Martina speaks out!

[PimmsnLemonade]

I'm so pleased to see this. I've been a big fan of Martina since I was a kid and this just makes her go up even higher in my estimation:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/martina-navratilova-blasts-cheating-transgender-women-in-sport-8fmjbnh99

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-rules-on-trans-athletes-reward-cheats-and-punish-the-innocent-klsrq6h3

nauticant

Thanks for that link to the Outsports twitter feed, the replies are taking the article apart, totally ripping it to shreds.
I have a feeling that so many more people are going to be peak transed over this.
I also see that McKinnon refused to appear on a BBC radio programme with FairPlayForWomen, comparing them to the KKK - how predictable.

I did wonder if Laurel Hubbard retiring from the recent Commonwealth Games injured was tactical, because the coverage of Laurel’s amazing progress towards gold seemed to be rushing media coverage of this issue towards a tipping point. It was terribly convenient.

"FPFW is a explicitly organisation"

What's an explicitly organisation?

And what month long smear campaign? You mean, basically FPFW communicating to their followers that RM broke a women's world record, which RM actually did do? Hardly a smear campaign.

“if TW have an advantage in sport why aren’t they winning left, right and centre?

a) at the moment at least, the numbers are low. So there aren't TW competing in every sport, at every event, every time. But where TW are competing, they either win (or place in the medals) or they perform significantly better than a similar aged woman would perform.

b) it's not just about winning, it's about women's safety. Not so much of an issue with track cycling (although a collision would be much nastier than one between two women), but women's contact sports become unsafe with a male bodied player in the mix

The juxtaposition of McKinnon's continuing ranting and raving about this on Twitter, and Martina, having clearly laid out her position in the article, keeping a dignified silence on the matter on Twitter and just getting with tweeting her usual stuff, despite the fact that her DMs and mentions must be full of abuse right now, is just glorious.

What a classy woman she is.

I did wonder if Laurel Hubbard retiring from the recent Commonwealth Games injured was tactical

They did genuinely injure themself in a way that wasn't faked, which in a way was annoying because they were a true one person peak-trans machine.

And McKinnon saying 'I am a biological woman'.

No honey, that's really not how this works. Do these people honestly think that if they keep saying this over and over, people will just say 'yes dear, of course you are'?

Let’s see whether more trans women do well in female events than trans men in male. I think we all know.

Plus even if testosterone were the only issue (it isn’t), in these days of self ID you don’t have to be taking hormones to be trans. McKinnon is calling for the right to compete “without restriction” so not sure how that fits, unless she is saying males don’t have an advantage over females in which case words fail me.

The reason trans peoole haven’t so far overtaken women’s sport is because it has only just become acceptable in society to be declare yourself a woman on your say so. Look at the example of Richards that Navratilova uses, someone who is what is the traditional view of a transsexual. If 20-30 years ago someone had tried to box/race against a woman on their so they have been deemed a cheeky fucker at best and would have been told no in no uncertain terms. Now, the woke have said “acceptance with no exception” and this is one of the consequences. People see an avenue of opportunity to be socially accepted as a woman and achieve prizes in events they would be otherwise mediocre at as a male.

I'm not going to link this tweet, because it's on the Twitter replies of someone that doesn't need the ego boost of lots of MNers clicking on it (IYSWIM), but how dumb and insulting is this: "there shouldn't be "men's" and "women's" sports categories, they should be divided up by actual skill level and performance, because thats actually sensible"

No dear. That would end up with categories like Elite (99.9% men) / Super (mostly men, transwomen plus a smattering of women) / Advanced (a few men, some transwomen, most women)

Ie women would be relegated to the crappy, not so good at anything category. Again.

Rather than having a competition where we had the chance of winning, with equipment (lighter javelins, lower hurdles etc) that was better suited to our physiques to help avoid injury and allow us to perform at our best.

As I was reading round this yesterday, the position of McKinnon and co, that male bodied trans people should compete in female sport without restriction, I was struck by the comments that basically dismissed any ideas about women being disadvantaged and said the only thing that mattered was what was fair to the trans person. All the buzzword patter, 'inclusion' etc. just distilled into a bare, blunt "If you don't let trans people do exactly what they want, you are excluding them from sport. This is bad."

It was essentially another version of "This never happens" in other topics touched by trans issues - "Women are vulnerable to attack in this space, and allowing males bodied people to identify in would put them at risk" - That would never happen. "But it has." - inclusion, be fair, be kind, submit.

So "Women are disadvantaged and vulnerable when males compete without restriction against them." - They aren't, TW don't win all the time. "But women have been physically hurt, and displaced by TW already." - inclusion, be fair, be kind, submit.

McTufty
"Incidentally I don’t think Rachel McKinnon ever became a male world champion."

McKinnon was never a World champion at anything, and only needed 15 months training on a bike before "winning" the World championship last October.

Here is a short list of current transwomen athletes

me.me/i/thisisnot-progress-give-athletics-back-to-the-boys-erican-college-3a80b003dcb8494baa431bde5f1db1e9

@catkind I agree with you here. The one thing I disagree with in Martina’s piece is where she says, essentially, that transwomen without penises are OK ago compete as women, when surely they have the same unfair advantage (height, bone structure, musculature etc) as transwomen with penises.

Unless Martina is being subtle, knowing that the vast majority of TW have penises and won’t opt for surgery that gives such poor results. I’m not sure.

I think Martina is probably just going through the stages many of us have of trying to be nice and of knowing people who are transsex and struggling to equate that experience with the more modern definition of trans.

I can't believe the absurdity of McKinnon saying 'I am a biological woman". They really are living in cloud cuckoo land.

It's like Heather Peto who starts every interview with "I'm a woman, I've always been a woman.

They don't really believe they are woman because actual woman don't have to continually make such statements.

I hope Martina has turned the tide and more high profile people speak up.

What a drama llama McKinnon is. The victimology tweets are straight out of the Madigan playbook.

Her take is interesting. She seems to feel that if you show yourself fully committed to transgenderism/transsexualism by having bits cut off, you're somehow proving genuine woman-ness and can compete. I wonder if she'd still say the same if presented with an individual who did have the surgeries and still massively outstripped their performance as a male.

I hope we can get away from this idea that castration can be a ticket into womanhood. It's illogical and inhuman.

It'll be interesting to see how BBC responds. I still have a tv licence...

In haste but just coming on to show my support to Martina. Once again showing the world what a role model looks like.
Also I’m so pleased to see how much support she’s getting for standing up for fairness.

It makes the silence of those elected to represent us and paid to do so, even more deafening. For shame.

Wrt Martina and the distinction she is making between pre and post op trans.

Everyone has different opinions on this, because we are not a monolith, and also because we are all at different stages in the discussion. How many of the posters on FWR have explained that they started from position of unquestioningly supportive trans ally? And then it started to change through a combination of examining the issues and seeing or being on the receiving end of the behaviour of trans-inspired AWAs.

We all have different red lines, and they do change over time. I started out happy to use personal pronouns and now I am resolute about correct ones and neutral ones on places where correct ones get you banned. I used to use 'Transwoman' but when the controlling cult members started insisting on the gap, I moved away from using the word woman in connection with male bodied people entirely.

I personally would not make the distinction between pre and post op trans people, and my reasons are that I think anything which actively encourages people to have unnecessary and mutilating cosmetic surgery as a way to solve their mental distress is abhorrent and should be avoided at all costs.

We all think differently, and that's fine, as long as we do actually think.

WomEn = plural

Sorry to be pedantic but this typo is really pissing me off now when it comes to this subject.

If we can't get the Spag right at a very basic level it doesn't exactly bode well for our cause.

People will grab at any nuance in semantics to argue, let's just get our words right.

I hope Martina has turned the tide and more high profile people speak up.
Yes it’s great to see Martina winning so much popular support but I think other athletes now need to step up too. I don’t say that lightly and I’m very careful what I say in public myself but I think it’s time. And I don’t just mean females either.

I agree with the posters upthread about the dignity MN is showing, in comparison to Rachel Mckinnon conspicuously losing their shit in public

and yes, MN's distinction between males who have had cosmetic surgery on their genitals and males who haven't is jarring, but as Floral says, she's probably at the start of a journey many of us here have been on.

I'll tell my phone you don't like the way it corrected me. In my anger I didn't proof read my post. I shall not bother posting any more.

It's a general gripe of mine Salt not personal. Please keep posting.

no flouncing allowed Saltovinegar

I'm sure the majority of people read that post and rolled their eyes. I know I did

you don't have to pass a SPAG test to post here, I can assure you