EP 139 - Sex, Politics, and Double-Standards:Trans Athletes in Women's Sports w/ Coach Linda Blade
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- Chapters
00:00 Introduction
04:15 Linda Blade's early days in Bolivia
10:50 Linda's first-hand experience with the doping scandal in the 1980s
19:07 The need for sex verification in sports
22:35 How should sporting bodies deal with DSDs?
29:35 Why are some athletes getting to have their cake and eat it too?
38:37 This feels like an abusive relationship
43:35 Linda’s experience teaching in Muslim countries in the 90s
50:37 Coach Blade's position on puberty blockers
56:19 How many males are competing in women’s and girls’ sports?
59:40 How should the Caster Semenya case have unfolded?
01:08:40 Coach Blade’s upcoming talk in Denver
Coach Linda Blade joins Sasha & Stella for an incredible conversation about the critical issues surrounding fairness and inclusivity in women's sports. They explore the challenges and biases faced by female athletes in the wake of transgender athletes competing in women's categories, particularly the profound psychological impact. The conversation also sheds light on the rich historical context of fairness in competition.
Dr. Linda Blade is a former Canadian Champion (1986) and a full scholarship NCAA All American (1984) in Track & Field. As a Chartered Professional Coach, Linda has worked internationally for over 30 years with hundreds of athletes. Her expertise has extended to leadership roles (selected): Provincial President (2014 -2023) of Athletics Alberta, where she developed sex-based eligibility guidelines; Co-author of UNSPORTING: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport (2021); Collaborator in the establishment of the International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS). Linda has been publicly advocating for the fairness and safety of female athletes since 2018. Dr. Blade will be presenting at Genspect’s The Bigger Picture Conference in Denver, CO.
Don’t miss this valuable discussion emphasizing the importance of sex-based policies for fostering a fair competition environment. Dr. Blade even offers insights into the use of puberty blockers in youth sports, highlighting the potential risks and implications for young athletes, and also the challenges with data collection and analysis.
The conversation also touches on the question of intersex conditions and how they have influenced elite women's sports, underscoring the need for thoughtful policies and guidelines to address DSD (differences in sexual development), ensuring fairness and inclusivity while respecting the unique circumstances of athletes like Caster Semenya, a South African intersex olympic athlete. This is an engaging episode offering a vital perspective on the complexities of balancing inclusivity with fairness.
Attend Genspect’s: The Bigger Picture
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Find Coach Blade on Twitter: @coachblade
More About Coach Blade:
worldathletics.org/personal-b...
Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport
www.unsporting.com/
Women's Rights, Gender Wrongs: the global impact of gender-identity ideology
www.amazon.co.uk/Womens-Right...
Contribute to the International Consortium of Female Sport
www.icfsport.org/
The Independent Council on Women's Sports (ICONS)
www.iconswomen.com/
Champion Women
championwomen.org/
Fair Play for Women
fairplayforwomen.com/
Contra el Borrado de Las Mujeres
contraelborradodelasmujeres.org/
Linda Blade on the History of Women's Sports Policy
• Linda Blade on the His...
Genspect Speakers On Gender A Wider Lens | GWL Episode Playlist
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Order Our Book - When Kids Say They’re Trans: A Guide for Thoughtful Parents
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If you liked this episode, more episodes you might find interesting:
Episode 41 - Trans: A Conversation with Helen Joyce
• EPISODE 41 - Trans: A ...
Episode 71 - Gender: The American State of Affairs w Jesse Singal
• EPISODE 71 - Gender: T...
Episode 88 - Gender: Philosophy, Institutions, and Policy w/ Leor Sapir
• EPISODE 88 - Gender: P...
Episode 93 - A Takedown of Gender Politics with Wesley Yang
• EPISODE 93 - A Takedow...
Episode 118 - Prioritizing Expensive & Invasive Interventions: American Healthcare w/ Zhenya
• EP 118: Prioritizing E...
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I love Coach Blade's combination of practical experience, factual knowledge - and her international perspective.
Coach Blade, it's hard to understand how the powers that be can ignore your common sense explanation of how fair play in sports should work. Thanks for all you do and for such a great conversation!
Sasha spoke from my heart when she pointed out that trans-identifying men not only want the cake, they want to eat it too. For example, if an athlete decides to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, no one would think to tell the other athletes to run slower because the smoker gets out of breath more quickly.
Exactly! Why are women suffering the consequences of a man's poor health choices, of a man's decision to prioritize his aesthetic over his athletic performance? Absolutely ridiculous.
They aren't "disadvantaged" compared to other men. They're just unhealthy.
Exactly. Also women have to consider way more stuff like dealing with periods or if they want to start a family which will probably end their sporting career. I really don't get it: When you're such gender disphoric that you think the only way to deal with it is intensive body modification you would guess that this would affect many (all?) areas of life, like for example your capability of competing in sports. It is their decision to make what is more important to them not the problem for other people, women, to solve.
Coach Blade is just amazing, truly a female sports icon by the work she have done/doing! So glad she is speaking up and keep fighting, no one can top her experience and commitment 💓✨
Sasha and I both gasped at the same time when coach blade quoted that guy who said "girls wouldn't do that." Every female athlete in Canada should sue just to show how insulting that comment is
ETA also this guy's comment belies the fact that we all know these men are not actually women, because if they were then he wouldn't be worried about them suing him! But he's worried about them suing precisely BECAUSE they are men!
Great point, I’ve often said that if trans women were really women then they’d stay out of our spaces because they’d get why it isn’t ok; the fact that many will insist or expect to enter a woman’s space just proves to me that they aren’t women
Me too!!!
Read Coach Blade's book. She is a true champion for women's sports.
I haven't heard this mentioned but I think there is a hint within all this that some sports officials and coaches are excited about the prospect of men in women's sport because of the potential for their own sure fire winner or record breaker. They want to take advantage of the advantage.
Of course if they legalise cheating people will take advantage of it.
These people have no shame.
Fantastic episode as usual. I love it when studies are discussed because as a retired nurse I appreciate facts and figures. I hope for the sake of the children and young people and women’s rights things are moving to reality again. Thank you Ladies. 🇬🇧
I really appreciate coach blade's description of the sex differences in athletic performance in prepubertal male vs female children.
Many of the sporting policy proposals coming out seem to hand wave that reality away with their 'It's ok as long as the males were blocked before Tanner Stage II' rhetoric.
The gap in performance is certainly widest post puberty but that isn't to say it doesn't exist prior.
We know that even male infants and toddlers tend to be larger on average than their female counterparts. It why physicans use two different growth charts to track their progress.
Yup. Differences begin in utero, not only that, but it makes child medical sterilization, a requiremental by default , which is highly unethical and against human rights law.
I cannot believe so much money is in the hands of people who can't think their way out of a paper bag.
Great episode as per usual. To me, arguably the most pernicious aspect of this movement is sex denialism. Everything else collapses from there.
❤❤❤Coach Blade❤❤❤
Top notch, ‘smashing’ interview! Thank you coach Blade, for sharing your knowledge and expertise in speaking out on issues regarding sport (& unsporting). Save women’s sports! Have a great conference in Denver!❤
Love you lots, Carolyn!!❤
Another fantastic conversation with a fabulously well informed guest. Thank you ladies for keeping up the fight against this misogynistic madness! Xx
Trans is a choice. We all make choices in life .These choices have consequences. That shd also apply to trans people.
'Privately furious'....yep, silent protest because of misogynistic backlash....and some of that backlash comes from women supporting 'trans' rights over the rest of us. Message of bio males matter over bio females. The destruction of everything previous generations of women fought for is their end goal. Belies all decency.
Thankyou for a fabulous interview.
Madness. This is why I have completely lost my support for any commercial sports.
What an incredibly knowledgeable and important voice in coach Blade. Thank you for introducing her to your audience.
amazing episode! Coach Blade is fantastic!
Great Video, Thank goodness for women like Linda Blade willing to stand up to the present insanity happening in women's sports
Thank you Coach Blade. ❤
Coach Blade rocks. Awesome woman ❤
Thank you for the detailed explanations! I have posted this on my Facebook page and will wait for the social cancellations to roll in. But I posted it so HOPEFULLY a few people will open up there tiny little minds and look at the reality! And I’m not even into sports! I refused to play volleyball as a teen because I thought I would get hurt. I went into dance , thank goodness. I don’t have a daughter who plays a sport. But as a woman this is vitally important to me and I want people to hear what Coach Blade has to say.
Have you all seen the research on differences in men and women's spatial awareness and their ability to process the movement of objects in space?
I think it's interesting because clearly that would be a helpful advantage to have in many sports. It also doesn't seem like that this is a performance difference that could be mitigated by simply blocking or lowering a male's testosterone.
Another example of how our sex differences don't solely lie in our reproductive anatomy.
This is my third time watching this. Absolutely brillant! I have shared Coach Linda's wisdom all over YT.
As a person who is interested in maths and remembers 10 year old girls being a little taller than boys on average and then how quickly that turns around. the idea that you'd start a graph at 9-10 years old seems like it can only be an attempt to lie with statistics. I know that year 5 and 6 were short and I have only anecdotes but I would have been surprised were it not born out in the data.
We are the "Comments Section". And we Rock ! 🐿
I was astonished to learn from the interview that an extremely high percentage of the women who are CEOs have participated in athletics, presumably at a more advanced level than most people. The implication was that sports teaches athletes the skills and attitudes the need to succeed later in life. After all, this is the ideal that persists despite abundant evidence that athletics and the people involved in them are as flawed as the rest of us.
In any case, in an ideal world our educational system would see to it that students who choose not to participate in sports or who are not athletically gifted would have access to classes and programs that give students the opportunity to acquire the inner and interpersonal skills and qualities that give athletes those advantages later in life.
Great guest 🙏💛
Fabulous conversation as usual, I look forward to these interviews and discussions each week, they’re fascinating. It’s not only a regular update and discussion about trans issues but is also so broad in the angles from which you approach it and so often spills over to other areas of life. You’re doing such a fabulous job in covering this issue and although the trans debate isn’t as present in our house as it used to be, I love listening to how it is progressing….and it certainly is progressing….in the right direction! Coach blade is amazingly sensible and really brings home the unfairness of it all, such a great guest. I hope your conference goes well, I can’t wait to see footage xH
Unrelated to gender: Stella O'Malley has THE most beautiful voice in the world.
I could have Stella playing in my ear 24 hours a day!
I agree!😁 That beautiful Irish accent is so soothing to hear🥰
@@queenjasminetemaiharoa7009 the accent is lovely, but I'm more in awe of the timber of her voice, there's no other like it!
The difference between Canada and Iran is that Iran is open about transing the gay away.
Subscribe and Like buttons both SMASHED! Keep up the great work as always.
Just bought the book!
For the intersex "women", the Y chromosome still needs to be the dividing line. Semenya has a Y chromosome.
April Hutchinson just hot suspended for two years for speaking out. It so outrageous, women have zero say in sports. I think women athletes need to form their own sports associations and leagues, and set their own rules. The whole trans ladies in women's sports is bonkers
Wouldn't most of us love to have such a wonderful coach for when we were younger, or as the coach to our daughters/ nieces. Completely sane, sensible and a wonderful role model for girls and women. Its shameful how we females are being treated but for hearing her speak, I'll be fighting harder for our sex based rights.
An interesting story about men in women's sports is the one about Foekje Dillema. She was a woman born in 1926 with an intersex condition . She didn't really know it herself,or the family ignored it,being a frisian farm family. Anyway,she got good at running,and around 1950 became a threat to then popular athlete fanny blankers koen. Back then there also were men in women's sports taking the records. Anyway,fanny complained just before the euro championships and every dutch female athlete had to undergo an inspection before they were allowed on the train towards the championships. Foekje failed that inspection,was sent home and never ran again.
After her death in 2007 the family agreed to have dna testing on skin cells from Foekje's clothing. A y-chromosome was found but it was not present nearly as much as with cis males. So she had an intersex condition that caused her to have small infertile internal testicles that still produced testosterone. In the end it was determined that she was a woman and her 200m dutch record was restored.
Interesting story but Im confused as to why the sporting authority decided Foekje was female and to restore their awards.
If they found the presence of Y-chromosomes and functioning internal testes, thats an indication of a DSD male, not a biological female.
It would make sense to rescind Foekje's records then because they had an unfair advantage over their female competitors.
I believe they decided she was a female because the x:y ratio was 4:1 so she was never a full male but did have more testosterone than xx females
@@maanvis81if you have a y chromosome with a functioning SRY, functioning testes, and lack ovaries, you are fully male. There is no 10% male, 90% percent female. This is ridiculous.
Ok girls, time to sue, and prove the guy wrong. Hope there's a bunch of class action suits
comment for the algorithm
Keep up the great work Stella + Sasha. Im going to fan girl Coach Blade- what a woman.
Thank you so much! We love Coach Blade too!
I'm trying to think what people 50 or 60 years would've thought of this. They'd have thought us all insane!
If someone or a team cheats and "wins" they actually have not done so. The only game that is not true is the card game called "cheat".
❤🎉❤
Many women are powerful, inspiring athletes. Rebecca Twigg remains my favorite cyclist of all time, and her story of surviving job instability resulting in late-life homelessness only makes her more inspiring to me. But would we have ever heard of her if she had to ride against transwomen in the '80s?
I'm a man in my mid-50s who's been encouraging for more women to get into the sport the entire time. I've been recreationally road and trail cycling at the group ride and occasional century level on and off for more than three decades. I've never cycled with a woman who could hold my average speed for long even when drafting the entire time. I learned long ago to never mention this, because it instantly gets me accusations of sexism and lectures about women being as strong and fast as men from people who haven't been on bikes since middle-school. Some of those are women, some are men.
I wonder if we (thinking United States specifically) have for so long been unwilling to say men have more measurable advantages in sports than women, who do have some, that much of the public was primed to think there isn't a problem with transwomen competing in women's categories when things such as scholarships, team memberships, prize money, records, fame and brand deals are on the line.
We've always known that girls start our puberty earlier than males. But because we're no longer allowed to talk about puberty in material terms, these facts have been lost.
38:36 “Girls wouldn’t do that.” Girls are nice, and they won’t sue. Boys will, so we must be inclusive of them.
Coach Blade is brilliant and a SHERO ❤
A heroine.
28:25 Does anyone know the name of this male cyclist?
kristen worley
@@lindablade2011 Thank you. If I look that name up it says "author" and it's rather illuminating that the listed books talk about a boy becoming a woman and when talking about testosterone and the Olympic committee "They, and other sports bodies, regard them as performance enhancing, when in fact all transitioned female athletes need the hormone to stay healthy and to compete."
It's a rather interesting claim that you're both female and transitioned and that you need testosterone to stay healthy and compete.
Does coach Blade speak any Quechua?
This is infuriating!
Yes. Natural variantion - okey. Male gene - autoban. If uncertain of sex for whatever mysterious reason - autoban.
I think the principle of eligibility for women's sport being defined by the absence of an active SRY gene is mostly right, but women who have a Y chromosome but are completely androgen insensitive should be exempted.
Those are the same thing
@@tonyhoffman3309 ?
Is the WNBA all men yet? And if not, why not?
Something went wrong in the last century for us to be blurring the lines between males and females so much. How many times during the 80s and 90s did we hear feminists say that "women can do anything men can do". That phrase was ingrained into society. It made the sexes appear completely interchangeable. A conversation like the one in this episode would have been seen as extremely sexist by late 20th century feminists. And now, girls and women in sports are having to dig themselves out of the hole that those feminists dug for them.
Sport is a trivial distraction. Women will be better off abandoning sport so leave it to the men.
There are so few trans players it’s unbelievable. They are in no way represented in a ratio similar to the binary. There is in no way enough people for a third category. Trans player differences are so marginal it’s unremarkable and one only has to imagine in so many ways that they have far more disadvantages than their binary peers. Beyond that the genetic pool of Trans compared to the overwhelming numbers of Cis folks vastly disempowers the potential of the Trans athlete. Again, talking about a marginalized group without a group member because it’s nearly impossible to find one that also wouldn’t suffer immensely for being outed. Kind of abhorrently gross.
Have you actually listened to this podcast? Genuine question, because they address everything you’ve said here, so your comment doesn’t make much sense.
Changing pronouns and clothes are one thing "transgender" but once hormones or surgeries are involved, they're trans-medicalized and if that involves testosterone supplementation above naturally occurring levels, they're doping for everyday life.
Fear of being outed is transphobic in itself. When someone can no longer acknowledge their biological sex, there's definitely some issues there but it's not like we've mistaken any of these trans athletes for what they're claiming to be, so what is there to out?
"There are so few dopers in sport, its unbelievable. They are in no way represented in similar ratio to non-doping athletes. Really, there are far more DISADVANTAGES (which are FAR too numerous and totally real, for me to bother actually specifying a single one...) to having decades of elevated testosterone, than there are advantages!! And the overwhelming numbers of non-doping folx vastly disempowers (again, in some mysterious, never-specified way) the poor, oppressed dopers!! And think how vastly the poor dopers would suffer socially, if outed!!!"
We're reaching levels of gaslighting that shouldn't be possible.
"Won't some PLEASE think of the poor, oppressed, hulking, 6ft8, 240lb man in a sports-bra, and how all the horrible, mean, 90lb girls are oppressing him!!?" isn't an argument I ever expected to to hear, outside an absurdist comedy skit.
Thank you Howard, for reminding us all to NEVER under-estimate a man's inability to give a crap about women...
@@almathwasmywowusername9529The chances of this bloke having ever listened to any woman in sport before are basically zero.
The very idea that you let a group into women's sports because they're a proportionally small group is so ludicrously stupid. Guatemalans are underrepresented in sport so let their men compete in women's sport lol
Chances of him responding are basically zero too
@@robertmarshall2502 Good point, just figured I’d point out the nonsense while giving him a fair shake to respond. Got to keep the bridge unburned and all that.