Referee Changing Rooms

Hopefully the basic science of the intervening 5 years has shown him that he was talking through his backside.

Do managers get ‘changed’, in the sense of changing their clothes when they arrive at the ground? In my very limited knowledge, I thought they seem to wear suits or other non sports ‘outerwear’. The picture of Lucy is when officiating as a referee, which presumably would be at a game not involving the team Lucy manages.

Of course, during the interval or whatever they call it, I assume Lucy will be going into the team dressing room for the tactics and pep talk. Lucy won’t be standing outside the closed door talking loudly . And after the game, Lucy will be in there celebrating or commiserating…..I’ve just discovered that when a manager is unpopular with the team, it’s known as ‘losing the dressing room’.

from a previous age:

• Phil Neville keeps half-time team talks to just two minutes as he aims to give England stars privacy in the dressing room during Women's World CupThere are no rules limiting time that a male coach can spend in dressing room
• Phil Neville decided it is inappropriate for him to be among players at that time
• He has also been handling debriefs with on-pitch huddles rather than in room

Look at the wording on the second photo - it explains why Lucy is referred to as both a referee and a manager.

https://x.com/victorialive/status/1102519678809726976?s=46&t=ZX_bLozRqm8etdGICMcAvA

I guess people can make their own mind up.

Women as a class are more oppressed than men as a class.

Until a man puts on a wig or simply says he's a woman.

Then he is more oppressed than women as a class.

I would say you couldn't make it up but...

Providing he doesn’t insert himself in the female changing rooms or toilets or put any pressure on other people to mis-sex him then he can go about his business quietly as a man who dresses as a woman.

Don’t lots of women’s football teams have male managers and coaches? Hopefully there’s plenty of spaces for Lucy to change in without encroaching on the female spaces. And I agree with some others on here - celebrate the first transwoman referee on a women’s team, as they no doubt celebrated the first transwoman referee on a male team - as long as they’re not being celebrated as the first female ref. JKR is under unimaginable online harassment on a daily basis - occasionally she does a ‘For Fucks Sake!’ post and I can’t blame her but I prefer it when she writes her brilliantly crafted, eloquent posts - but she’s only human and I’ll forgive her this slight wobble of the halo 😇

The refs for my DS's football team tend to turn up already changed, and leave in their kit at the end of the match.

Most of the teams they play don't have a club house. Those that do would probably have a separate area for the match officials to get changed as they wouldn't be allowed to change with the players.

Isn't a manager and a referee a different thing?

Indeed. They used to call it 'peaking' but in my experience it's more of a thud. You thud back down to earth, and see a cross dressing man, nothing more, nothing less.

Ten years ago that would have been an unexceptional observation. Now, we are somehow told that it's a value judgement to say this is a cross dressing man, and that it's 'cruel' to say so. It's not, it's just a plain, straightforward statement of fact.

Why is a cross dressing man being given awards, newspaper front pages, and plaudits? What is it that's so special about wearing lipstick?

I feel humiliated seeing those pictures of him. It’s taking the piss out of us and getting off on it at once.

Once you see it you can't unsee it.

How many women (natal ones) are in similar roles (as a percentage of the total)?

I'm with JKR. He's taking the piss out of all of us.

I feel humiliated seeing those pictures of him. It’s taking the piss out of us and getting off on it at once.

I feel bad for his wife. I think it’s important a man doesn’t get treated like some trailblazing hero for wearing a wig, blowing a pink whistle and claiming that he is ‘living as a woman’.

I do agree with this. I’m gender critical. I disagree with males in womens sports and changing rooms. I disagree with them getting female awards, etc. but I don’t like putting the spotlight on an individual in this way. Fair enough if it’s the male weightlifter on the NZ women’s team, a spotlight needs shining on that. But this person isn’t taking anything away from a woman.

This.

Don't forget now everything is transphobic and threats of violence for being a terf are also how they work.

I'm not sure that jumping on it doesn't make GC women just look like they hate transpeople doing anything.

Yes, that's what I'm afraid of. It is natural to become embittered, in such difficult times. But it doesn't help the gc cause whatsoever. And of course it is part of a much wider social trend towards mutual hostility and rage on a whole range of issues, in which the idea of actually creating solutions takes second place to the alleged value of expressing righteous outrage.
Ultimately we want to solve a problem, not just Be Right.

I'm probably way out of step here but...on the one hand I find JKR's tweet funny, but I'm also not sure of the point. When people like Clark are being touted as the 'first woman' to do something I get the objection. However when they are 'the first transperson' I'm not sure that jumping on it doesn't make GC women just look like they hate transpeople doing anything. Anyway I'll await the flak.

I like her sense of humour.

The pink whistle ffs.

I wish crossdressers would go back to doing it privately. It’s offensive to women.

That's not necessarily true, given the dearth of female officials. If you look at the picture of Lucy reffing, there's one female lino, and one male. A bigger question is what are the FA rules about male managers being in the dressing room while the women's team are changing.

A decade ago TW weren’t busily inserting themselves into everyone female space they could find with no thought for the impact on women and didn’t demand everyone considered them actual women

The presence of trans women in women’s sport and the practical impact of that is a valid question.

There is zero info in the story about changing facilities, so no reason to use this story as another thread for discussing changing facilities. Basically the thread is just, "Oh, look, a transwoman."

These people have always existed, and until the recent absurd over-reach of trans activism, there was room for tolerance. We can still preserve that tolerance if law and society cease requiring us to parrot falsehoods or give up our rights to acknowledge and organise around our material sex, and preserve sex-based rights.

Try to think back a decade, to a period before the absurd TRA activism that created the current situation. What would you have thought then of someone who basically just pointed at a transwoman to express mistrust and hostility?