I’m pretty hacked off about it truth be told, especially since I’ve supported Diva and bought pretty much every issue since I came out as a lesbian in the late 90s.
I’m a member of Diva’s online community and someone recently posted about Nicola Adams (Olympic world champion boxer, used to identify as bisexual, recently came out as a lesbian).
Nicola has made the suggestion of having a separate category in boxing for trans women to compete with one another as she doesn’t believe it is fair for them to compete in the female category. Thread on it here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3834912-Olympic-Boxing-champ-Nicola-Adams-calls-for-transgender-athlete-categories-for-fairness#94290477
This seems completely fair enough, and there is an exception in the Equality Act for exactly this reason, to make women’s sport fair.
As Diva is (was?) mainly a place for lesbian women, quite a few in the online community spoke up in support of Nicola Adams.
A trans woman who is a prominent poster in the group wrote a long and detailed post to ‘educate’ everybody why it is completely fair for trans women to compete in female sport. Point 5 of her post states biological sex isn’t binary. Anyone who didn’t agree is a transphobe.
This was backed up by Linda Riley (Diva publisher) who compared debating the right of trans women to compete in female sport to debating ‘all lives matter’, not so subtly suggesting that questioning the fairness of trans women in sport is as bad as racism.
DIVA MAGAZINE IS OPENLY CLAIMING WOMEN ARE BIGOTED FOR QUESTIONING THE FAIRNESS OF A MALE BODIED PERSON HITTING AND PUNCHING A FEMALE BODIED PERSON IN SPORT.
I have absolutely no problem with Diva welcoming trans women into the community but centering trans activism like this is madness. I know I’ve posted here in defense of Diva before when other lesbians expressed concerns about the TRA / MRA ethos. Apologies I didn’t listen and feel free to tell me ‘I told you so’.
As a side note, the prominent TRA in Diva’s online community made Diva’s Pride Power list. Olympic world champion lesbian role model Nicola Adams did not.
www.pridepowerlist.com/the-list-2020.html