New sports club at DC’s high school only open to LGBTQ+ pupils and their allies

‘Lesbians are not underrepresented in sport generally, the opposite is true if anything. We don't know what the sport is, but if other sports are a guide, there will be no shortage of lesbians.’

Jesus - talk about stereotypes! Lesbians, particularly butch-er ones - are often VERY unwelcome in sports clubs ( football and rugby are perhaps the only exceptions) and we still get plenty of discrimination from other women and girls. Particularly the ones who don’t like the - well outdated - stereotype that only lesbians okay sport in the first place…

Am I missing something. DD played a lot of sport as a teenager to quite a high level. There were plenty of same sex attracted females on her team, and indeed one sports club would not have functioned without huge volunteer time contributions from some very generous lesbian women.

Thing is, no one batted an eyelid. Stonewall's campaigns of the 80s and 90s worked. Everyone was there to play sport and who you might be sexually attracted to made no difference whatsoever. The obvious example is the Lionesses, many of whom are out and proud.

It is astonishing then to hear from people like boyoboys that same sex attracted people are now an under-represented group in teen sport. What happened? Do girls who might have previously identified as butch lesbians now see themselves as transmen and so are super-body conscious. Are their team mates so tired on walking round pronouns as if they were eggs shells that these kids have effectively become pariahs and need their own space?

Something has gone badly wrong if gay teens have now lost the acceptance and engagement that they had a decade ago. I suspect that dedicated sports groups might be making the problem worse not better.

Children should not be given the ‘choice’ of playing most sports with someone of the opposite sex. That just continues to uphold the belief that sport shouldn’t be segregated by sex, only by how one identifies. The only group that this discriminates against is females.

Good post. I agree with most of what you say but disagree with you about the utility of an open or mixed category. In my view the point of it would be that you then have an absolute prohibition on anyone competing in a single sex category for the opposite sex.

OK so it's another chance for the boys/men to excel, but in a way that proves our point for us, doesn't it? The trans men and female NBs will get sick of not winning anything, they'll go back to competing with the rest of their sex, and the mixed category will become a category for biological males who don't identify as boys/men. It'll be of little use or interest to anyone. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it will give rise to a thriving transgender sports scene, in which case more power to them. But female sports will be protected and preserved for biological females of any or no gender identity.

The only thing I would say is that if it is a contact sport then a risk assessment would need to be done.

Oh just leave them alone! The reason we gays need our own teams, or meetings or groups or venue bars sometimes, is because we face discrimination, name calling and sucky attitudes the time.
If this is a club aimed at gay kids then let them be. The ‘allies’ bit is probably because some tiger parent whined that the gays kids shouldn’t be getting their own thing.

Your DS has plenty of other choices I’m sure.

OP does not even state what sport it is. There may be lots of kids clubs locally in that sport even if the school does not run one.

There are many gay children who also know that sex is immutable and do not want to ‘align’ themselves with the homophobic aspect of trans ideology such as the claim that lesbians can have a penis, and that lesbians should be prepared to date males who claim to be female.
Should there be a group for them? Or would you see that as being transphobic?

They may still want/need their own group due to prejudice and underrepresentation. I can see justification for a gay men's football team. A lesbian women's football team would be far less justifiable.

I've been in a women's sport club that folded because of a inter-team relationship breakdown 😞 a sad and difficult situation.

Although I also sadly acknowledge the homophobia I've seen directed at any successful sportswoman, whether gay or not, over many years.

I would hope that they would also offer a ‘club’ to students who hold GC beliefs, which as you well know are respected and legal, as they too are subject to bullying and harassment for holding such legal views.

How many kids are going to this club? Absolutely unbelievable that this is what schools are promoting, despicable. Completely messed up.

What's most annoying about this is that the l and g don't need a separate group, they can just play sports in their own sex teams. Their sexuality has no bearing on their playing sport.
It is only people who don't want to compete in their own sex teams who need a separate group.
So annoying that it's all lumped together.

This doesn’t make sense.
The natural implication of this is that homophobia is even more normalised in sports because people who are not homophobic will participate in special non-homophobic clubs.

No sports clubs should be a place for homophobia.

Surely the child can be a gender critical LGB ally? If asked when attending he just has to be really clear that he is there to support his homosexual and bisexual friends and neglect to mention gender.

It would also look highly suspicious that they would cross the line into indoctrinating pupils and failing in their duty to be politically impartial.

Problems I see:
This group is arbitrarily constituted and does not share a protected characteristic. Sexual orientation and gender reassignment are different. Q means nothing in law. Allies ditto.
IANAL, so maybe
Lesbians are not underrepresented in sport generally, the opposite is true if anything. We don't know what the sport is, but if other sports are a guide, there will be no shortage of lesbians.
Since a bare 0.5% of the English and Welsh population claim some sort of identity, I think it's unlikely that the T demographic actually is underrepresented. But before we can assess whether T are under-represented we would have to know what "trans" means. Nobody seems to.

Never mind not wanting to out themselves as gender-questioning, some kids may not want to out themselves as homosexual.

There is no provision for straight or gc kids of any sexual orientation to participate. Agree with pp that we shouldn't be focusing on sexual orientation and identity anyway, at least not until they are 16.

Since it is a mixed sex sport, the T demographic don't have to take part in a team labelled one sex or the other, so there would be no reason to exclude the other kids.

The L, G or B children are as likely to experience homophobic bullying in an LGBTQ group as they are anywhere else.

Agree with the points raised by the OP at 12:50.
On the face of it, this looks like a special club set up to exclude pupils as young as 11 on the grounds of their beliefs and sexual orientation. This is unfair and also ridiculous for a school. They're just kids, fgs. It would be more honest to call it a sport club for gender zealots. It's a very bad example to set as it excludes for illegitimate reasons.

Separate point:
Speaking generally to those saying that an open category in addition to the male and female categories are the way forward, please think again. All you are doing is creating another category for men to excel in. And it would not keep the male
people out of the female category, either - the only thing that keeps the female category female is a prohibition on all males. The existence of another, mixed-sex option is as attractive to males claiming to be women/girls as the existence of third spaces generally. Not validating or exciting enough.

Just in general, it would be fine to set up a gay male rugby club. In that situation, people in the local community would probably have other options if they don't meet the criteria.

However, at a state school, I don't think you should set up a gay rugby club for pupils, when no alternative exists at the school for everyone else.

'Obsession with children's sexuality.'

You'd think that statement would make everyone go: WTF?? But no, children's sexuality is the new progressive area for schools.

Where could this go wrong.... FOR FUCKS SAKE WAKE UP PEOPLE.

I predict that society is going to get so fed up with this obsession with children's sexualities that the pendulum may end up swinging back towards the "don't have sex, you will get chlamydia and die" approach.

Christ this is such a load of warped shit.

From schools being involved in kids sexuality, to there being clubs in school for
it, from the LGB being teamed with the T and queer, to the special sports
groups, from the term ally even being used in this context, to it being used to
exclude kids from sports based on sexual orientation.

It's all a crock of shite. Warped twisted out of control shit.

Time to make schools places where sex is just not discussed. They are places of
learning not social experiments. It's very inclusive: we don't talk about anybody’s
sexual orientation in school, so do that in your own time and form groups outside school.

The rule in school should be no bullying or discrimination on any grounds is
tolerated. But that doesn't mean we have to turn ourselves in twisted knots of
idiocy trying to meet every need every identity claims to have. There is a difference between protection and accommodation.

Reproduction should be taught in biology, everything else is left to families and the communities they choose to engage with. Or for young people gaining independence the communities the choose to join.

They could have a club for kids who don't engage with sport to encourage them presumably that would be a diverse group? But if an LGBTQIA+ club then why not a Hindu sports club, or a Travellers sports club or a club for ELA students? Or a club for feminist girls and their allies, but non feminist girls are excluded.

Set up a club for the issue: not engaged with sport. Not based on ever bifurcating identities.

It's a really bad stupid idea on so many levels.

I'd be telling kid not to attend that club, that I view the premise of a club on that basis as wrong, and looking for a way for them to do that sport outside school if it's that important.

I'd respectfully suggest that schools should not be running LGBT clubs - or clubs for children based on heterosexuality.
The role of schools is not to promote any form of sexuality / sexual identity to children and those who go down this route are entering a potential safeguarding nightmare.

Jinx!

Lesbians are actually over represented in quite a
number of sports (eg football) so lumping the entire LGBTQ in together undermines the legal argument that a LGBTQ specific sports club is a proportionate means to legitimate aim (unlike for example, a female only swim club in a leisure centre located in an area with a lot of Muslim residents).

A T only sports club would likely be a proportionate means to a legitimate aim (ie getting an under served and often unhealthy (!) population to be more active)

The fact that people who run schools and sports clubs don’t know that they are undermining their own legal position is a good illustration for why EQ10 needs clarification.

I'm not sure lesbians are underrepresented in sport.

To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with there being LGBT groups in a school. I'm sure they are invaluable to young gay kids, but it is becoming clear that this is becoming less about helping children in a difficult time and more about creating privileged cliches within a school.