Trans identifying male Harriet Haynes loses court case to play in women's pool

If I read it correctly, the judge is saying that in this case argued before him, there wasn’t evidence that the presence of trans women was off putting to women entering the sport. There were complaints from women about bathroom usage but those trans women would be using the same women’s facilities and generating the same complaints even if they weren’t playing but spectating instead.

It doesn’t mean that another sport or another case couldn’t ever show that women were put off, just that the evidence presented here didn’t convince him. Whereas the evidence on the point of fairness did convince him.

Really not a big deal.

He didn’t claim sex discrimination though. He claimed “gender reassignment discrimination”.

The judgement is worth a read & the claimants agreement gets a thorough spanking with the judge commenting on their contradictions & how their arguments fall apart under FWS.

One of the reasons pointed out was a women with protected characteristic of gender reassignment would not be excluded from the women’s category.

may the dream team of JR & RMW keep going.

https://www.outertemple.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/K01CT207-judgment-1-8-25-handed-down24.pdf

Well I guess there could be a mixed section in pool. My female mate used to wipe the table with all the men in the pub team, and we went to play other pubs too. She was the only woman but won nearly every game.

But yeah, in many sports it's to gain advantage. In some it is just to take over something because you wish you were part of it when you're not and can't ever be.

I think that's what he was saying, but I think he's wrong. (Cheeky of me!) Women's and girls' chess is usually justified as Positive Action anyway but a MCW would still be a man with the PC of GR and therefore excludable either way.

Great news. As a pp said, the team if RMW and JR are our best friends 😄

Amazing 🫶

So by this argument the judge would be okay with men competing in the women's category in, say, chess - have I understood that right?

Yes there is. I saw Lynne Pinches explaining it quite well somewhere (can't remember where). Apparently men clear more balls during the break than women do, which is a massive advantage.

And even though players generally aren't using the full extent of their power, there's always a trade-off between power and accuracy. So for any given shot, a man can be more accurate than a woman (because he's operating at a lower percentage of his "full power" than she would be of hers, if that makes sense).

Read the judgement - it reports in some detail what the four experts said about pool being a gender-affected sport! I can't tell you what it said as I skipped that part but the judge's conclusion was that it is (though he also said he didn't need to know that to decide the case).

I think this shows how grateful we should be to FWS. I know I am especially on behalf of my daughters, nieces etc so access to sport isn’t hindered because they end up playing against men.

The scientific evidence was discussed in great detail and is laid out comprehensively in the judgment. The judge concluded that yes men would have an advantage.

Clearly males should not play in women's sports, but I wonder why pool isn't an open game. Is there much difference between male and female players? Or is it that men have excluded women? Or something else.

I really enjoyed reading the judgment (but then I am a lawyer), it is clear that Robin White and Jane Russell could barely organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone make coherent arguments as to why some men with special identities should be able to play in women’s sports.

Any barrister with a grasp of the law would have told Harriet that his claim of gender reassignment discrimination had no prospect of success, and that a claim of sex discrimination (which would have been the correct claim, but one which he would have been ideologically able to pursue) was bound to fail after FWS.

Well, JR does in fact credit herself in her bio as being partially responsible for the “landmark” Forstater ruling! Which is indeed true.

I don't know how anyone can argue that TIMs don't have an advantage when there's two of them in the women's final. They supposedly only make up 0.5% of the population and are a tiny and vulnerable group. Yet there they are, rising stubbornly to the top.

It was good to see in the judgement discussion of the various human rights articles that TRAs believe will be their saviour and why they were not relevant.

The decision comes after protests were held at the final of the Ultimate Pool Women's Pro Series Event earlier this month, which was competed between Harriet Haynes and Lucy Smith - two transgender women.

I had forgotten this. It is a good example of the importance of keeping female categories protected.

JR and RMW have beclowned themselves for the ideology.

In their minds I suppose, society has been sufficiently steeped in queer theory that a legal argument does not have to be right to win. In fact it is better to be non-normative. Men are women! SC rulings are the opposite to what the Judges say they are!

Even more accurate would have been "Trans identified man loses case... etc"

RMW and JR - a winning combo for the GC side 😃

My guess is you don't want to play against your biological equals because you'd come up as mediocre.

No, in this case, it's because they want the validation of playing against women. We are all supposed to perform for their fantasy.

Exactly - they had already been banned, this was the challenge to it. Which was lame, poorly articulated, confusing, and ultimately unsuccessful

I hate the way these people always say they were 'banned'. No you're not banned, you were never meant to be in the female category and therefore should go in the mens. You are not excluded from the sport.

My guess is you don't want to play against your biological equals because you'd come up as mediocre.

Like if a boxer was a bit shite at middleweight, saying, ok well I'm going to 'identify' as flyweight and if I don't get to compete at that weight category despite being heavier, then I'm barred from the sport entirely. Boo hoo.

I would have preferred something more accurate like 'Transwomen loses case of sex discrimination against being banned from female category'.

The BBC is such a waste of space. 🤬

Yep.

Oh well. Baby steps.