Why Hannah Mouncey wasn't picked for the world championships

[Clymene]

Mouncey says: "I can confirm that yes, I was left out of the team for the World Championships because there was a group of players within the team, supported by the team manager, who did not want me showering or using the change rooms before or after the game."

Good on those women who stood up against being forced to share showers and changing rooms with a male bodied person.

Obviously Hannah is feeling a bit aggrieved but is putting on a brave face: www.starobserver.com.au/opinion/people-will-do-whats-easy-over-whats-right-hannah-mouncey-speaks-out/190555

AnyOldPrion
Yes, it sounded like the coach offered Mouncey a way to avoid any public distress but...

Good. In a world where women's identity, sport and spaces is being colonised and eradicated in favour of an oppressive group, it's great that one has been told No.

NO

You didn't try to think how to 'be kind' as women are often told to be, then?

Yeah, odd, isn’t it? I wonder why that might be?

No doubt we’ll have an article on this in the Guardian soon, championing poor oppressed Hannah and calling for more education of nasty ignorant women who don’t want to see a penis in the communal showers.

"the reason I’m not liked is because I told our manager, and by extension those players, exactly where he and they could go in trying to tell me where I could change and shower."

Hannah the other members of the team understandably didn't want to change and shower with a member of the opposite biological sex - regardless of any internal gender identity.

So from HM's account given there, HM was offered some sort of deal before they could play, something about showering, and refused it.

It almost feels as if... new practice is bubbling up from the grass roots where the referees, coaches and team managers actually have to try and make these top down rules work.

It's great that the coach stood up for the team not wanting to shower and change with Mouncey, but even if Mouncey changed somewhere else, Mouncey shouldn't be playing against women. This is about safety and fairness on the pitch, not just safety and dignity in the changing rooms.

I am not myself actively involved in the trans community, short of attending the Transcend Christmas party each year and speaking at events and functions that I might be invited to

Not actively involved yet speaking at events and functions.

This is the art of saying the exact opposite of what you actually do.

I found myself wondering whether some vital piece of information has been omitted, such as that Mouncey would have been welcomed, had Mouncey been willing to use separate facilities, but refused.

Indeed, it seems very clear that the Hannah insisted on being allowed to get her penis out around the women on the team.

Hannah seems very proud that she doesn't care how others feel.

Is it the self entitlement that prevents Hannah from seeing how negatively they come across?

Anyone reading that will be, showers? well, dur mate!

Is it the self entitlement that prevents Hannah from seeing how negatively they come across?

Yes and no. I mean clearly she breathtakingly narcissistic, but that article read to me as self-knowingly manipulative- pitched to win over the credulous fools without caring that others will see through it.

I suspect Hannah is just a predator, enjoying the cover and the opportunities that the new definition of 'Trans' provides.

Despite the fact that prior to selection I passed every fitness test given to me with relative ease...

I wonder if that was a male or female fitness test?

Also re the real reason Mouncey was unable to compete, I read this

”Yes, I would be playing in a World Championship right now if I had given in and accepted the quite frankly ludicrous requests made by the team manager both on his own behalf and those players he represented.”

to mean seperate showers, etc

The changing room seems like an excuse, I'm sure alternative changing arrangements could have been made.

Whatever the real reason this is a good decision.

"I later had it confirmed by someone else within Handball Australia who had done some digging that: “From everything I’ve been told, you’ve basically not been picked because you’re not liked.” And the reason I’m not liked is because I told our manager, and by extension those players, exactly where he and they could go in trying to tell me where I could change and shower."
Yes, it does read to me as if Mouncey rejected being told where they could change/shower - and that can only mean being told their 'where' was not with the rest of the team.

And as for 'you're not liked' - I'd hazard a guess they're as unempathetic and domineering in real life as they are in print. You're just unlikeable Hannah. Plus, 'not liked' can cover a wide range; from being 'mildly annoying' to 'utterly despised'. 'Not liked' is bland enough to give no real idea what their teammates thought of them.

As an aside - we are talking about Australia, it is culturally different to the UK, I wonder if 'not liked' is a phrase that has baggage I'm not aware of? Could any Aussie MNers maybe clue us in if there is or not?

Good. Well done on those women for standing up to Hannah. For context, this is Hannah playing handball:

mobile.twitter.com/Harry1T6/status/1198465788132438016

Always with the murder stats too isn’t it? That’s worldwide by the way, definitely not Australia. Why does trans women being murdered by either men they know, part of sex work by men, or part of drug-related activity by men around the world mean that Hannah should be allowed to shower with women?

Hannah wasn't played because, aside from other factors, the Aussies probably worried about the optics of a biological male playing a contact sport against women on an international level. We've all the seen the sports memes before- do you think that when Hannah inevitably challenged a woman half their size on the field, that would just slip by whatever press were present? If Hannah isn't liked, they're hardly going to take that chance and risk being seen as cheats to protect someone they think is a wanker.

I would be playing in a World Championship right now if I had given in
So Hannah's wish to represent Australia on sport comes second to Hannah's wish to be in the women's showers and changing rooms.

Can't help but wonder why a reporter didn't ask just what they were doing in the changing room and showers that made them so unliked by the team members.

MyMajesty excellent point.

It’s interesting that Mouncey is dumping on the players who supported Mouncey’s right to play but are now saying it’s reasonable that Mouncey showers and changes separately. As usual, compromise is not acceptable to TRAs, only complete capitulation will do.

Mouncey can do one.

50,000 women were murdered last year (internationally), by intimate partners or family members. Around the world 17 million girls are “missing” due to sex-selective abortion or imfanticide. Those women and girls had no opportunity to identify out of violence and oppression.

Women and girls account for 72% of sex-trafficking victims; 200 million women and girls have suffered genital mutilation; 15 million adolescent girls have experienced sexual violence. Their experience were due to their biological femaleness, not their gender identity.
(www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures).

It seems that, unlike governments, sporting bodies and other officials; sex traffickers, paedophiles, predators, genital mutilators and rapists have no problem at all distinguishing biological sex.

Of the 331 trans or non-binary people murdered last year, 130 of them were in Brazil. In Brazil, four women are murdered every day. 30 of them were in the US where at least 1600 women were murdered in the same year. One transwoman was murdered in the UK in 2018 where 139 women were murdered. No transwomen were murdered in Australia in 2018, but 63 women were.

331 murdered transwomen is 331 transwomen too many, but it’s not because a female sports team refused to let a bepinised individual into their team or their change room.

The sheer, arrogant, aggressive male entitlement displayed by a privileged, white individual in claiming oppression is astonishing.

Good luck to the women who stood up to Mouncey.

Not liked means exactly the same as it does in British English.
Any transwoman calling themself a lesbian shows absolutely no respect for women.

Funny that Hannah isn't part of the trans community (other than a party and multiple speaking events in that community..), but then writes an article using the pronoun "we" instead of "I". Now I know the trans movement likes fucking around with pronouns, but this is getting ridiculous! Is "we" now singular too? 😂

but if society is not at that stage then so be it. That time will come, and it is only because we shine a light on these situations and use our own negative experiences to give others strength

This type of language, which is used throughout this piece, is something that's really starting to piss me off. It was also used in the gaslighting of the mother on twitter (I think) who was shown "love and understanding" to get over her hate by someone non-binary.

It is pseudo therapeutic language connected to the idea of self-actualisation, yet entirely twisting what Carl Rogers meant by it. This twisting has been done in the US by celebrity culture in a capitalist/neoliberal manner, but the trans activist use is stomach churning. It's gaslighting pure and simple. Literally using soft and kind words to make people feel safe whilst distorting reality. 100% classically abusive.

And it makes people rallying against it seem "unkind". "Poor Hannah, she's so understanding and so reasonable. She's hurt, yet she's taking the upper hand. She's standing up for herself and her values, even in the face of bullying by her team and societal oppression. She can't represent her nation just because the other women wouldn't let her shower! She must be so upset...." Anybody saying "Oi mate, you shouldn't be in the showers with women, never mind competing with or against them!" looks like an insensitive fuckwit in comparison. At least tonally.

I couldn't even finish reading the gaslighting of that mother, which used the similar tones, but was more overtly "killing with kindness". I'm now seeing groups of therapists sharing things with this language. The "die in a fire t-word" wasn't being shared quite so frequently.

What’s easy: playing for the women’s team when you’re twice their size and strength.
What’s right: playing for the men’s team cos that’s what you are. Or at least playing for the men’s team after benefitting from a lifetime of male hormones.

’Some of the very same people who were saying it was bullshit that I couldn’t play AFL Women’s league were some of the same voices within the team who were trying to dictate where I could shower and change. While those people then were supposedly in my corner as I fought the AFL, they were more than able to justify their own position about me to themselves because in their minds “they aren’t like those people, this is a reasonable thing to expect”.

‘This is going to happen over and over, and eventually you become very comfortable in saying no to people, regardless of how forceful you need to be. So many people spend their whole lives trying to please others and giving in to everything that is asked of them, and being able to develop the skills and confidence to say no is truly wonderful.’

This shows that anyone compromising on women’s rights, making women concede what they think is just trivialities or only just what they think is ‘being kind’ and ‘budging up’ and ‘being inclusive’- so not being like those bad selfish unkind T*RFs- is never ever going to be giving up enough, as PP have said.

Only complete female capitulation, an absolute breaking of all women’s boundaries to the subjective satisfaction of the relevant person wanting to be validated, is going to be acceptable.

Also shows that all women’s rights are not there for any individual (women or men) to try to give away, however sympathetic they may feel. You can bet there were a lot of women and men saying it wasn’t ‘bullshit’ at all not to make women’s sport into mixed sex sport. Who ignored them? Why?

Amazing how Mouncey’s demands to be in women’s intimate spaces are reframed as Mouncey (‘forcefully’) becoming very comfortable ‘saying no’, or stopping trying to ‘please’ others’ or stopping ‘giving in’ to other’s asks and ‘demands’

Mouncey has a platform. Why not channel that energy into being accepted in men’s sports and showers and changing? Or creating a third space? Like women had to create their own women’s sports teams and competitions.

Funny how much energy is going into trying to get into women’s changing and showering rather than enabling the game to be played in a way that doesn’t take away from anyone else’s safety, dignity and privacy.

Well done to hand ball Australia standing up for women's rights. They didn't want to shower with a male bodied person, and they felt their right to do so superceeded the whole team. It didn't. It doesn't. Accept that your rights don't superceede women's rights. They didn't do what was easy- they refused the kool aid and went the harder route.