That women shouldn’t be forced into silence over males competing in female sports

[Ikeasucks]

NEW Zealand has selected a 43 yr old transwoman to represent them in the Olympics in the women’s weightlifting competition. Female athletes feel they are being forced into silence on the issue. How did it come to this?

www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/females-told-be-quiet-transgender-issue-ex-weightlifter-2021-05-07/

As far as I am concerned this is theft of opportunity.
Thousands of girls and women everywhere having their opportunities stolen. Sickening.

@RebeccaOfSunnyHellFarm

As far as I am concerned this is theft of opportunity. Thousands of girls and women everywhere having their opportunities stolen. Sickening.

This.

[quote Maireas]@RebeccaOfSunnyHellFarm - I'm applauding everything you have said.[/quote]
Me too - what hit home was your statement that just because someone says something is hateful, doesn't mean it is.

Women are being made to be fearful of speaking out against their loss of space, their loss of voice, all things that countless women before us have fought, and in some cases died, to obtain.

Just because some people now say voices which prioritise and defend women offend them does not mean those voices are offensive.

Just saying something is offensive shouldn't mean it is silenced. The rights of 50% of the population should not be tossed aside so cheaply.

hate is an accusation used to shut down discussion and cancel people.
Women have always had to fight to be heard, and it seems that the struggle continues.

Even if you post on here about an issue involving women and trans rights, things can happen to you. I posted about the appointment of a transwoman to the role of CEO of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre earlier this week, which was in breach of its own sex specific job requirement.

I then received 9 abusive personal messages from a poster who was very in favour of trans rights. One of them threatened to come round to my house and beat me up. Now, I'm not very nervous but if I could identify who that was, obviously I'd report it to the police.

It was a very odd, sudden resort to a threat of violence from a poster.

I've also had a similar personal message on my social media from a transwoman who more or less demanded that I do free work for her in my professional field and then accused me of being transphobic when I politely declined, in a very aggressive way.

This post will probably end up deleted. But the point is there is a lot of intimidation out there, whether it comes from personal threats, fears over losing jobs/sponsorship or being sued for defamation. A lot of top athletes now won't post on social media how they feel about this issue, or even give interviews about it, which is quite frankly ridiculous.

There are a lot of people confident of getting legal aid funding or have money for legal fees, or of being listened to and taken at their word. Its very strange how a small group of people have so much power, but set in a historical context, its simply another hurdle against equality that women have to overcome. We seem to get a few years of equality and then men think up another reason why we shouldn't have it and we have to spend years or decades changing the law to make life fairer again.

Women were only "permitted" to officially run marathons in the 1980s, for gods's sake!

It's the same shit that has always been used to shut women up, only now with groundless, but well supported, accusations of hatred and bigotry thrown in.

I remember your post, @CirclesWithinCircles, and it seemed a very reasonable query about men dealing with women victims of rape. I'm horrified that you got such a response, that's vile.

That was actually a failed bold of @Mulletsaremisunderstood post.

I agree with the sentiment which is why I thought it worth repeating and adding to.

You only have to spend a little time on this to see how fear of being accused of bigotry is causing polite, respectful feminists to question themselves.

@CirclesWithinCircles Mumsnet actually can release information to the police if a crime or safeguarding issue requires it. I'd encourage you to contact them regarding that threat of physical violence and take it further.

[quote RebeccaOfSunnyHellFarm]@CirclesWithinCircles Mumsnet actually can release information to the police if a crime or safeguarding issue requires it. I'd encourage you to contact them regarding that threat of physical violence and take it further.[/quote]
Quoted for truth. I also screenshot your post, Circles, in case it does get deleted, which plainly it should not.

[quote RebeccaOfSunnyHellFarm]@CirclesWithinCircles Mumsnet actually can release information to the police if a crime or safeguarding issue requires it. I'd encourage you to contact them regarding that threat of physical violence and take it further.[/quote]
Oh god yes, please tell @MNHQ you need assistance going to the Police for being threatened online.

Obviously you don't have to tell us what you're doing. Do what's best.

I then received 9 abusive personal messages from a poster who was very in favour of trans rights. One of them threatened to come round to my house and beat me up. Now, I'm not very nervous but if I could identify who that was, obviously I'd report it to the police.

You mean MN PMs? I hope you reported these messages to MNHQ and blocked the poster?

Yes report to MNHQ. All online abuse should be reported.

Especially when people are resorting to abuse to shut down discussion. The more people are arrested and charged for these offences the bigger the deterrent to do it and the more chance we have if being allowed open debate without topics being shut down.

I'm sorry Circles, that's absolutely awful.

@TheWordWomanIsTaken

bambam2019 They don’t feel safe competing in their own caragory (and again, this brings me back to a PP point that it is not the job of women to validate someone’s feelings, which is a fair point and something for me to think about!)

This is something you said quite a bit upthread. I'm interested to know what you mean by 'safe' in this statement.
It is something I see written a lot, but don't really know what it is meant to mean in context.
How do transwomen feel 'unsafe' in sport?

Hi. So as I am not trans myself, and even if I was I couldn’t possibly speak on behalf of all trans people globally, I cannot give every single reason as to why a trans person doesn’t feel safe. But violence towards the trans community is unfortunately very common. Perhaps that is why they feel unsafe. As iI then went on to say, I am aware it isn’t then the responsibility of women athletes to protect trans people from abuse. I am just giving an example. This is also based on my personal knowledge- having spoken to trans people I know personally.

It is cheating and trans athletes should feel utterly ashamed.....but of course they don't. Just self-righteous narcissistic entitlement which seems to be the hallmark of the current cultural climate.

Bambam2019

Violence against (biological) women is far more common

My husband doesn't do team sports, partly due to the macho dominance crap that goes on there. When he was younger the huge hulking ones used to pick him up (he was small) and threaten to chuck him. He had an Asian friend who was treated similarly and dangled out the window.

So male violence is not exclusive to trans people. Anyone who doesn't fit the narrow constraints of masculinity is targeted. Unless they are challenged and the culture stamped out it will keep happening. The solution is not to move everyone to the women's facilities and services.
We are not human shields.
So, no, sorry I don't buy feeling unsafe as a reason to blackmail us into budging over. Plenty of men miss out because of feeling unwelcome and unsafe. If Walter Tull had joined the ladies squad do you think he'd have helped start the conversation about racism in football? Plenty of people feel vulnerable and for good reason. That's why we work towards equality.
But equality is not a power grab free for all for tq+ I'm afraid.

@BellaTheDog

I’ve just been thrown off the Sydney Vegans Facebook page for talking about this. But not before they called me all kinds of names. I have been a part of that group for years.

So much for free speech.

Ironically, I donated money to someone being unfairly sued for defamation, but found out my money isn't wanted because I dont hold exactly the same views as him in regards to this issue (pretty sure we agree on a tonne of other political issues). Uuuuuummmmmm.... hmmmmm. Well then. So it's not really about valuing people being able to speak out... it's really just about this one person with a particular set of views being able to speak out.

@Bambam2019, since you claim to have accepted that it is indeed necessary to segregate sport by sex, as natural male advantage is obvious ( en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis) ) and unchanged by how one feels on the inside.... do you think you could give it a rest, now?

You're absolutely right that anti trans violence exists and is completely unacceptable, but it simply isn't relevant to this discussion. It is, frankly, not women athletes who are killing trans people or issuing threats to anyone. The only people who are unsafe in mixed sex sports are natal women, like the one who just had her skull cracked by a trans woman boxer who then boasted on Twitter about it (screenshot posted earlier).

When you keep bringing this up and attempting to justify yourself in this particular debate, as well as choosing Mumsnet of all places to call for respectful discussion, it really does give the impression that you are trying to deflect, derail and weaken the importance of what is being said on here, since you can no longer argue against its truth. That may not be your intention, but it's certainly how it's coming across to me.

I have finally caught up. What a lively thread.

My only comment is that to those posters claiming this is ‘hateful’ and phobic to discuss how women are losing opportunities to transwomen in sport, What is your solution, please?

Can you please post the links to evidence that supports your solution. Studies that answer the recent science based studies that prove unequivocally that males who have gone through male puberty lose their advantage sufficiently to compete safely and fairly with females in the female category.

Otherwise, it seems like you just want women and girls to be kind and jeopardize their safety and their ability to compete fairly. Is that what you propose?

To be honest I think it's just that @Bambam2019 female socialisation is showing.

*Transgender athletes should absolutely be able to compete with the gender that they identify with.

Why? Why should they be able do this?*

^^I notice letsgetreadytocrumble hasn't come back to explain. I've yet to hear an intelligent cohesive argument for why the burden of trans people's self-beliefs are the burden of female athletes. Could it be it's indefensible?

@RebeccaOfSunnyHellFarm

To be honest I think it's just that *@Bambam2019* female socialisation is showing.

That is what I am seeing too.

To be honest, I think a lot of us on here started from this position of wanting to please everyone, but it doesn't actually work for anyone in the long run. Giving an inch seems to involve being pushed flat onto the floor - and the longer you get involved in the debate, the more obvious that is.

I think sport is one of the situations where the 'I want everyone to be happy' position is least tenable.

The other thing is that the likes of Ivy and Fox and Mouncey aren't thankful to be allowed the safety of women's sports. The crow and railroad and push further. They make women far more unsafe than they were with the men.

The other thing I think Bambam may be unaware of, is that if you listen to trans rhetoric about being 'unsafe' for long enough it quickly becomes apparent that most (not all, but definitely most) of the 'unsafe' claims are to do with a lack of validation. Misgendering is violence.

I haven't heard of any stories of trans people being attacked by their own rugby teams, football teams, athletic co-competitors. I am not saying it doesn't happen, just that I think they would be plastered all over Twitter if they did.

Stop trying to appease everyone, Bambam and decide who your self-proclaimed feminism is supposed to centre.

Hint: if it is men, it isn't feminism.

It's madness. But it crumbles the whole house of cards. Proves it to be nonsense. That's why it's so rabidly defended. What a time to be alive.