Stonewall Lobby World Rugby

They’ve handled it brilliantly - been completely transparent, genuinely invited all sides to be involved & given them all an equal platform in a 3 day seminar.

I agree. It has been a masterclass in approaching a topic with openness and a genuine spirit of enquiry. We can only hope other sporting bodies follow suit. World Rugby have done a lot of the heavy lifting for them in collating and interrogating the evidence base. 👍

This is why we have to keep stressing that it's both safety and fair competition that matter. Even if there's no contact involved - 100m, long jump, etc., it's still fundamentally unfair to women's sport to allow biological males to compete regardless of how many drugs they are taking.

Agree absolutely

I don’t think it’s lose lose for rugby. Stonewall & company have been screaming at rugby ever since they started to look into this & they haven’t taken a backwards step yet. They’ve handled it brilliantly - been completely transparent, genuinely invited all sides to be involved & given them all an equal platform in a 3 day seminar. There is no argument to make in favour at all other than the emotional be kiiinnddd

I’m more concerned at the “well not rugby cos contact but other less dangerous sports are fine” approach

It's a bad choice for Stonewall, but as the rugby organisations have pushed back, they have to answer that.

If they can't, they can no longer claim that TWAW in the exact same way that other women are. And that is the lynchpin of all their rights claims.

Essentially the issue the RFU faces is that in recent years it has been (successfully) moving rugby away from its beer swilling past to become more inclusive, particularly of women. However the issue with trans is that if they say no to it, they'll incur the wrath of Twitter, and once this occurs, the ever cowardly Corporate sponsors are going to get tetchy, given the already dire financial situation, they wont want to risk this, hence why its being considered. However if this happens, it is a massive safety issue, I only play very amateur blokes rugby, but I'm 17 stones, and if I hit most women, its going to injure them, and I'm by no means a particularly hard, relative to lots of players. As such its extremely likely a serious injury (which I can guarantee will occur if this goes forward) means that they may have issues around insurance, in addition to pushback from the base of most clubs, many of whoms members wont even know trans exists. It's a lose- lose situation for world rugby.

Why that have chosen rugby as the sporting hill to die on is just bizarre

There were a couple of interesting thoughts on this upthread.

One is a deliberate attempt to shift the Overton window, by picking on the most extreme cases first (male bodied individuals in women's prisons was also mentioned).

The other (not entirely sure, may actually just be a variant on the above) - go for the most out-there, over-the-top suggestion in the hope that you will then be given free access to the rest of women's sport as a consolation prize.

This is why we have to keep stressing that it's both safety and fair competition that matter. Even if there's no contact involved - 100m, long jump, etc., it's still fundamentally unfair to women's sport to allow biological males to compete regardless of how many drugs they are taking.

I don't think it's reasonable to place the ref in that position either

If I recall some refs were refusing to officiate at women's amateur games if trans women were allowed to play, because the refs were concerned about injury to women.

Why that have chosen rugby as the sporting hill to die on is just bizarre

It's something of a side issue compared to the sheer monstrous inequality of putting biologically male individuals into women's rugby, but I also worry about men having to play against TM, and the match officials. Because I think it's unreasonable to place a male player in a position where he either has to go in soft on the tackles, or risk causing life-changing injuries to his opponent. And also the ref is the ultimate guarantor of player safety, and again, I don't think it's reasonable to place the ref in that position either.

It's all very well saying "but the TM has signed a waiver and they consent" - the men haven't signed anything to say they consent to the increased risk they may seriously harm their opponent.

I've played rugby for the past 15 years, admittedly never to a high standard, but have seen many gnarly injuries. I am so glad that the majority appear to recognise that adding biological men into the mix is dangerous- but also that for transmen it is dangerous playing with biological men.

Yes this is a massive overreach from Stonewall, and men have turned on Stonewall massively on Twitter.

My local rugby club is brilliant at bringing up the grassroots male players and is trying really hard to replicate that commitment with their female squads.

This kind of arch cobblers would finish their efforts off as no right minded parent would allow their teenage daughter to play.

But there is a large group of people that think there is a scientific basis to the idea of trans. Generally they think that somehow, they are like a DSD that involves the brain. Usually it's vague, but not necessarily as crass as "brain in wrong body."

Hm. NGOs, pressure groups and charities are supposed to exist to make themselves redundant. But of course, that means a lot of people would lose their jobs/prestige. So, some of the less reputable ones don't really genuinely want to affect change, just be seen to be doing so.

For most regular people who are buying into it, TWAW is assumed to be a physiologically based concrete position, not something linguistic or even about identity rights.

I don't know Goose, I think at this point the language might be the main issue. People who are fully aware of the physiological side can still be blinded by the Newspeak, "xxxxx women", "she", "male-bodied", etc.

That's true - I know scientists, experts in their own field, who've been drawn in by a combination of Scientific American, Science op-ed pieces and (of all fucking things) that stupid clownfish thing.

It's a classic - get someone out of their own field and even they are vulnerable to "science buzzword, science buzzword, wordsalad, misuse of statistics, more science buzzwords, ta-dah, TWAW."

(I suspect the relentless propaganda that "TWANW is evil right wing evangelical Christian bigotry" may be playing a part - these are often scientists - particularly in Canada/USA/Aus whose own fields have been directly threatened by science denialism from right-wing politicians, so they automatically assume, if they haven't looked too closely at the actual content of the arguments, that this is more science denialism.)

That doesn't mean they are reading medical journals, but they assume the medical establishment know what they are doing, people who are helping children transition socially and medically, popular scientists in the media, as well as publications like National Geographic, Scientific American, even Psychology Today. And the flip side, a lot of scientific naysayers have been drummed out of their positions, which looks bad to them.

Even if they feel it's confusing, they often conclude that they just aren't understanding the science because they don't have the expertise.

For most regular people who are buying into it, TWAW is assumed to be a physiologically based concrete position, not something linguistic or even about identity rights.

Spent an hour on Twitter this afternoon, general view is very critical of Stonewall and as many, if not more, men are commenting on this.

It's hugely damaging to Stonewalls credibility, but I suspect not their funding (yet?)

They always conveniently 'forget' to add 'from competing with women' at the end of 'trans women face being banned', don't they?

Yes. I noticed that. They are NOT banned from playing. They would be banned from playing in women’s division. They can play in the men’s, no problem.

It is great to read Ross Tucker’s (Scienceofsport) tweets on this thread. He lays it out very clearly to a ‘tw aw and are actually female and anyone who doesn’t let them play is simply being mean’ tweeter.

twitter.com/scienceofsport/status/1297563395298856961?s=21

For those not on twitter he states:

‘You’re making a category error. Try it this way: Would you let an adult, 27 yr old man, play against juniors because he’s smaller, slower and weaker than many 17 year olds? If a heavyweight boxer is weaker than some middle weights, can he fight down? Range overlaps are irrelevant.’

‘First, it is an argument against categories? Would you be OK with an adult playing against juniors because they’re not that good? Why does junior sport exist in the first place? Does that adult not take someone’s place? Someone who was entitled to protection?’

‘ Similarly, are you alright with a heavyweight fighting down just because they’re weak, and thus “in the range” for a middleweight fighter? Does the middleweight category not exist for good reason, irrespective of some overlap?

Second, the only way you find overlap is if you...’

‘ …deliberately cherry-pick to compare a very strong/heavy/good/fast/powerful woman against a mediocre or light/slow/weaak man. Then you find overlap. It’s a women at the 90th percentile compared to a man at the 40th percentile. They may have the same strength. But what you’re now’

‘ …arguing for is that man who is at the 40th percentile can cross over, & because they lose very little of that strength with T reduction, they’ll slot in at the 85th percentile among women. So they go from being below average to way above average. That is the very definition of’

‘ unfair. Third, this creates huge risk, because even if you control for the variable you pick (let’s say it’s strength as in my example), you can’t control for the others. So the person may end up matched for X, but not for Y & Z. This undermines safety and fairness even more’

‘ Fourth, how do you match? Aside from the cherry-picking exercise I already explained, you have sports where performance is multifactorial. So which variables do you attempt to control for? I already asked earlier, how you would do this? Any suggestions?’

‘ Fifth, when a sport decides they’ll do this for trans women, they put themselves into a real dilemma. Because now, they’re saying “Trans women are women, but some of them are more women than others, because of XYZ”. So now sport is subdividing a cohort into new cohorts, and’

‘ …then making a value judgment, ostensibly based on metrics they measure or test in a lab (again, let me know which ones you think can be matched, and how), and then deciding that one person can play, and one cannot. In effect, sport is now playing judge of who is “woman enough"

There is at least a couple more tweets too.

Odd hill to die on choice for me. Stonewall are fairly sucessful in lobbying in general, but this is a total non starter. Beyond a select few total nutjobs, noone believes men should be able to smash women in rubgy. This is the issue that WILL Wake up a lot of men I think..they see its hugely unfair because..well its clearly unfair. Some might not care because 'ugh, womens sport'. but a lot will fight against tyhis

They always conveniently 'forget' to add 'from competing with women' at the end of 'trans women face being banned', don't they?

Stonewall are of course mobilising their “champions” in other sports

twitter.com/bethfishersport/status/1297131318883614720?s=21

destroy female sport by stating such ludicrous views such as: all sport should be open category anyway and we should stop competitive sports because why should it celebrate the best performers (it should be only celebrating participation and involvement for everyone ).