IUF Gender Committee

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So when I woke up this morning and saw this post on the Facebook group, I reasonably got quite anxious. I’m putting forward my name to participate in the committee partially because I don’t know how many other non- binary, trans, or generally gender non-conforming people will participate. To make a committee about us without us doesn’t work the best.

I just wanted to say this forum has always felt like an especially safe place to me also the unicycle community. Seeing a lot of comments in support of even just having the discussion was amazing to see.

I personally did not go to Unicon this year in part because as a non-binary person there wasn’t a category I could be in, and when the vacation was already going to be fairly expensive I decided not to go in the end. So I’m really excited to see where these discussions go.

Because I’m very big on education if anyone has questions about this stuff please feel free to reach out to me in a DM. It’s a really exciting opportunity and even just chatting with some other members of The Forum I think will be nice to respect some Nuance on the issue from others who have been in the community longer than me.

I will respectfully ask if you’re just seeking to argue with me and are not open to hearing new information or a contradicting view to what you have it is likely not going to be productive for either of us to engage.

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Don’t pay attention to what’s said on facebook. This facebook group in no way represents the unicycling community. Some people take it in turns to use it for self-promotion (I may have even tried…) or to reinforce their point of view.
Unfortunately, Facebook is the social network for jerks, and they’re the only ones who participate.
When I saw Sarah Smith’s message in the group, it seemed obvious to me that there was going to be this kind of reaction. Most of the members in this group don’t know about the IUF, UNICON or the existence of this forum…

On the French forum we had a discussion about the inclusion of non-binary people in competitions (admittedly it was a discussion between cis-gendered men…) and I know there’s an article in the next edition of the girafon (the magazine of unicycling in France).

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I was honestly a bit surprised to see this “discussion” too, but I guess @toutestbon is right, it’s still facebook, so I shouldn’t be… (And I agree, I don’t think it’s representative of the unicycle community, at least not the majority of those I’ve met, facebook just elevates loud people).
Often people claim that “politics” should be left out of sports. That’s possible if we are talking about individuals riding their unicycle around. For organized sports (as in competitions or conventions), it is just not possible. Almost by definition, rules are political, if you change them, that’s politics. If you choose to not change them, it’s also politics.

I probably won’t join the committee, but I welcome the discussion and think it is important. As I said in the now deleted facebook thread, I think what is currently in the rulebook is not a good solution in any way.

  • The free choice of gender defeats one of the purposes of having the categories in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I want as much opportunity for transgender athletes to compete without being in a category they feel uncomfortable in as possible. However, if the purpose of having categories is providing “fair”* competition, biological sex probably can’t be disregarded completely. (Typically the debate would be male to female transgender competing in the female category having a genetic advantage.)

  • At the same time, the separation into only m/f is not inclusive to people who don’t fit in those categories.

So currently the rules manage to be neither fully inclusive, nor “protective of womens sport”**, I hope you will contribute to finding a better solution @Sexy. It is not easy and I don’t think it is possible to finding rules that are perfect, but becoming more inclusive while providing at least some level of guideance on ensuring a fair competition would be a good start.

I also think in general, there should be a way for event organizers to choose to disregard gender categories entirely. Age groups can be joined if there aren’t enough competitors, but gender categories can’t be mixed as per the rulebook. I’m thinking in particular of freestyle competitions in Germany, where male participation is typically low and giving them a chance to actually compete against more riders may be interesting. (We also have the precedent of the pairs and group category not having any gender restriction, so to me extending that to the individual category almost feels natural). I don’t think this would go over well as a “from the top” decision that changes established competitions, but completely eliminating possibility in the rules at all feels like a mistake.

*Whether sport can really ever be “fair” is a long debate, tall people have an easier time at basketball and that is just accepted, genetic factors are hard to exclude.

**Not happy with this phrase, but I’m also lacking a better shorthand description.

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That’s not an easy discussion. While I, of course wish, that everybody, who wants to take part in a competition can do so in a category they feel comfortable is and can have a fair competition, I see a statistic issue: We are, as sad as it is (but it also has its advantages), a niche sport, and not a big one. At least, in many regions. Non-cis-persons* are also just a small group**. Multiply the share of unicyclists with the share of transgender people*** and you get (in theory), how many transgender unicyclists there are. Luckily, our sport seems to have a bigger share of transgender persons than the rest of the world (at lest, that’s what I feel). Let’s look, how many riders attend a typical unicycle event. I’ve joined muni races with just three male and three female starters. How could we then split up categories even more? Of course, this does not apply to all disciplines. Hockey is a good example that is absolutely inclusive for everyone. And I also never understood, why there is an obligatory, separate male category in individual freestyle. On the other hand, freestyle is a very female-dominated discipline. Having a separate boys category can encourage boys to join competitions.

But yes, things are difficult. Having been involved in the organization of many races and having written many announcements and given the point, that I feel very well-educated in this topic, I still have no clue what I would answer if I once get a request of a trans person in which category they can start in one of the races where I am responsible. Having a little bit of help then, maybe even some (even loose) guidelines would be nice. A gender committee might help, though. But I also see, that the IUF (as well as any other unicycling organization) has already enough difficulties to find enough volunteers for their board and committees.

*in some (inclusive) definitions of trans, this can be replaced with “trans persons”
**that could be bigger, if society, prejudices and stigma would allow more people to think about their gender identity and recognize, that they do not totally fit in the cis-drawer
***inclusive definition, including all non-cis gender identities

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there’s a facebook group for Unicyclist?

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I’m the person that wrote this question on the Facebook unicycle group.

I was confused why the committee that makes the rules all of a sudden can’t decide rules.

I feel to have a sub committee is the wrong way to go and will just be an echo chamber.

I don’t believe it’s a difficult problem really, in competitive sports a biological birth male to female shouldn’t be allowed to compete in female categories.

A biological birth female to male can compete in the male category.

Plus there can be an open category that anyone can join.

Ps asking a question doesn’t make me a jerk.

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That’s the thing though it is a very complex issue with a lot of nuance. It requires a committee because we need to make sure that it’s implemented correctly and in a respectful way. When it comes to sex and gender and just saying that there are biological males and biological females it misses a lot of the nuance. Because even just taling about sex, excluding anything about gender and how people feel internally, we have intersex people, and then for people who are trans and transitioning once you start going on estrogen and doing hormone therapy your biology physically changes. There’s also a lot of research out there that any metric we tend to come up with that says what is a man and what is a woman will invariably exclude some people who were born women identify as women and would meet what you would Define as a biological woman. Because when there’s 7 billion of us and we’re all unique individuals there will be those individual differences I think all of us throughout our lives have met examples of men who we may say are built more like women and women who are built more like men by the lens you take to this. A lot of this debate that is going on right now is part of ways to just exclude trans and gender nonconforming people from spaces and though we might say it’s about fairness in sport it’s also routed in creating additional barriers for queer people.

Now I’m not trying to attack you with this, we are commenting over the internet and I am writing this comment in hopes that you will read it and hopefully it will present you with new information and help you see the world in a little bit of a different way because with all the shit that goes on in our world we could use a little bit more kindness and understanding of people who are different than us who come from different walks of life. As I have said above if you want to message me individually I’m happy to have a conversation with you about this and let you know why this is a complex issue, about why a committee is needed. But as with everything in our world there is nothing that is black and white but things with a lot of gray so to say this is not a complex issue shows that there’s some additional information about this or some additional perspective that you might not have that I would be happy to share with you.

Even among other species there is not just two sexes and even amongst the various cultures that our species has organized into there are histories of things outside of a gender binary. There’s just a lot of history in the last 200 years that we went around colonizing a lot of places and imposed certain sets of beliefs and certain ways of doing so these stories are not ones that get told a lot.

And speaking as someone who is non-binary, people are not going through transitions and doing these things because it’s fun we are doing it because when you grow up knowing that the way you are presenting or the body you were born with is not the one that is right for you… I can’t describe in words the night and day difference when you finally feel comfortable in your skin. And we face barriers in most aspects of our lives from this way such as have an increased risk of suicide and getting attacked, even in the most accepting and safe of places. So this committee is an opportunity make sure that the fairness of sport is maintained but that we are not creating additional barriers and have an updated understanding of how we can include gender nonconforming people in our space just as we would make the same accommodations for other people in other groups.

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Let’s read the post by the IUF about the committee again:

"Want to work on the future of gender in unicycling? Join the IUF Gender Committee!

The IUF is forming a working committee to assess how the rulebook addresses gender, and to provide recommendations for updates to the rulebook."

Nowhere is any mention of a decision making power given to the committee.

That’s what the IUF rulebook committee does by the way, it forms committees for specific issues, where ideas are provided for changes. (You may have a Muni committee, urban committee, freestyle committee etc.), so there is nothing especially unusual about having a sub committee, it is how the process of writing a rulebook works.

And, I repeat, you misrepresented the purpose of the committee in your post and added a lot of subtext. That’s not “Just asking a question” in my books. I think wording something much harsher than intended or misreading is something that most people (including me) have done, so no hard feelings from me, but don’t be surprised you get pushback.

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I’m sorry to say but this is exactly why i think it’s a bad idea to have a committee.

The question is about unicycling and people having a natural advantage over others and how to make everyone welcome.

But it’s clear from your reply that this is beyond unicycling to you and you are emotionally fighting for your rights that go far beyond this competition.

I understand your point of view and the hardships you must face.

You have to also understand that you can’t make requests to a sports organisation to bend over backwards just to please you and make you comfortable emotionally.

If they done that with everybody’s needs than a competition couldn’t take place because everything would be over complicated.

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Finn those are sub commitees for sub genres of unicycling.
It’s completely different.

This is a sub committee for gender where some of the committee members might actually argue that gender doesn’t actually exist or can change day to day.

It’s a complex conversation that has too much personal emotion attached to it.

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There are committees for awards, age groups… there aren’t just committees for each uni discipline. These committees help to write the IUF rulebook.

Today, it seems to be a problem that unicyclists cannot enter a competition because at the time of entry there is only a choice between male and female.

We can do nothing and continue to exclude these people, but the IUF board has decided to try and make the competitions more inclusive. So what’s wrong?

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Theres a difference between being excluded and feeling excluded.

But i’m going to finish my end of this conversation.

Because this is a conversation about emotions and not unicycling.

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Maybe have a “human” catagory.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an inni or outi or somewhere in between, we are all humans.

Yah I’m gonna do it…

Just like religion has tried to do forever, the creating of sub categories that need special treatments has not done well for our world.
Let’s get rid of the labels and the expectations associated with them.

Try going to unicon as a human and compete and learn from other humans.
To say nothing is there for certain groups is looking at the situation through very narrow minded glasses.

Please don’t take this as arguing, I just think we would do better with fewer labels.

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I definitely don’t think this would work out. A competition (wether it is on a unicycle, bike, running, fighting or swimming) is about the results and is often what is motivating and inspiring people. Having just one category would be great for inclusion, but only men would be winning (maybe biological females transitioning to male depending on how much testoteron they would consume).

Having only men winning would make females and biological males transitioning to females unable to win (because nature is unfair). This would cause younger competitors in those categories to not want to compete. It would end up excluding many people from the competition and making it less integrating.

I actually three viable options:

  • keeping male and female categories, excluding trans people (or putting them in their biological category if they don’t take hormones : great for cis people, bad for trans people
  • putting trans people in the category of their choice (with testostron tests ?) : great for trans people, bad for cis women
  • creating a “open” category : great for everybody, but the sport is really too small, there is many events with less than ten people in a category already (on the unlimited marathon of the next french cup, their will be only four women, with only one french)

There might be other options, but I don’t know them.

P.S. I don’t really have any problem with trans people, except when it comes to sports. Biological males will always be stronger and faster than biological females, even if they take hormones that make them closer to biological females. And biological females becoming men might be stronger and faster than biological males (if they take more testoteron than the body naturally produces).

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