I'm still kinda on the fence on this one, and therefore glad to see that discussions are ongoing and (not least!) amicable. Seems like we all acknowledge one anothers points of view, which feels right to me. It's part of what TE, at its best, has felt like all along.

So here's my acknowledgement to both sides:

On the one hand -- I've experienced TE as a place I expected to feel at home from the get go because it was a women's cycling forum. That, and the TE rules of behaviour (not sure whether these are published anywhere, but sister Trek420 explained them to me as motivation to join) such as acceptance for (especially women) cyclists at all levels, supportive and informative response to whatever questions one has -- no question to embarrassing or too stupid or too naive or ... whatever. Also that we tiptoe around divisive issues, but without totally hiding them, just trying not to insult one another yet recognizing our differences on all kinds of levels. And I must say, the fact that it's a women's forum goes some ways to making those rules more credible, and possibly easier to "police" ...? Because, whatever I may think of a strict biological sexual divide (see below), I do recognize that there tends to be a cultural one.

On the other hand -- Most of the few men who've participated openly and actively for any length of time (and certainly Mr. Silver and my cousin Maury) have found themselves right at home abiding by those rules. In fact, I can readily see where Mr. Silver would be attracted to our forum, given his cycling goals. C'mon! We've had our laughs about some of those testosterone-enriched fora where every other guy is posting about how embarrassing it is to be passed by a woman cyclist! How supportive would such a place be to a guy who's training to lose weight and keep up with his cycling wife? Furthermore, recognizing and accepting all other differences but drawing the line according to a more or less arbitrary biological definition (I won't go into details, but in my line of research we question the reality of a binary division into two mutually exclusive sexes) ... well, isn't that a bit inconsistent?

So how can we balance between these two sides of the fence? Could we continue to call ourselves a women's cycling forum, but accept men on an invitation only basis? And should we maybe have a set of rules, formulated politely and in positive terms ("On TE we always ..." rather than "On TE we do not ...")? That way we can still "out" the occasional "troll". We're not as likely to get a rush of men applicants, either as positive seekers or as web "pirates" out to break into any place that tries to exclude them. We can also admonish, or worst case exclude, anybody who behaves rudely.

Or then again ... maybe we just let this discussion take its course and then, wherever we land, try to go on without making any changes. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.