Yes, it is another trans thread - attempted murderer Lauren Jeska

[PippaFawcett]

Absolutely no mention AT ALL in the BBC coverage that celebrated 'female' fell runner Lauren Jeska's reason for attempting to murder an athletic official is because she was discovered to be transgender and could have lost her titles, because obviously the women competing against her were at an unfair disadvantage.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-37439875

I was baffled at Jeska's motivation until I read the DM's version: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3801806/Former-fell-running-champion-Lauren-Jeska-admits-attempted-murder-former-rugby-player-Ralph-Knibbs.html#comments

Usual disclaimer that I have no issue with transgender people but this complete denial of the facts of biology does no-one any favours. And I presume this crime will go down as being perpetrated by a woman?

There's already a thread about this in AIBU. I agree, the BBC reporting on this is an absolute disgrace.

I haven't spotted that thread, I came straight to feminism chat and didn't spot one. Does the BBC have a transgender reporting policy? Serious question, there was the same issue over the transgender person who attempted/killed a parent recently too.

Yes, I've just found out about this. In fact, not only does the BBC article leave out the material fact as to the motive for the attack, in doing so, it instead pushes the time-honoured misogynistic narrative of "woman goes bonkers because... woman" by stressing instead the fact that Jeska's mental health is being assessed prior to sentencing.

The BBC really is starting to lie by omission on a regular basis (not just about this, either).

The Independent reports is similar to the BBC, with no mention of motive

Exactly Matilda. I was thinking it was some sort of jilted lover/abuse scenario when I opened the story but instead it 'mad and bad' woman attempts to kill several men.

Found it, here is the thread in AIBU.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2739095-To-be-livid-at-this-Attempted-murder-of-man-working-to-make-womens-sport-fairer

"There's already two threads about this...."

Fixed that for you.

Though multiple threads on one thing are a staple if MN

So what? I searched feminism chat and didn't find a thread, so I posted. And actually my thread title makes it pretty clear what it is about unlike the one I linked to, so it was easy to ignore.

I even put trans in the title so people could ignore it if they want to pretend feminists who care about this issue all hate trans people.

This issue is important enough for multiple threads, much more important than the multiple GBBO ones.

Thanks, OP. I read the BBC story but didn't understand there was a trans issue on this one.

This is how the BBC described Jeska's motivation:

" a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service said Jeska had been in a disagreement with athletics officials and it "escalated"."

I am sure if it had been a "disagreement" over e,g. A weight category that could've led to lost titles, more detail would have been given.

I'm not sure I have beggared belief before. But I'm doing it now.

the telegraph doesn't seem to be constrained by the reporting restrictions alleged earlier in the thread... full marks to them for actually explaining the crime.

She is transgender, it is a fact. There is no contempt of court issue with that at all.

bugger! wrong thread. meant to post on the aibu one. please ignore comment on reporting restrictions which doesn't apply here

The Telegraph link didn't work for me, here is another one: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/22/fell-runner-lauren-jeska-admits-attempted-knife-murder-of-britis/

oh dear, it's not my night for getting links right, thanks for the updated one.

Some news outlets appear to be trying to blame this person's as yet undiagnosed autism for the fact that they took three kitchen knives to kill the person who was investigating whether the fact that they were male bodied gave them an unfair advantage.

Such utter ablist shite.

Facts don't seem to matter anymore, very dangerous.

Yes BBC and other media are working with these organisation

www.onroadmedia.org.uk/work/working-with-the-transgender-community/

And

www.transmediawatch.org

So this is a person born male, constantly being described as 'she' in the media, running in women's sports? Are 'they' - struggling with language here - still male-bodied?

This is all getting so bloody ridiculous. Time to remember that language is supposed to describe the real world in order to communicate facts about it, not obfuscate and lie.

I see it's also been pointed out in the other thread that Jeska's possible autism is being taken into consideration as mitigation - but not Jeska's biological sex? That means disabled people are now liable to be chucked under the bus rather than deal with one individual's problems too as well as women. I wonder what autistic males think about that?

My DS is really pissed off about it if that helps. He has enough problems coping with how shit the world is to him without "autistic people will premeditatedly murder people for no apprentice good reason" being added to the stigma mix.

For what it's worth I submitted a complaint to the Guardian re their lack of coverage of the real reasons behind the stabbing - their response was that the reporter had no idea as the transgender issues were not mentioned in court!
I'm not sure that this reporter has much of a future in investigative journalism if they didn't spot this! I also note that the online report has to date NOT been updated (no surprise there then).

Surely the material fact is that someone who had devoted her life to her sport, and who had been accepted by the governing body as eligible to compete, was about to be retrospectively stripped of her titles and subjected to the indignity of further tests because someone, somewhere, wanted to cash in on her transsexuality.
I don't approve of what she did, but I can well understand that she must have been desperately, desperately unhappy quite possibly suicidal (several papers mention that she had been seeking psychiatric help) so in that state she may have felt that her life was not worth living and that there was nothing to be lost by taking the person she held responsible with her.
In case you hadn't guessed, I am transsexual. I can tell you (from experience) that pre-transition life as a transsexual is utterly miserable. Post-transition, it improves beyond all recognition, in spite of the discrimination and abuse whipped up by ill-informed and deliberately malicious articles in the likes of the Daily Mail.
So far as athletics is concerned (I'm not an athlete, BTW) I can tell you that my testosterone level is lower than that of non-trans women, and that if I was a non-trans woman, they would probably be prescribing testosterone supplements to get me up into the normal female range. And since I have been on HRT, my muscle mass has dropped significantly: I am at least 15kg lighter than I was, and I am now no stronger than my non-trans female colleagues at work. Other trans-women that I know have experienced exactly the same thing. The lack of testosterone also reduces our aggression. You cannot believe how nice it is (for us, and for other people) not to be angry all the time!
But it is upsetting how much deliberate disinformation is put out there by the likes of the Daily Mail in order to mislead their readers.