Rugby League bans transgender athletes from top events

Come on, puuuuuulllllll!

Things are moving, slowly but surely.

The headline thing is so funny. On Sunday when Fina announced their decision the headlines were,

BBC: Fina bars transgender swimmers from women's elite events if they went through male puberty
Sky: Swimming world body FINA votes to restrict participation of transgender athletes in elite competition
And in Ireland,
RTE: FINA to have 'open' category for transgender athletes

For those who don't know, TRAs at Dublin Pride tried to censor RTE last week for allowing discussion around the removal of the words 'woman' and 'mother' from the maternity act. Nearly leading to RTE being called to a government committee to answer questions on why they allowed 'trans hate' on the air. So I read the headline as quite a deliberate choice to not play up to the usual trans outrage.

Twitter is being interesting as usual, apparently this is a 'genocide'.

And this is exactly the sort of response the inflammatory headline seems intended to generate.

I do wish the media would stop saying transgender sportspeople are "banned from competition". They are not banned. They are welcome to compete in the competition for their biological sex.

And me.

That headline is not factual.

just complained about the headline to the BBC

Like a house of cards now.

Considering that has been supposed outrage from TRAs on social media and more sports are banning male bodied athletes from female sport, TRAs are losing their power. Seems like one all sports were waiting for one to be brave enough to do it.

Sport is slowly waking up from this delusion and may well see a drop in people claiming a transgender identity so that they can unfairly compete in women's events.

Twitter is being interesting as usual, apparently this is a 'genocide'.

"Transgender players banned from international rugby league"
Presumably this isn't correct, I haven't read the report but I'd have thought that transgender females would be welcome to play in the women's teams (assuming not taking testosterone) and that transgender males could still play in the men's teams.
What they mean is, males can't play with females. But when you've mangled the language so much and made some things unsayable it becomes pretty difficult to explain in words that people who haven't necessarily been aware of the issue until now can understand.

We have to keep puuuulllllling.
The rules are being sorted at the elite level but it mustn't stop there.

It was bound to happen there first because there is so much public attention on high level sport, there's much more close management (control?) of players and categories at that level with drug testing etc. And also that's where the campaigning has been in both directions. The tra's did a really impressive job of getting the ioc to adopt their favoured policy, and it trickled down. Campaigners like Martina & Sharon Davies have concentrated on elite sport. World Rugby saw the issue - perhaps because Bill Beaumont went to 'a woman place is on the podium'- and had a great process to change the policy, but that's all elite level. The English women cyclists effected change via a boycott (it seems) but they might not have had such clout without the big-names eg Kenny.

It worries me that there will be a loss of interest for the grass roots level, so it's up to us to keep it on the agenda. Fair play for women wont be dropping it.

No, for historical reasons when the game split into Rugby Union and Rugby League, (different attitude on playing players), rules have diverged significantly since, the bbc and people involved in Rugby Union would refer to Rugby Union as "Rugby" and generally not refer to Rugby League at all if they could possibly help it. World rugby is the governing body of Rugby Union and therefore nothing whatsoever to do with Rugby League.

If you aren't from 'up north' its possible to not know the sport of rugby league exists at all. Just to cheer you up Australian Women's Rugby League (professional league) is kind of a huge deal, google jillaroos if you haven't heard of them.

Rugby union has been saying yes and letting tw play women - league has been steadfast in it's 'you having a laff mate?' attitude. As someone said totally untrue to say tw can't play, they just can't play women. So in that sense today's announcement isn't any kind of reversal I'm afraid but is still very good news.

Agree elite players come from grassroots

you ain’t got grassroots where are the elite going to come from

I don't think they consider women and the impact their decisions have.

The main focus is the men's game / sport and then women's sport is a tag along.

I've actually had a discussion about women's football with my brother (who used to play rugby for his school until the rest of the team outgrew him).

He was advocating for a smaller ball, pitch and goal size.

I was of the opinion if you change things like that then you will remove school and grass roots teams.

Well said Truthlikeness I understand that there are a group of young women rugby players weighing up how to challenge transwomen playing against them. They have university places, careers, families and have to consider which is worst, the risk of being maimed by one of these born males or the risk of accusation and attacks in their professional and personal lives.

A toxic decision for them - and they're completely abandoned by the male governing bodies. Who interestingly are currently in difficulties about the number of head and brain injuries happening to male players that are inadequately treated. They know the risks but ignore them in favour of the trans zealots in their midst.

I said this on another thread but will say it again here, the obsessions with elite sports drives me nuts. The vast, vast majority of people involved with amateur sports do it because they love the game, they love to pit themselves against people of a similar ability and they have no expectations of ever reaching elite levels.

Transwomen are already allowed in many amateur contact sports (including my own) and it's a disaster for women who have to play against them. I found Megan Rapinoe's comments pretty rage inducing. I don't care how many there are, I don't care if they're not 'winning' all the time.

One single transwoman on a football pitch can change the entire tenor of the game. As a female player you start to doubt yourself. You don't want to tackle them, you can't run anywhere near as fast as them, you can't contemplate going up for a header against them. Football is a dangerous game. I've had many injuries over the years and I've seen friends receive life changing injuries on the pitch. We still need to go to work on Monday. Women will just walk away.

Grassroots level is so true. It has made my DHs life to have been football Captain at school and one of the best players, it also helped him gain confidence at school when times were tough for him. He earnt it fair and square.

This was not elite level and those grassroots / school sports can still mean the world to people.

Why only ban men from women’s top games? How will the new sportswomen ever get to the top if they are being consistently beaten by men in the lower tier games?

It’s a long overdue and very welcome acknowledgment of the issues here, yes- but either: women’s sports should be ruined because of entryism by those with male physical advantage and women players should be injured or killed unnecessarily in order to be inclusive to the wishes of a tiny subset of men (who literally believe themselves to have become female) which everyone knows is not a physical possibility ….
or….. we do want to preserve female sporting competition and we don’t want to literally sacrifice women’s lives and their physical safety to the fantasies and political demands of men.

Which is it?

Another small victory even if the headline is badly expressed. The dominos are falling ...

"Transgender players banned from international rugby league"

No they aren't.

Males are banned from WOMENS rugby. They can still compete and train with the other men. I can't stand this constant hyperbole.

However this is more good news

Not anymore I think, since the Nolan podcasts. Now I believe they are in cahoots with Global Butterflies… 🤔 someone will be along to correct me if I am mistaken no doubt.

"International rugby league" when its highlighting the 'inequality' for men or indeed referring to men's sport.

'women's rugby league' when it's just boring old dinosaur women

I take it there are going to be mass public protests about this. Nz will withdraw from international competition and US civil rights campaign groups will throw their toys out of the pram and start legal action to change the minds of these governing bodies. Everyone will talk about how unfair all this trans stuff has been to Caster Semenya. There will naturally be a massive boycott of sport by all these trans athletes denied their rights to compete as women and thinking competing in an open category is too demeaning and violates their dignity and privacy. Obviously other athletes, will also boycott in solidarity. And effigies of JKR will be burnt to symbolise the injustice and how its all her fault.

Or everyone will nod along saying actually thats pretty reasonable whilst effigies of JKR are still burnt by a tiny minority.

Dr Emma Hilton is doing a review on the advantages held by prepubescent boys over girls now I believe.

That will also be interesting.

The headline certainly fuels the victimhood doesn't it?