Wednesday: The End of Sport for American Girls

I think sports could wake people up - but what you really need is something high profile. It would need to be the Olympics, or similar, because not many people watch women's rugby or football. And it would either have to be something really obviously unfair (biological male wins women's 100m, for example) or, sadly, a woman being badly injured by a male athlete. The other potential sport has for waking people up is boys taking girls' places in schools' sports teams, because parents are acutely alert to injustices faced by their own children.

The current make up of the Supreme Court is very republican. Trump got to appoint three supreme court judges. On pretty much every issue this is terrible from my perspective, but on this one it seems like a boon. I really can't see them passing this. Republicans aren't on board with this stuff. And Self ID in sport is going too far even for loads of otherwise supportive democrats.

@teawamutu

The Supreme Court will have the last word on this, won't they?

They will - eventually. But at the moment they're often refusing to hear cases about this.

I posted this a little while ago:-

The US Supreme Court now accepts (or, rather, doesn't reject) transgender toilets and locker rooms in the USA

About a case from Oregon where the school district had implemented gender free locker rooms and toilets in its schools and parents objected.

It went to the Court of Appeal which sided with the school and then the Supreme Court refused to consider hearing the case.

Prisons are ‘out of sight, out of mind’ situation but with sports it’s all out there for the eye to see.

A really high profile event (Women’s Wimbledon Final, Olympic 100m etc) will wake the world, especially since sport* is one of the few ways that working class people from all countries, including developing countries, can achieve global success and celebrity through hard work and dedication.

*obvs not all sports are equally accessible, but the ones you can practise in an inner city with almost no equipment and/or subsidised coaching (ie running, football, boxing, basketball etc) are the closest we get to witnessing meritocracy in action.

Plus men, who are largely able to file feminism and transgenderism under ‘not my circus, not my monkeys’ understand the inherent unfairness in someone like H Mouncey having a career in men’s’ sport and then, when close to retirement/post injury/reaching their sell by date ‘transitioning’ to the women’s category, even if they don’t generally give much of a fuck about women’s sport.

Plus, anything that gets Rachel-Veronica-Ivy-McKinnon back on a talk show or news broadcast is guaranteed to win a few more round to the feminist view point. Worse spokesperson ever!

Biden makes my skin crawl.

Sorry @BuntingEllacott I meant to quote you and forgot quotation marks.

People can huff about unfairness and then go about their day. Apathy is oppression's best tool.

It's not about sunlight alone. If no one is prepared to stand up and push back, all that will happen is women and girls lose their rights and freedoms in broad daylight and no one stops it.

But how do we stop it here in the UK? Even if a petition were to be allowed long enough to get 10,000 signatures it'd just get turned down by our overwhelmingly male government.

This is how the "other side" see it:
www.outsports.com/2020/5/28/21273259/trump-administration-connecticut-transgender-student-athlete-federal-civil-rights-lawsuit

Note the assertion (with no supporting evidence) that trans athletes have no advantage.

I fear it's far from a done deal that the Supreme Court will come down on the side of women's rights.

Point is, it's not about seeing the reality of these policies. It's about caring enough to challenge them.

People can huff about unfairness and then go about their day. Apathy is oppression's best tool.

It's not about sunlight alone. If no one is prepared to stand up and push back, all that will happen is women and girls lose their rights and freedoms in broad daylight and no one stops it.

I tried to have the trans chat with a couple of my American (Democrat) friends recently and all I got in response was "I think we should listen to the people who are directly affected by this"

Do these Dems have young daughters who are good at sport, or even interested in pursuing a professional career in sport?

When they themselves are "directly affected" we might hear them singing from a different songbook.

Woke millennial Democrats have daughters too. I'm hoping that's enough to eventually wake them up. Pun intended.

I think sports will wake people up actually. Sometimes you need to see the inequality to understand that it goes beyond feelz.

The Supreme Court will have the last word on this, won't they?

I don't know whether it's always been the case, but it feels more and more like political opinions polarise so much that if you are on "one side" you have to sign up to hate everything the "other side" stands for and unequivocally support everything that "your side" stands for.

^^This. Especially, it seems, in the US.

Lots of States wont implement. Didn't Biden commit to healing the divide. There are elections in 2 years time. If Biden goes all out woke, they will lose seats in both the houses. The Democrats can't afford to do that

My dh and dad like athletics etc and although they both say it’s unfair (now ive spoken to them) they won’t do anything about it

Best case scenario is that they just stop watching womens sports...because it’s unfair

I tried to have the trans chat with a couple of my American (Democrat) friends recently and all I got in response was "I think we should listen to the people who are directly affected by this". I said "women, women are directly affected by this, you're allowed to have an opinion on this as it affects you!" and she just shut the conversation down.

The whole thing has become wrapped in this quasi-religious identity politics in the US whereby it's blasphemy to even try to question it. These people are in the minority but they're the ones with all the power so my hopes of it changing are pretty slim.

This flies under the radar .... and buried, like so many of our hard fought rights.

Sorry, have just listened to Eddie Izzard talking about 'girl mode' and how he will be acting in boy mode. So depressing.

The arguments that this applied without consideration for women will be dangerous for women has gone unheeded by both men and women, both in the US and here.
I think the US have already lost the theoretical argument, but I think we should see that against the woeful lack of protection that transgender people have in the US to start with.
I'm getting the impression that the UK Government (maybe not Scotland) is beginning to see some of the problems. Although not until after harm has been done - like Keira Bell's case.
It will be interesting, but not necessarily in a good way, to see how public opinion reflects on men displacing women in elite sports. This is much more visible than prisons or changing rooms.

I don't know whether it's always been the case, but it feels more and more like political opinions polarise so much that if you are on "one side" you have to sign up to hate everything the "other side" stands for and unequivocally support everything that "your side" stands for.

Yes I'm sure someone will be along soon.

Still impossible to discuss it without someone turning up to call you Trump supporters tbf.

Biden made his intentions perfectly clear before his election but even on here it was impossible to discuss it without someone turning up to call us Trump supporters. I'm afraid I don't think there's anything that can be done now.