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Transgender swimmer breaks record as women ‘race for second’
The controversial college athlete achieved unspectacular results
when she previously competed in male competition
University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas set a new pool record to win the women’s 500-yard freestyle event at the Ivy League Championships – beating her nearest rival by more than seven seconds.
In a result that is certain to ignite the fierce debate in the US over whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete against participants born as women, Thomas built a huge lead during the second half of the race as she broke Olympian Kate Ziegler's record.
Thomas has been at the center of controversy since she initially beat college records and earned a series of comfortable wins to qualify for the national championships.
Numerous bills in US states have sought to legally stop transgender athletes from competing against rivals born as women, achieving varying degrees of success amid passionate arguments and protests on both sides of the row.
Supporters of the bills believe that athletes born as men – particularly those who pass through puberty before transitioning, as Thomas has – have an unfair advantage and risk denying female-born prospects the chance to realize their full potential.
Their opponents say that outlawing trans athletes from taking part is discriminatory.
22-year-old Thomas is said to have been the top seed in the 200-yard, 500-yard and 1,650-yard freestyle events.
Another transgender wins
Yale University’s Iszac Henig, who is competing as a woman while transitioning from female to male, beat his own record to win the 50-yard freestyle on Thursday.
Henig beat Thomas in a race in January, although that heralded accusations that Thomas had not put in maximum effort on her way to an unusually slow sixth-place finish.
Former college swimmer Emily Kreps, of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, said that Thomas had posted the 17th fastest in history for women's swimming.
"My heart breaks for the destruction of women's sports," she added. "The governing sports bodies have let women down.
"ESPN commentators couldn't help themselves but admire Thomas' athletic prowess and commanding lead over the female swimmers. Never once did they comment that Thomas may have this advantage because Thomas is a biological male.
"They said more than once that it was 'racing for second' in a women's competition. We need bills... to pass to protect women and women's sports."
Thomas was not made available for media duties afterwards. She is said to have met eligibility rules by receiving hormone therapy for more than two years.
Governing body USA Swimming recently ruled that a three-member panel will now decide whether women who have transitioned possess an unfair advantage during female competition against biologically-born women.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association has also issued a new policy allowing each sport to set its own rules. Leaders remain under pressure to take further measures.
Lia's supporters will cause you to shake your head...
Penn senior Andie Myers reportedly wore a facemask with a transgender flag to show backing for Thomas. "I want everyone at this meet to know that I support her,” she told ESPN.
“She’s worked for all of this and she’s given up so much to transition and to be authentically herself. I think it’s really important and I think it’s really brave what she’s doing today.”
A Thomas supporter on social media told Kreps: "It wasn't a 'race for second place' for all the women. A woman named Lia Thomas won – through her skill and her perseverance.
"I'm a man who's been swimming since I was five but I couldn't have beaten any of these women. Lia Thomas is awesome. We should all be cheering her on."
Another brilliant comment - "Cool, good for her. Maybe they should have tried harder."
Good grief!
A wee bit of common sense, for a change...
Court rules ‘women’ can’t be redefined
Edinburgh court rejects 2018 law that attempted to include trans women
under the legal definition for women
for biological women. June 28, 2019. © AFP / Angela Weiss
The Scottish government has lost a legal battle over a gender representation law that “expanded the definition of women” to include transgender people. Women’s rights activists had argued that the legislation violated “protected characteristics” related to sex in the UK’s 2010 Equality Act.
The Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled on Friday that the Scottish National Party (SNP) government had overstepped its authority when drafting the Gender Representation on Public Boards Scotland Act in 2018, which implemented 50% quotas for women on public sector boards.
Under the law, an individual “living as a woman” who plans to undergo (or has undergone) a “process for the purpose of becoming female” should be considered on par with biological women when filling these quotas. It invoked the “protected characteristic” of gender reassignment.
But the court stated that by “incorporating those transsexuals living as women into the definition of woman,” the legislation “conflates and confuses” two different protected characteristics. The three judges hearing the case said the ruling was not about the “rights and wrongs” of the trans rights debate, but whether the legislation fell under Holyrood’s devolved powers.
The definition of ‘woman’ adopted in the 2018 act “impinges on the nature of protected characteristics which is a reserved matter,” the ruling states, adding that “changing the definitions” of what constituted a protected characteristic is “not permitted” since it would negate laws passed by Westminster. The court said that the government should have instituted separate quotas for transgender people instead.
The 2018 law put the 'protected characteristics' of transgenders above those of women. What madness! It's so good to see the Scottish court stop that.
The judges noted that the definition used in the legislation would, in theory, make it possible for public boards to achieve their gender quota without adding a single board member who is a biological woman.
The law was challenged by campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS), which had appealed to the court after losing a judicial review last year. FWS director Trina Budge told The Telegraph that the act would have “allowed men who had not had to deal with pregnancy or workplace motherhood penalties to take advantage simply by taking on a woman's name and adopting female pronouns.”
“We are delighted that this has been corrected in law and that the judges have restated that the protected characteristic of sex refers to either a male or a female and that provisions in favour of women must, by definition, exclude those who are biologically male,” Budge added.
Meanwhile, an unnamed spokeswoman told the paper that the SNP government was “disappointed by the outcome and are considering its terms.” It will either have to strike out the definition of women from the legislation, or take the case to the UK Supreme Court, the paper reported.
What happens when you have far-left people in government responsible for children...
Government accused of ‘effectively’ lowering age of consent to 13
Scottish guidance says don’t tell parents about underage sex
Family advocates are up in arms against a new guideline issued by the Scottish government which they say promotes – or at least condones – underage sex among children as young as 13, local media reported on Sunday.
The policy states that if a young person is in a “safe and mutually respectful” relationship, police, teachers and social workers should maintain “confidentiality” – i.e. no telling Mom and Dad. However, the age of consent in Scotland is 16, meaning that no matter how safe and respectful a child’s relationship may be, it technically could be outside the law.
Family campaigners, the Catholic church and others concerned with increased meddling into families’ personal lives by the state have excoriated the new protocol, with the Family Education Trust declaring the rule “effectively” lowers the age of consent to 13.
The policy is “effectively a charter for underage sex,” the Trust’s Piers Shepherd told the Mail on Sunday, declaring that the “emphasis on confidentiality shows scant respect for parents who are principal legal guardians” and “raises serious health and safety concerns” regarding the child. Parents, he argued, are “best placed to shield children from the harmful effects of underage sexual activity.”
The new policy specifies that cases where the child is clearly at risk – where there is a “power imbalance,” grooming, bribing, coercion, or alcohol and drug use – can be reported to parents. However “If sexual activity is taken place/has taken place within safe and mutually respectful relationship, the confidentiality should generally be maintained.”
It’s not clear how police, teachers, and social workers are supposed to gauge the health of an underage relationship. A government spokesman insisted that the “non-statutory guidance” provided in the 276-page National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 “does not conflict in any way” with the 2009 law that affirmed Scotland’s age of consent at 16. Indeed, he claimed, the law makes clear that “society does not encourage sexual intercourse in young people under 16.”
As Shepard of the Family Education Trust pointed out, Scottish children under 16 can’t even get a free bus travel card without a parent to fill out the application. Nor can they vote until that age. Signing up for military service at age 16 requires parental permission, and children who want to change their official gender must wait until age 18.
The new child protection policy is just one of several recent steps by Edinburgh that child advocates worry constitutes an unwholesome compulsion to peer into children’s sex lives. Last month, many parents on both ends of the political spectrum denounced the SNP-led government’s health and well-being census, which among other controversial questions asked 14-year-old respondents about their experience with anal sex. Worse, while the survey reassured students its results would be kept confidential, children were asked to fill in their unique Scottish candidate number, while parents were informed such identifying information would be used to identify a child “in exceptional circumstances.” The government defended its survey, arguing that children who felt uncomfortable about the questions could skip them or opt out of the census entirely.
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Trans woman’s killer released after breast implants
help identify mutilated corpse
The woman’s dismembered body was found by a schoolboy in a river six months later
By Layla Guest
A Russian man who brutally killed and dismembered a transgender sex worker from Central Asia has been allowed to walk free on time already served by a St. Petersburg court despite having been found guilty of the crime, media outlets have reported.
On Wednesday, the press secretary of the city’s courts told news agency Lenta that judges in the Vasileostrovsky District had released Yury Yanovsky from custody, crediting his time spent in pre-detention.
The actor had been charged with killing Tamara Khatamzhonov, a 24-year-old transgender sex worker, said to be a native of the former Soviet republic Tajikistan. However, he was later convicted of homicide committed while exceeding the limits of self-defense, and judges ruled that he was to serve one year and ten months behind bars.
On January 13, 2020, Yanovsky, who was intoxicated, argued with Khatamzhonov. The man claimed that the sex worker wanted to give him sleeping pills and steal from him. He stabbed her twice in the neck and once in the stomach. She died on the spot.
Yanovsky dismembered the victim’s body and threw it into the Mga River, in northern Russia’s Leningrad Region. Her severely mutilated, decapitated corpse was only found six months later by a schoolboy as he swam in the water.
Police in the region traced the serial number of her breast implants, manufactured by a Dublin-based company, to a hospital in Russia that had carried out the surgery.
So, the only reason for releasing Yanovsky early had to be that the victim was a transgender and was trying to rob the perpetrator. The incredible dismemberment of the body might suggest far more emotion than self-protection. This should frighten transgenders in Russia, especially those in the sex trades.
Vasileostrovsky District, St. Petersburg
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