian mechanics).  Then you find out that while this isn't a bad approximation at the scale of humans moving slowly on earth to understand more of the universe you need more refined and complicated models - relativity, simple then general.

At any point during that time you can still get hit on the head with a falling apple.  Better knowledge can stop you crying "witchcraft!" so often and setting fire to someone's relatives though.

Or maybe it's better described by in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Douglas Adams wrote:

The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?

Yes, but in a sexually reproducing mammalian species it's not 'more complicated'. We need two sex classes to reproduce, and that's what we've got

trinityboy wrote:

Yes, but in a sexually reproducing mammalian species it's not 'more complicated'. We need two sex classes to reproduce, and that's what we've got

Again, what are your definitions for each class?

How would you class any that fall outside of your definitions ("weird" probably isn't a kind way to describe human beings that don't fit your arbitrary classifications)

Do those that fall outside those classifications preclude the possibility others procreating?

Captain Badger wrote:

trinityboy wrote:

It's fun to think something simple is complicated, but there's a vast amount of misunderstanding and disinformation on this topic. For example, if somebody could point to a third sex category in any mamallian species that would be astounding.

Of course categories are man-made (including the category "mammals").

Nature really doesn't give a fack about how, or even whether, we understand things.

Well at least "mammals" is a clear-cut category - live birthing, hairy things that produce milk.

Except for the platypus - they lay eggs. And pigeons - they produce milk, but aren't mammals as opposed to most men that don't produce milk, but are still mammals. Also whales aren't very hairy.

...Marmosets are essentially aquatic animals.

And the noble bison.

(Misconceptions escalate until the thread implodes again).

chrisonatrike wrote:

...Marmosets are essentially aquatic animals.

And the noble bison.

(Misconceptions escalate until the thread implodes again).

Are you sure you're not thinking of the wash bison?

hawkinspeter wrote:

....

Well at least "mammals" is a clear-cut category - live birthing, hairy things that produce milk.

Except for the platypus - they lay eggs. And pigeons - they produce milk, but aren't mammals as opposed to most men that don't produce milk, but are still mammals. Also whales aren't very hairy.

Echidna too

trinityboy wrote:

Every person is either female or male, there are only those two options.

Please educate yourself!

I'm not following your point?

trinityboy wrote:

I'm not following your point?

Obviously not. 

So how do you classify an individual who is genetically XX/XY mosaic with one ovary and one testis?

Are they male or female in your binary classification?