The Guardian covers Hubbard. You'll be surprised

Supporting Hubbard means that Jacinda gets the win (possibly literally) of NZ having a medal contender, plus the win of being seen as progressive. It’s a real shame and a huge letdown that she’s prioritised NZ’s visibility and achievement in the Olympics over females being allowed to compete against other females. Perhaps it would have been a harder decision if all of the females missing out where from NZ and not poorer Oceanic countries

I hope that NewZealanders’ sense of fair play means they see the injustice of this, but unfortunately I suspect a fair few would rather NZ win a medal via a bio male competing in a female category, than have a fair process and miss out. Same with any country. Some are going to put national pride first.

And then if they see it, they are hit in the face with it.

Certainly will.

If the impetus isn’t halted soon then there will have been so much time and effort invested in training and promoting young transwomen athletes at the expense of developing the careers of young female athletes that the pushback to allow this unfairness will be not just be from the “be kind” crowd, but from the sponsors, the national squads and the regulatory bodies. Not to mention that the young talented female athletes like Selina will have quietly packed up their running spikes and gone home, because there are only so many times that you can put up with lining up on the starting line knowing you have lost the race even before the b of the bang.

Veronica Ivy does sound like a 1950s move pin-up or a modern day pornstar.

It’s quite a move to prioritise having a name that’s feminine over a name that’s recognised for its sporting achievements.

I just keep thinking of the song Poison Ivy-eeee

I looked up tanya aldred because someone mentioned on twitter that she writes for wisden.

This is an archiver version of an article from 2020 about the trans woman cricketer. It is thoughtful and covers all the issues fairly, and she does ultimately come down on the side of fairness, but the guardian piece is more unequivocal. Maybe it's a combination of time and the weightlifting factor.

www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/1235843.html

I know Tanya' husband IRL and he works in sport.

I strongly suspect that there may be a concession on sports, but sports will be a special case.

It's not s team sport so different I would imagine.

I take it that Laurel will be sharing showers/changing rooms with the other women as well as competing against them.It will hopefully make some advocates of the pro gender neutral facilities have a rethink.

I wonder, too, if it’s just that many people have gotten so used to women being in danger if they walk alone at night, accept a lift home with a friend of a friend, turn their back on a drink in a club, etc that being potentially in danger in a change room, a shelter, a prison ... it’s sadly the cost of being a woman and so why are women fussing when they should be used to it and shush?

Jacinda and Grant Robertson (Sports Minister, LGBTQ himself) are very, very tight. No surprises that they’re very much aligned.

I am really interested to see how this will play out down here over the coming months and years. It feels like the tide might be turning. Kiwi love their sports and ‘fair play’ is part of our culture.

With Hubbard, the optics of the situation are enabling people to see the reality of TW in women’s sport. The pictures show Laurel, who has clearly gone through a male puberty and this has a male body with male-pattern baldness looking very male, irrespective of their TW gender identity.

Without the pictures there’s a lot of obfuscation, much of it deliberate, which has resulted in people thinking the issue is a grey area, or complicated. Lots of discussion from the TRA side about performance declining after testosterone blockage, effects of oestrogen etc. It’s true that studies have countered that, showing persistence of male advantage conferred at puberty but for the uninitiated, the issue of residual advantages may have seemed murky.

But then - there is Laurel. Making it suddenly, visually, very clear why males - however they identify - don’t belong in female sport. Laurel’s inclusion doesn’t look fair.

So disappointing and embarrassing.

Well quite.

The reporting is it's Feminists Vs Trans people.

Feminists have always generally been given bad press, presented as extreme, and have been highly unpopular forever.

Trans people haven't been widely visible for long and their situation and what they want would be seen as very niche.

So in general it sounds like two groups most people aren't that interested in and probably see as pretty extreme, disagreeing.

It's instructive to note that the new language- menstruators, vagina havers etc. Is only used for things that are not front page.

Front page news even for the super woke media always uses woman, girl to mean sex. Moving to the new language would get a massive negative reaction. They keep it hidden away in less read sections.

Yes, for sure. Or that it's just the usual crazies being amplified.

I think what's being pushed is so obviously off the wall that people think they must be missing something, as well.

Yup, I think that's completely true. People even who are shown often think the instances of things like transwomen causing problems in prisons are flukes. And to be fair, we know that bad mistakes and flukes do happen in lots of systems and they don't always mean that the underlying way of doing things is the problem.

People are also aware that things they are told through the media may be factually incorrect or slanted. So when they hear something that seems just unlikely or crazy, they assume it's biased or bad reporting or some such.

In terms of the science of gender, or the psychological medical element, they don't feel expert enough to debate what seems to them to be a consensus.

With sports, many people know enough to be a least suspicious of the idea of transwomen competing on women's sports - they've been involved in sports themselves for example. And they also know that the whole concept of sports competition is based on the physical body. So they question.

And then if they see it, they are hit in the face with it.

And for some of the bloody politicians to say what they think.

Why are they all so scared to say the wrong thing? And WHY that's the massive question.

Women's rights and LGBT+ groups arguing seems like a side issue.

So no I don't think s piece like this in the guardian will change much, although I'm glad to see it.

What's needed is more of the sort of action the EHRC have taken. That makes front page news.

I think a lot of people also don't really believe the stuff about stats and prisons etc even when they read it. Think. That so obviously is wrong it must be a one off mistake, not policy.

And for most people it's things like NHS, housing, inflation, schools and so on that they think about when they vote.

So combine all of that and it just sort of gets put on the, not for me to really think about/ look into. I've got other things to worry about. And anyway, common sense will prevail. Type thing.

That was a great piece. Well done Tanya for getting that through!

So most of society thinks it's nonsense. But.

Some see it as a niche thing. Complicated. Let them sort it out. Nothing to do with me.

Some see it as a woke thing. For young people/ certain 'types'. Disconnected from real life. Leave it to them.