RFU votes in new Gender Policy

It really was Ministry of Silly Walks esque - I'll just bumble round a bit looking unfit and slow and then I'll lumber around a bit more and look as if I couldn't even lift a rugby ball so weak, pathetic and unthreatening am I - as if they'd be in the team if they were so flipping useless.

@Belovedfool

Women aren't even human to them, are we?

It's amazing how crystal clear that has become over the last 10 - 15 years. We're not human.

We're fucking support animals and should spend our lives on our knees servicing, in whatever way they need, our male superiors.

The one thing that has become increasingly clear to me while following this debate is the disproportionate anger aimed at women who say NO when that 'no' is to protect their own rights or the rights of other women and girls.

Women who say NO in contexts like the one talked about in this thread are seen as selfish and cruel. It is (intellectually) interesting to learn that this is a thing (after decades of feminism), and it might be, as you say, that women are seen as the support humans by both many men and many women.

Women might also be seen as the applauding chorus in a play about other people's heroic struggles, as the actors playing the supporting roles in films about some other individuals, and as the universal mothers, expected to act for others without any egos or personal ambition.

Loudly saying NO destroys all those myths so gets savagely attacked.

😁

There is a whole lot of appeals about how there are ‘real’ people being affected by this decision…. Meaning the males. Of course.

(Meme response nicked from Twitter)

I think The mantruming on twitter is an indication of how much the committee will have been subjected to a concerted emotionally manipulative campaign before the vote

Lots of stuff on twitter about reduced testosterone and how big cis women can play rugby and be just as powerful....

They can’t have testosterone = 0 can they? I’ve seen people argue that setting the testosterone threshold to 5 nm/o is a terribly policy because it’s physically dangerous for males to lower it to that level….

Dr A Roberts is tantrumming over twitter too. Obviously one of the males to now have to play with the other males.

Sacha seems to be having a complete meltdown over it, judging from her hyperbolic tweets. She is now offering mix sex training sessions… sorry ‘inclusive’ sessions. It’s really hit a nerve. I suspect that in a few months possibly years time she will quietly delete her tweets and deny all knowledge.

Women aren't even human to them, are we?

It's amazing how crystal clear that has become over the last 10 - 15 years. We're not human.

We're fucking support animals and should spend our lives on our knees servicing, in whatever way they need, our male superiors.

I didn't think I had the capacity to get any more angry but here I am. Even after they finally accept males don't belong in female spaces, they're effectively saying it's not about fairness or safety. It's basically about money, isn't it? Insurance and court cases and fines and damages awards. Us being human with our own needs, desires and wants doesn't even factor into it.

Thats what I thought too - the claim that their testosterone was less than biological women sounded less than correct...

There is a whole lot of appeals about how there are ‘real’ people being affected by this decision…. Meaning the males. Of course.

It is like they all forgot that there were ‘real’ people being affected by the original decision too… females! They obviously don’t count.

While I never bought into the trans women are women nonsense because I understand science I did used to feel sorry for them, thinking it must be hell not to feel comfortable with your body for whatever reason.

Now, I am so finished with this ridiculous bollox and the way trans women and their allies and handmaids are trying to rewrite science and language and obliterate women I just don't care about them and their problems any more.

I don't have the reference to hand @ThorsBedazzler, but I don't think anyone's testosterone level should be at zero. They'd be in trouble if it were - by trouble I mean ill.

All in all, a most wonderful week.
Cricket next, please!

Woman at birth! Hahahaha absurd this new BBC biology.

That was just a news item on the Radio 3 news and they used the phrase "registered as women at birth". 🙄

An awful lot of the deeply upset beardy types have a lot of Twitter posts about LGBT stuff and occasionally football, but none whatsoever about rugby.

oops, replacing all the pronouns that came naturally with a h and two dashes seems to have fucked up the formatting!

And that as other races have different genetic bone density if the argument against transwomen in women's rugby is down to bone density then white people shouldn't play against Japanese teams. And so on.

Ahem, a phrase that I acquired from Kathleen Stock (Chapter 4 of Material Girls) and Jon Pike of OU (heavily involved in the ethics of sports and women) feels relevant here, homeostatic property clusters.

If you claim 'woman' is about identity, then people will retreat to 'female'
If you then claim that there are 'female penises', people will retreat to "a homeostatic property cluster of XX chromosomes, large gametes, testes and circulating testosterone with such and such reproductive function."

Or, stop reducing women to single features/variables and pretending it's all about that. It's about male puberty and the cluster of physiological properties that it creates of which bone density may be one part alongside the relative size of the heart and cardiovascular system, explosive twitch fibres in muscles etc.

ha, I too found Alix's entitlement extremely annoying, and decision of Sky News to centre the story on h. The video just made me very ranty. They made the decision to feature hrunning round the rugby pitch doing some vaguely Ministry of Silly Walks looking warm up, contrasting h dumpy, absurd looking self with the fit female rugby players while the camera lingered for a while on an unusually tall woman while Alix blethered on about not being the biggest person on the pitch. Honestly, it was pure propaganda. I think it's hard to make a 54 year old male in women's clothing look completely harmless and unthreatening but they did their best by making him look ridiculous and unfit and trying to evoke pity. As if it's a good thing that unfit 54 year old males are competing on the same team as fit women in their twenties!

Awful wasn't it, so many vapid appeals to emotion, as if no-one else ever struggles with their bodies, their minds, or ability to access sport.

Fair enough Dark I'm sure I'd agree if I watched it. I was only reading the Web page, rules can't work just for individuals, annoys me they can't see it.