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thread 1/8
Women's sports story time! First let me say that trans women should compete in women's sports because they are women. Full stop. 🧵

But I want to share my experience as an elite athlete in response to the BS arguments we hear about why trans women and girls should be excluded from sport.
RA @intheweeds
As a female athlete who competed in a sport where training is coed, these bigots can fuck right off. Cis women don't need protection from trans women. Expand your ideas of what women's bodies look like and can do. That is better for all of us women.
10:28 AM - Feb 14, 2024
10:52 AM - Feb 14, 2024 (Edited)
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RA
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thread 2/8
First, know that girls have an advantage over AMAB kids until at least 14. They are bigger, stronger, are cultured to listen/learn better, and most importantly for sport, girls develop fine motor skills younger than boys. So anyone who is trying to keep trans girls out of sports is full of shit.
11:00 AM - Feb 14, 2024
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thread 3/8
But let me share my experience as an adult elite fencer. When I started my serious training, one on one with mostly adult men, I was largely outmatched. I wasn't strong or fast enough to hold my own. But that's just experience. Luckily I had a very excellent coach.
11:03 AM - Feb 14, 2024
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thread 4/8
My coach spent the entire first year of our time together yelling (lovingly) that I wasn't strong enough. But we kept training.

By the second year, he was pushing me harder, and I spent that year yelling back at him that I wasn't strong enough...
11:06 AM - Feb 14, 2024
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thread 5/8
The third year, I was strong enough. My male teammates worked as hard to win against me as they did against each other. Their strength and speed advantage disappeared.

We were all Olympic-track athletes at the top of our game, facing off one on one. And our genders couldn't have mattered less.
11:10 AM - Feb 14, 2024
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thread 6/8
So don't let anyone tell you what women's bodies can do. That we are weak and need protection from trans women. Most of what you think women's bodies are capable of is based on us being excluded from sport for 100s of years longer than men. Women's sports are still catching up.
11:14 AM - Feb 14, 2024
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RA
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thread 7/8
Give women time to push themselves as far as men have, and we will. Sport skills piggyback eachother. Men have had a lot longer to play that game. Just compare records in any sport from the last 100 years, and I bet women are doing better now than the men did then. We still have the same bodies.
11:17 AM - Feb 14, 2024
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thread 8/8
And just let trans women play. They belong in women's sports because they are women.

Notice there is very little talk about trans men and boys threatening men's sports. The bigots have already told us who they are and what they think about all women. Trans rights are women's rights.
11:21 AM - Feb 14, 2024
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Jeff Carmichael
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In response to RA.
Honestly liked this thread. As a former competitive athlete at a much lower level (US D-III sports), it gives me a bit of perspective on why I might have seen a perceived talent gap at that level between AAB male and female athletes: the opportunity has been there longer for males.
11:49 AM - Feb 15, 2024
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