The Guardian - AFL weight restrictions 'body shame women'

Is there any reason they can't have their own divisions based on sex genomes?

XY who identifies as XY
XX who identifies as XX
XY who identifies as XX
XX who identifies as XY

Then they can have whatever rules they like for each division, and it's a much more even playing field for all involved.

Or is that going to cause absolute uproar?! Apologies if that's naive...

If HM still wants to be involved in the sport, and doesn't want to play in a men's team, they could safely referee or coach.

Well if Hannah is so worried by the awful body shaming, there's a really simple solution: have everyone play with their appropriate biological class.

Quite.

as well as the requirement that trans women undertake number of physical tests designed to ascertain if they have an advantage over cis women playing AFLW – the presumption being that this is because they are trans.

Erm no, the presumption (knowledge really) being that this is because they are MALE.

For fucks sake, its nothing to do with 'cis and 'trans'. Its about being female or male. Imagine kicking off because a large male is not allowed to play contact sport against female ones, its just ridiculous.

Hannah could of course get around all of this by playing with the other males, rather than wanting to smash females. But thats no fun is it, as Hannah would not have an advantage over male people.

With so much unnecessary pressure already on girls and women about their appearance, sport should surely aspire to be a safe haven from that; a place where people’s bodies are celebrated for what they can do, rather than what they look like.

Sport is a safe haven from this, for female people. Unless doing something like boxing, where weight is important for categories.

There needs to be a policy in place for trans inclusion in Australian rules football, but whether women are too heavy or too big to play once they get to a certain size should never have been a consideration.

Again, just for fucks sake.

This entire article makes out that all females are tested and if they are too heavy they are refused. But its about transwomen. male people. male people should not ever be playing against female people so you would think the isiot who wrote this article would be grateful that there is even a p[ossibility that males can play against females in the first place.

IMO, the 'trans inclusion policy' should be, play with your own sex. At which stage the 'but transmen!' argument comes up, as transmen are only ever mentioned as a gotcha. But for transmen, of course they should play against females, as they are female. Thats assuming they have not had hormone treatment. If they ARE on testosterone then they should be treat as any other female who was doping. I used to say that transmen should compete with men if they were on testosterone, but I think this could be very dangerous for them. Their choice though I guess.

I see there is increasing support for the sensible policy of using biological age rather than chronological age in sport for school age children. I've certainly seen 6ft plus young teens with developed muscle mass on the pitch with others a foot smaller and half their weight.

The biological differences between Hannah and other players are even more glaring. Hannah can wear a frock and demand preferred pronouns but needs to stick to an appropriate biological classification in sport. If it's too triggering to play in the man's league, Hannah can call it the XX and XY league or define it on weight, lung size and internal organs.

And if Hannah can't compete with peers then maybe they should consider that they need to do something else rather then stoop to cheating.

Everything we learn about safety - whether in sport or socially - just has to be jettisoned the minute someone male puts on a dress.

that makes HM’s female friends so accommodating

I wondered if they were 'female'.

his is the slight, transitioned Hannah Mouncey. As you can see, her muscles have all but wasted away

The size of the hands! They're like fucking dinner plates :( Imagine having that coming at you across a field at full speed. I'd run

And the female friends he claims agree with him? Probably too worried he'll threaten them harm if they don't politely nod along.

Hannah really is a piece of work isn't he? Whiny dickhead expecting to get what he wants simply because he wants it.

Does Mouncey have no shame at all?

Is Hannah really so obtuse?? How many women will the new rules affect? None??

Of course it's about making sure that transwomen who weigh twice as much as female footballers aren't allowed to play against them!

What a tool. And shame on the Guardian for publishing this pile of self-serving shite.

@Orchid yes she clearly has the figure of a muscular female 🙈 if that ran in to me I'd die. And I'm a muscular 82kg!

Also I can't stand cis woman. No I'm a woman, why must they continue with this stupid label!

There's a scene in 'There's Something About Mary' in which Matt Dillon plays American Football against a group of people with learning difficulties, with guessable results. At least the Farrellys were just playing it for (bad taste) laughs. As it is, this is a prime example of dogma literally colliding with reality.

Unfortunately I suspect it'll take broken limbs (at the very least) for sense to be seen.

This is the slight, transitioned Hannah Mouncey. As you can see, her muscles have all but wasted away

What a fucking offensive article, and not just because of all the 'cis-ing'.

Using the very real issues about women's body image to argue that men who are built like a brick shit house should be able to play rugby with women, just because they say they are women, is so self centred I can't even. Is there anything these blokes won't appropriate? How dare he.

Loads of sports have weight categories. Do you see fucking jockeys, boxers or formula 1 drivers going on about how having weight parameters affects their body image?

Fuck off Hannah. And fuck off The Guardian.

You'd think that in a time period where newspapers are dropping like flies they'd try to improve the quality of their product.

The Guardian has become a joke. It is almost funny, how ridiculous the articles are now. I stopped buying it a while ago, because they trot out crap like this. I buy the Times instead, far better journalism, without the patronising, gaslighting sexism.

It's like an adult version of the toddler who insists they don't want to wear a coat on a freezing January morning because the sun is out and has a tantrum because you're being 'mean'.

I'm being generous by assuming that Mouncey doesn't understand that protecting women from Mouncey's greater physical mass and other sex based advantages is nothing to do with being 'mean' to anyone.

Of course, the less generous reading would be that Mouncey's pouting bottom lip is because Mouncey is a nasty cheaty type who has worked out that this line of argument will get them all the plaudits plus extras. But I would like to accuse Mouncey of anything, so I will just go with them being a bit thick.

Well if Hannah is so worried by the awful body shaming, there's a really simple solution: have everyone play with their appropriate biological class.

Oh sorry, silly me, that actually wasn't Hannah's issue. Hannah just wants to use their superior muscle mass, lung capacity and size to smash into women half Hannah's size. What a hero.

I heard about a female teenage child in a country with self id who was identifying as a boy and demanding to play one the boys' rugby team. Teachers and pupils are horrified but there's nothing they can do.

What are they going to say when she causes a significant spinal injury to a 70kg woman!

They'll say that it's proof that women shouldn't play strength based sports and they should stick to knitting and cake decorating.

I'd literally go Tonya Harding on her, in my sport if I thought she would now beat me because she had a biological advantage of being a male build, meaning she could skate faster, jump higher and was ultimately stronger. If a woman started banging out quad and triple combinations like a man does, she would win on technical points. But figure skating is a bitter/dangerous sport and I was always highly competitive 😂

In this instance it's also wrong, she could seriously injure someone in a contact sport environment. What are they going to say when she causes a significant spinal injury to a 70kg woman!

Transwomen in women’s sports is the best way to get the GC viewpoint across to men, I’ve found.

My husband (did a bit of fairly serious MMA training in his younger days) was absolutely outraged by the Fallon Fox debacle.

I don’t know if it’s women’s socialisation that makes HM’s female friends so accommodating or if it’s men’s socialisation that makes them instantly aware that male bodies have no place in women’s sport (because they are raised as the aggressors) but frankly, whoever made this decision made the right call, to my mind.

Risk assessment saves lives!

This is one of those issues where people are being told "believe me, not your lying eyes".

Unfortunately for them most people continue to believe what their eyes are telling them, which is why comments are closed.

: “why does a panel of men get to decide if a woman is too big or too heavy to play football?”

Fair question. Same applies to the IOC for sports more globally - IIRC the panel which determined the parameters for a TW being able to compete as women consisted of 7 men, 1 XY intersex, one TW and only 3 females. A quarter, not even a half, on an issue which mostly impacts women. Well, there's a surprise.

This made me so fucking angry. It's male supremacy in action. Women's sports are so unimportant that it's fine to turn them into a kind of cruel gladiatorial joke as long as the spectacle of male bodies triumphing over and risking harm to women's bodies validates and entertains the boss class.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3352435-Hannah-Mouncey-Australian-womens-football

This thread, third page:

I believe that panels of men (the team owners, scouts, coaches, etc) have been deciding that some men were just too small to play sports where strength is very important since those sports began.