NEW REPORT: How trans inclusion in sport is harming women and girls

One of the very last times DD played football was for a University side, where the opposition fielded a man in his 30s. Most of the players would have been 18-21 and some would only just have left home. The man apparently had virtually no skills and just barged at her. She came home battered and bruised and refused the offer of a game the following week, never playing for them again. I assume some of the others players took the same action in a team that often struggled to field eleven.

Now as a junior doctor in a new area, she has joined colleagues in playing a new, quite physical, sport and is really enjoying the company and the break from long shifts. It would not be safe to play against men, and DD plays sport because it is fun. She enjoys competition, but only if the competition is fair. I hope that the problem does not repeat itself. It would be sad if girls and young women start excluding themselves in large numbers because there is no fun and no point. Being able to compete fairly is why you have a women's category in the first place.

Parisi also explained that of the total of 24 women who deregistered from the St. Patrick’s Football Club within the past several weeks, at least 20 stated that they had done so in response to becoming aware that they would be expected to play against The Flying Bats’ male team members.
“There’s a massive impact. I’m a very small club, we’ve only got seven teams in my club, and now I’ve lost both my women’s teams, and it was a direct result of members of The Flying Bats who were male playing in a female competition,”

This is what happens. Most female footballers are afraid to say they don't want males in their game (which is reasonable considering what happens to those who do say it) and simply leave. I think there's a question as to whether every league will reach critical mass of male players (as happened here) where it really impacts the women's game. I suspect it will - taking into account how many more men than women play and how 'competitive' an out of shape, much older male can be in the women's game.

And they prattle about 'inclusion'... 🙄

https://reduxx.info/exclusive-women-drop-out-of-australian-football-division-after-five-trans-identified-males-dominate-womens-league-leave-female-players-injured/

Me too.

Sorry to hear that’s happened.

Keep ranting - we're all on your side. The path to elite sport is tiring, expensive and requires massive commitment from girls and their families. It defies belief that these (generally) male dominated sports bodies are throwing away so casually the future sporting careers of so many young women in this way.

My 13 year old daughter had her shoulder broken last week, when she dared pick up a ball a boy wanted and he shoved her to the ground. Not a trans issue the school put a boy teams against girls and mixed up the sets.

objective not subjective!

A rant! There's money involved through all of this, and potential for financial discrimination.

Children succeeding in competitions at a county or regional level may be able to access small grants based on their performance, and sometimes free or reduced gym memberships or fitness classes. The cost of supporting a child who shows talent increases greatly as they progress in their chosen sport and every little helps. As they get older, you have to factor in the cost of attendance at regular pathway-to-the-top training weekends and residential talent camps linked to their sport, and also the cost of following participation in their sport's prescribed competition circuit. Kit, transport and accommodation costs can be significant.

If they continue to succeed, access to other funding may become available, all dependent on them being ranked highly enough, and on governing bodies and coaches being willing to nominate them. Athletes or their parents who object to females having to compete against males may be flagging themselves up as problematic. Selection criteria and recommendations for funding that are not 100% subjective, have the potential for discrimination against 'trouble makers'. And this continues throughout the careers of young athletes competing as juniors, or higher, on the international circuit.

If they go to university and they can demonstrate tangible successes and high rankings, young athletes may be eligible for scholarships, sports grants and other benefits. As a random example, a young international applying to Nottingham University might be able to access this sort of thing each year at the moment: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sport/performance-sport/sports-scholarships/.

All access to sports funding at any level depends on results at competitions and related rankings. Windows for selection are small, even in the four-year Olympic cycle. There's not much room for any athlete having an off-season, eg. for illness or injury, or significant upset because of male competitors in a woman's sport, or refusal to share changing rooms or accommodation. Sometimes having just one poor competition result can knock you out of the running for a crucial squad selection. The chances of that happening if a girl encounters a male opponent in a female sport are high, especially if a Wimbledon-type tableau knock-out format is used and she is beaten by a male early on in the event.

If girls can't access fair sport at the lower levels because of male competitors invading their training and competition space, they are potentially going to lose out on key results and then on access to the precious funding and facilities on offer later on in their careers. Even if the Olympics and other top international sports events are moving towards banning men from their women's categories, those events are the pinnacle of a pyramid of prejudice affecting the pool of athletes available. It will distort who can reach the top unless all levels of sport have bans imposed on male involvement in female sports.

I already self excluded from parkrun. I used to volunteer too and enjoyed the few times I managed to get first lady but I'm not supporting their nonsense any more. UKA licensed events only for me so I know there is a commitment to fairness.

As a girl who was always picked last, my interest in sport has not been great, but after reading that, I am fuming. The club told that they would not have a pitch booked if they did not each sign a document accepting male players as women? The men who continued unopposed after the national rules excluded them.!
But halfway through, I had an idea. Mostly for swimmers. They have to have a special swimsuit like those wet suit type things the girls have to wriggle into. Only this sort would have extra zips along arms and legs that would be done up by race officials after they've got into them, thus limiting the range of movement of those puberty enabled muscles.
Beat that, Liar.
And for other sports, inflatable parts to mimic bloating in periods, for example.
Not sure about field sports with tackling, or judo - that account was appalling.

I've just read the report and realised that the sport I've been thinking of taking up again, and which I knew had accessible international events for women over 70, has been dominated in recent years in this (women's) age group by a man. I'm in my late 60s and was assuming that it would take me several years to train up to a decent standard but that it would be fun to have an international event as a goal to aim for. It's not just young women who are being affected, it's veterans too. I'm going to have to find another long-term goal until the sport sorts itself out.

Only just read it, and got angrier and angrier. I have been called a transphobe and a bigot, both online and to my face and lost one or two friends when I expressed my views. Know what? I don't care. I couldn't give a rat's arse. No friend who excludes you for telling the truth is worth having.

I honestly believe that until women band together as us second wave feminists did and be totally focused and bloody minded to eventually win our human rights, we will not solve this problem. We need to be prepared to shock, to upset, to be bloody difficult and unpopular. No organisation can afford to exclude every single woman - they will fold if they do. Thankfully we are starting to see women fight back rather than exclude themselves. That's the only way to go.

This is a hill that women must be prepared to die on or our daughters and granddaughters will never forgive us.

"Courage speaks to courage everywhere" as Millecent Fawcett said.

I like the Myth Vs Reality page. Brings it all to light in an easy digestible read and (hopefully) makes it easier for journalists to pick up the salient points.

Who would have thought we would be in a situation where stating clearly observable facts is somehow radical.

It must have inspired this in the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stop-funding-grassroots-sports-that-allow-transgender-women-n3j9pzjkc

https://archive.ph/XL9gK

We have all known that this is happening but it's utterly depressing to read this in black and white.

What I also know is that there are women who were approached about this for the report, yet even under the promise of confidentiality they were still very scared that they would be doxxed, and henceforth out of protecting their teenage daughter's professional sporting aspirations they still couldn't contribute.

Trans-identifying males have created such a culture of fear. And they say they're marginalised? It really is a complete farce.

Thank you FPFW for this report. Hopefully it will land on the desks of the right people. Even the slightest shifts in policy here on this island seem to propagate across the world so. 🤞

Thank you for posting this, will forward to several people who have “skin in the game” on this particular aspect of, as FPFW express it, excluding women and girls.

Fantastic - I will be sharing this far and wide!

I read this report last night. Between the work of FPFW and WRN, I've found the last week quite upsetting. I agree with puffy on appealing to emotions.

All the groups that supposedly were around to have our backs have instead fucked us over. It's been - again - ordinary women doing the donkey work to bring these injustices to attention.

This.

It is all of it about the belief that women are walking resources for men, not equal humans.

Unless you hold that belief of sexist, binary misogyny, you'd be here with us going wtaf.

it's a good report imo, because the logical/scientific arguments were all won years (millennia) ago, but the trans lobby often has, being honest, at times been a step ahead when it comes to the appeals to emotion. stuff like this will definitely help redress that balance

It is an excellent report but it is also so predictable and depressing, we all knew this was happening we all know what the ultimate outcome will be - the total destruction of women's sport.

I am so sick of these cheating men and their enablers. Get them the fuck out of women's sports.

More excellent work from FPFW. Thank you.

And Coe (and others in sports' ruling bodies) know that perfectly well.