Spencer Seales leaving womens rugby and ready to start playing for the men.

[happydappy2]

article in The Times sporting section today, about Seales being ready to leave the womens team (doesn't want to hurt anyone, rightly so) and has been invited to play with the mens team....Seales says it feels “surreal” to find himself receiving the same kind of welcome from the men that he did from the women. “I’ve suffered with mental health all my life,” he says. Old Cats has given him a coat of confidence. “When you are part of a team and you feel you belong somewhere,” he says, “it helps a lot.”

So a woman who clearly has mental health issues being welcomed onto a mens rugby team-what could possibly go wrong?

Share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6882d6ec-7298-11ea-be30-097bd8237f0d?shareToken=15ea7c795d1f70ac6482a6b902bf8b49

I hope they don’t get hurt. The US national woman’s soccer team were beaten by a boys under 15 team weren’t they (and it’s not a contact sport)?

The pronouns are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that article

What a badly-written article.

It worries me hugely that Spencer is going to be massively at risk in the men's team. Rugby is dangerous, anyway, but you're effectively going to have a woman playing at lock forward in a team full of men. Why can't anyone see the risk that represents?

Just to clarify, for those who aren't rugby fans, rugby is a much more physical game for the forwards than it is for the backs. If you're a forward you're going to be taking part in scrums, rucks and mauls. if you're a back, it's mostly about running.

I agree Spencer is going to be hugely at risk in the men's team, but that is ultimately Spencer's risk to take.

What was interesting to me was Spencer's view that it was not fair to play on the women's team after the impact of cross-sex hormones kicked in.

Contrast that with Kelly Morgan www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/49298550 whose coach said ""She's going to be a good, good player for the next few years, as long as we can stop her injuring players in training." and who said "I do feel guilty, but what can you do?"

I hope they don’t get hurt. The US national woman’s soccer team were beaten by a boys under 15 team weren’t they

No, it was the Australian women. The coach actually explained that they played training games against boys teams often and they are training games so often often experiment. It does not even matter much who wins training games. They usually win but the media were only interested in the game they lost.

www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-boys-squad-beat-the-u-s-womens-national-team-in-a-scrimmage/

US team too.

never knew that but that was a training game too, all top sports teams play and lose training games, it really doesn't mean much

You might expect a national team to beat teens though!

well they usually do but that doesn't get reported

Spencer is in for a big shock

It shouldn't be individuals like Spencer offering themselves up as guinea pigs like this. I can't see this going well at all, and really hope Spencer doesn't get badly hurt. I hope someone at that club has it in them to prevent it and address it if/when it starts to look even like a vague possibility.

Zanahora
Have you seen the margin they lose by? Man U Women were beaten 9-0 by Salford boys recently.
These are not one off events. 15 year old boys will regularly thrash women's teams.

My 15 year old DS can out run and out lift me, he can do more press ups and hold the plans for longer. If we were to get into a physical battle he would floor me, no doubt. He has been known to restrain me from getting the last Kit Kat (then I get my revenge by licking it).

Useful resource found on an MN thread a while ago so not claiming credit.

boysvswomen.com/#/

Holy shmoly!

I just don't understand how any club will get insurance for this....

I respect Spencer’s decision in favour of the female players who are not having the physical benefit of taking testosterone but joining a male team as a competitive player is such a dangerous thing to do.
Lock position is right in the thick of it. Here’s more about the position: www.rugbytoday.com/columns/rugby-positions-playing-lock

But any position playing within a men’s rugby game is dangerous for someone born a biological woman. That’s just reality and physics. What are the men’s clubs thinking?

This article says just under half of injuries come from tackles, which rugby players in all positions do:

The research found nearly half of all injuries were sustained in tackles (46.6 per cent) and the player being tackled accounted for nearly a third of them. Contrary to popular belief - and the French findings - the scrum only accounted for 2.4 per cent of injuries.

www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/study-reveals-rugby-unions-most-dangerous-positions-20160218-gmx7w9.html

I too respect Spencer’s decision. Unlike all the MTF athletes we hear about who show little compassion or understanding for their female team members/athletes, Spencer seems to give a shit and acknowledges the advantage testosterone has on them.
Whether Spencer should be playing with the men is something the RFU’s lawyers will have to deal with. I wonder whether they get their own changing room?

The pronouns are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that article

I applied Rohypnol-antidote and replaced all the pronouns with sex-accurate pronouns as I read it.

Then it became blindingly clear that what Seales had experienced was a group of women accepting a gender-non-conforming woman. But where's the headline in that?