Wah wah wah. 'Snot fair.

My authentic self is a rich lady... and literally no one is accepting me as my true self and letting me not work and drink Champagne by a pool. WAHHHHH

I remember an embarrassing conversation at school when a friend asked if a cricket box was something to keep balls in. I still giggle about that now, decades later.

😮whaat?
That's new to me, and although 'every day's a school day' on MN, that's something I'm happy to stay ignorant about!😬

You may be at risk of "flapmash". Yet another aspect of women's biology and lived experience that we don't share with TW. 😂

You've just reminded me - I used to have friends who were keen cyclists, and I remember them pointing out to me that 'proper' bicycle saddles are binary and immutable because guess what? men and women have different physiques and therefore difference saddles are designed for each.

Anybody who has read Flann O'Brien's Third Policeman will be aware of the dangers of atomic interchange if a man uses a women's saddle, or vice versa:

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them, and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.
“The postman?” I said.
“Seventy-one percent,” he said quietly.
“Great Scot!”
“A round of thirty-eight miles on the bicycle every single day for forty years, hail, rain or snowballs. There is very little hope of ever getting his number down below fifty again.”

But even after 38 miles every day for 40 years on a women's saddle, he still wouldn't be eligible to compete in races against women, right?

To be fair, I went cycling the other day and was surprised by how much it hurt the old fouffe! I've now bought padded shorts and apparently once my 'seat bones ' have bedded in to my new bike, I can have my saddle changed or adjusted for greater ladybits comfort. Protecting the fanny is no laughing matter! 🤣🤣🤣

There are female 'abdominal guards' [I love the euphemisms 'Oh dear, he's been hit in the..... lower abdominal area - painful, that!' - but all the other blokes are laughing like it's funny while their team-mate writhes in agony - men are weird]

If you get hit by a hard object travelling at over 70mph on the relatively unprotected pubic bone, it hurts a lot. I'd cover myself completely head-to-foot in thick padding before I'd face the likes of Shabnim Ismail. And hide behind the wicket-keeper😏

Not that that's ever going to happen as I don't play cricket at Test level. Or county level. Or club level. Or, for that matter, at all. Phew, that's one less thing to worry about! 😃

I used to try and wear my son's "guard" (willy holder) for giggles but it kept falling off 😂

Nope.

Trans men (women) play in women's cricket teams. How are they being 'themselves' in the way you are indicating if they are on a women's team?!!

Something that's NEVER pointed out! If a trans man plays on a woman's team with zero fuss, then a trans woman can play on a men's team.

There, simple and sorted.

It was meant to be.

This is a silly thread.

StMarie4me · Today 11:24

And your thread title is so inspiring and mature.

Ah, I see that you haven't mastered the ancient art of Taking The Piss.

I thought it was highly accurate portrayal of the phenomenon described.

Flouncing and "considering giving it all up" just because you've finally been told NO is hardly an inspiring or mature look for an adult either!

Which brings us to that piece of equipment that they still need and women do not!

And I used to think it was a knee guard and walk around with my father's protector on my knee.

I'm confused. I thought trans women were the most pioneering equality go-getting women ever? So why do they want to stay playing boring old safe girly cricket when they could be smashing down boundaries and pioneering participation in open teams/matches. Then in 10 years they could claim that as another thing they revolutionised for (actual) women.

Exactly!

Yes, but JasmineAllen that is why they will never admit that it is based on sex stereotypes. That is why they double down on the 'inate feeling'. Which is a fallacious position but they also cannot acknowledge that. So they fall back on the 'I cannot ever know how those people feel, so I have to believe it is something that cannot be determined, defined or diagnosed because I can never 'feel' it myself.'

Which leads into the fallacious position that underlies the entire 'feels like' position. Because how can anyone declare that they feel like a woman when every interaction in their life is as a person with a male body who has stuck a 'woman' label on those interactions.

For instance, it is only because they react how they imagine a stereotypical female will react that they label it thus. Or they react how they cannot imagine another male person reacting. Because it is not only their conceptualisation of how female people live and react to society, it is their rejection of how their conceptualisation of male people live and reaction to society.

And once you see this rather clear disconnect, you can never go back to mere acceptance because someone said so.

About as inspiring and mature as grown men having strops because they can’t play in women’s teams.

And your thread title is so inspiring and mature.

Quite so: as big a load of bollocks as the bollocks they undoubtedly still possess...

Gender is the tool of our oppression

it is abhorrent that gender studies across academia have become about the very thing it was created to challenge

You know what @MyrtleLion you've just provided me with a lightbulb moment, thank you.

Obviously I support single sex spaces and find the whole genderwang movement at best ridiculous, at worst a danger to women and children but until I read your post I never consciously acknowledged something else:

Then they started to insist on pronouns and that being female was about sex stereotypes when I've been fighting them all my life.

I too have long fought against sex stereotypes and it is this backwards looking element of the trans that sickens me so much. It's not so much that a man puts on a dress and makeup and expects everyone to think he's now a woman (ridiculous though that is), it's the dragging women's rights backwards by 40 years to a time when women were expected to look and behave in a certain way. This is what pisses me off.

I suspect many male TRAs would like a return to those days and when women 'knew their place' and dressed accordingly.

‘authentic self’

There’s few things less authentic than a man pretending to be a woman. Barging his way onto a women’s team then having a tantrum when, shock horror, he’s told that their single sex sports category is not a stage for his performative nonsense.

Balls in every sense of the word.

But there is a cow corner!

Absolutely my daughter played on a 'mixed' team on Wednesday night with one other woman and 9 men. The opposition had 10 men and 1 woman.

Most clubs don't offer any changing / shower facilities for the women and some don't even have a women's toilet.

These men (who are complaining about not being allowed in women's teams) make me sick, it's all about them. It's nothing to do with fairness for women.

The women put up with these things because they love the sport.

All of the emphasis on 'inclusion' on the part of the ECB has been about trans inclusion. Hopefully now that that ship has well and truly sailed they'll work on ensuring fairness for women.