Deborah Frances-White and trans-women in sport

[RitaFairclough]

I think DFW is marvellous and I love the Guilty Feminist. But I just read her comment on Twitter about the sport debate and I am wondering how any feminist can really support that position.

I am too scaredy cat to comment on twitter because I use it for work stuff, but I would like to present the following scenarios...

You are a 12-year-old girl and you are really fast at running. You win medals and you dream of being at the Olympics one day. You can even beat the boys - for now. When you are 13, or 14, a trans-girl arrives in your races. She is much taller than you and she runs faster. She wins the medals, and the sponsorship. You know however hard you train you will never beat her. You give up running.

Or

You are a 12-year-old boy and you’re good at running. But by the time you’re 14, your times are slipping and you’re not winning any more. Your coach suggests you say you’re a girl and try your luck in those races. You’re not keen but your parents are pushy and your coach is too, and once you’ve done it once and won a medal easily you start to see the benefits...

I just can’t see any way in which girls or women don’t lose here.

Her argument isn’t very intelligent at all. It’s emotional manipulation.

Why is it the job of girls to lose out on their athletic dreams so a male-bodied individual can "feel comfortable in their skin"? Why is it always the girls who have to move over.

(For instance the girls who placed 7th and 8th in the Connecticut state under 18s championships, who will not get to go to national trials and be seen by college coaches and possibly win athletics scholarships which will pay for their university education? All because two male bodied individuals, who had gone through male puberty already, were not even on any sort of blocker, had scooped up 1st and 2nd place.)

This woman writes a feminist blog. How can you write a feminist blog and not ask the absolutely basic question: WHAT ABOUT THE GIRLS?

This is such rubbish. For a start there is no such thing as a 12 yr old boy that is a girl. You can't legally transition under 18 so the concept is a nonsense. They might want to be thought of as a girl but no one is under any obligation to go along with that especially where sport in concerned.

No thought given for millions of girls who, if this continues, will very quickly come to understand there is no point in pursuing professional or amateur sport because it only takes one male in any given competition to wreck anything they have worked years for.

It looks like people are thinking along the same lines as you, OP.

There's a lot to like about DFW. She's a good comedian and public speaker (there's a lot of good stuff in her TED talk). But I found I had to stop listening to the guilty feminist as it became less and less woman-centred and allowed misogynistic speech (I heard the T word more than once). As far as I can see she has totally taken on board the belief that trans men/women are and always have been actual men/women, so acts according to that belief. Interestingly she also talks a lot about being indoctrinated into and then escaping a cult.

DFW lets men tell her what she can and can’t say about her own body on her own flipping podcast.

As the youth say, I just can’t.

What about the girls Deborah??!

I’ve seen her talk, it seems inclusivity is more important to her than standing up for women.
I think she’s of the woke generation that thinks women have equality now and should look after everyone else and stop whinging.

She still wants to please men so therefore says that. Any man worth his salt would dismiss it as misogyny.

Deborah Frances-White is an idiot. A useful idiot, so long as you're not a woman.

I stopped listening to Guilty Feminist when she 'corrected' her own use of the term women to cis-women. Fuck that.

I’ve stopped downloading or listening to the Guilty Feminist Podcast as she refers to women as being cis. I’m not cis and I’m not going to be cissed by someone.

At exactly the same time @Troutfin

Yet again, how bloody disappointing. I agree there is a lot to admire about DFW although I find The Guilty Feminist total cringe and could only cope with about an episode and a half before swearing off it forever more

I don't know who she, is but a 12 year old boy who is genuinely confused about what sex he ACTUALLY is has bigger problems than winning at sport or not.
Is that what she is saying? That there are 12 year old boys who feel like girls and therefore we should all say "ok dear" and let them beat the girls?
Why? I have a kid not much older than 12. One of the things I teach him as a parent is that you can't always get what you want.

I hope she does feel guilty, some feminist she is..

Someone gave me her book, God it’s such drivel. I read a chapter and gave up.

'One of the things I teach him as a parent is that you can't always get what you want. '

This should be BASIC parenting stuff, but too many parents decide that it's too much hard work

@BigGreenOlives

The comments are good:

mobile.twitter.com/DeborahFW/status/1103633507161702401

I used to really like her podcast- and there was an episode where she usefully mused a bit on gender vs sex. I totally lost it with the abortion episode the other week though which started off with a massive super-woke disclaimer. I literally cannot think of an issue which is less about identity and all about biology.

Her target audience is men.

What a ridiculous tweet - it doesn’t even make sense! If she thinks that boys who “feel” like girls should be able to compete in girls’ races, she should really just come out and say it straight.

Then everyone will be able to see why her feminism is “guilty” - guilty of not centring the very people it is meant to be about.

If you include boys, you exclude girls.

Defend that inclusivity with your feminist hat on, I dare you.

I hope Martina, Sharron and Kelly comment too.

I am the only person in the world who doesn’t rate The Guilty Feminist.