Rugby reject koolaid, listen to science

[niceberg]

Thank goodness.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/19/transwomen-face-potential-womens-rugby-ban-over-safety-concerns?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Cry me a fucking river josh!! Turning up to a play a game of women’s rugby and finding the other team contains a make bodied person isn’t especially kind either. Fucking twat

@Disposableplates

twitter.com/joshgardner/status/1285540374597992449?s=19

The tweet above is Josh Gardner commenting on Squide Rugby's opinion of the situation. I understand that rugby should be inclusive, but the decision reported is mainly about safety. Which should take precedent above everything else. I am sick of being told how to think and what I should do in order to appease people. Both men think the proposal is unfair and discriminatory.

Also I have seen a lack of female players and reports commenting on this.

@DickKerrLadies that quote is awful, and really highlights the issue that World Rugby has raised.

I just do not understand how it's non-inclusive to include transwomen on male teams anyway.

I've zero sympathy in this area. The kind of male who turns up to play rugby on a women's team, against another team of women? The kind of person who does that isn't interested in fair play or women's safety or women's right to say no.

I have no idea why people keep saying this is exclusionary when trans women aren't being excluded from the sport. Surely trans women would be horrified at the prospect of injuring female team mates, and would want to lower this risk? There's nothing inherently awful or degrading about trans women playing sport with other male bodied people. I

I've zero sympathy in this area. The kind of male who turns up to play rugby on a women's team, against another team of women? The kind of person who does that isn't interested in fair play or women's safety or women's right to say no

Like hannah mouncey who was allowed to play despite the very obvious differences but they quit the team when the women wouldn't let hannah shower with them.

They just wanna pay sports though...

I just do not understand how it's non-inclusive to include transwomen on male teams anyway.

The trans people who are more likely to be excluded from sports are transmen. Transwomen can still play on male teams/against men without impacting anyone else's rights. Transmen may (rightly) be banned from some women's sports, because testosterone is a steroid which is banned under anti-doping rules.

Transmen could be included in male teams and men's sports could become an 'open' category where both transwomen and transmen can compete. There are some sports, such as rugby, where transmen could be in danger if they play on a men's team, but obviously shouldn't be playing on the women's team because of their increased testosterone level. Unfortunately, the best solution for them might be to choose a different sport.

@SarahTancredi

I've zero sympathy in this area. The kind of male who turns up to play rugby on a women's team, against another team of women? The kind of person who does that isn't interested in fair play or women's safety or women's right to say no

Like hannah mouncey who was allowed to play despite the very obvious differences but they quit the team when the women wouldn't let hannah shower with them.

They just wanna pay sports though...

The reaction to these findings tells you everything. None of the TRAs are saying, "Oh Christ. That's awful that cis [sic] women have been put in danger. We had no idea that this was risky."

It's either denial or a focus on "but this is so unfair on trans women, most oppressed group ever" etc.

No one is actually surprised. Everyone already knew it was dangerous because it was plain common sense. They just didn't give a crap, cos women, meh, who cares about their ambitions and hobbies and lives. And again, we see how trans women aren't viewed as women, cos if they were, these men like Josh wouldn't give a shiny shit about their feelings.

It will be interesting to see how the insurance companies react to this.

Everyone has to be registered and insured to play rugby in Europe, even at amateur level. Firstly personal insurance to cover injury to yourself but also a public liability component.

I would imagine that this report will make the insurers consider whether they want to continue providing coverage to transwomen whether they want to play womens or mens rugby.

As a rugby player and the mother of aspiring female players, I am so happy with this repirt. Even though they felt the need to call me Cis instead of just a woman.

Yet no one has ever managed to prive just how they are opressed.

Someone said about education the other day on another thread either on here or twitter. Didn't explain how though given many people are prevebtted from.accessing university and college.

In any educational setting anyonw with a "me me me" attitude will find it rough there are 29 others in the class they arent special.

Being told no is hardly oppression

Ah, but SarahTancredi, the “Rules of Misogyny* tell us that it is a hate crime to say no to men.

Oh yes how could we forget

Quite. This is the nub of it.

Males who want to do exactly what they want to do, to and with females because that's how they want it.

The consent of those females and the effects on them? They don't give a fuck, except to flash to rage if those females don't comply with their demands and desires.

'Identify as' and 'take all the words for' does not take away the glaring difference between the two groups here, one of whom gets everything with no responsibility at all, the other of whom has responsibility apparently upto the point of risking injury and death with no rights whatsoever. And yes, it's plain by the way the two groups are treated that nobody, nobody has the slightest difficulty knowing who are the males and who are the females. The words disguise nothing.

Male supremacism.

I still don't understand the comment upthread saying that transwomen who have been on puberty blockers and not had a 'male puberty' wouldn't want to play rugby.

The explanation about personality type doesn't clarify it for me at all.

@DickKerrLadies

Welcome massistar

Interesting quote in that article from the founder of the club:

'He can't resist a joke, though, adding: "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."'

Hilarious

And from the female captain: "She folded a girl like a deckchair during a game, which was quite funny, but they're still friends."

Equally hilarious

The menz aren’t happy.

Well I’m sure they can come up with some peer reviewed evidence as to why all the physical advantages Male bodies have over female ones don’t count for anything on a rugby field......

Because all that matters is the validation of a group seen as marginalised, not ever what the real impact of their validation is on female people.

Female people really couldn't matter less. Just backdrops and props in male lives.

@OldCrone

I just do not understand how it's non-inclusive to include transwomen on male teams anyway.

The trans people who are more likely to be excluded from sports are transmen. Transwomen can still play on male teams/against men without impacting anyone else's rights. Transmen may (rightly) be banned from some women's sports, because testosterone is a steroid which is banned under anti-doping rules.

Transmen could be included in male teams and men's sports could become an 'open' category where both transwomen and transmen can compete. There are some sports, such as rugby, where transmen could be in danger if they play on a men's team, but obviously shouldn't be playing on the women's team because of their increased testosterone level. Unfortunately, the best solution for them might be to choose a different sport.

Yes, it could be that will be the best solution. And it's not like it would be the end of the world, there are other sports.

My son plays rugby, we may be moving in about a month and there is no rugby team where we are moving to. So he will probably change sports to something that is more available in the place we will live.

People get a bit to caught up in these things defining them. I saw a discussion about a year ago with a woman who wanted to register her daughter, aged 10, as a boy for lacrosse, because her daughter preffered the male to the female version of the game. People pointed out that aside from any immediate issues, it would soon become clear that the daughter wasn't as large or fast or male as the boys and she'd have to change in any case.

The mother was adamant though that this one version of the sport was what her daughter was "meant" to play and somehow it would be denying her to not let who do it - and this was societies fault for holding her back. I was just thinking, geez, it's a made up game with made up rules, that you wouldn't get to play in another country, maybe another town, 1000 years ago.

@Sexnotgender

The menz aren’t happy.

Science is a veneer now - ooh.... (I didn't really understand the rest of what they said)

Science is a veneer now - ooh.... (I didn't really understand the rest of what they said)

I had the same reaction. Kristen Worley throwing in every current buzz word they can think of. Er, struggle, authority, colonialial (?), bias, structure, publication.

Couldn't they have jammed in 'lived experience,' 'problematic,' and 'weaponised' as well?

@HPFA

This is the workshop on which the decision was based.

playerwelfare.worldrugby.org/?subsection=84

The majority of elite women players surveyed said that transwomen should not be allowed to play at that level. A substantial number said they wanted more information - presumably once they see the report the "Nos" will increase. That ought to really settle it because shouldn't it be women's decision?

Thanks for that link, I’ve had a read through some of the presentations. The players survey makes for extremely interesting reading!

I actually kind of agree with Sapphos comment that a male child who transitioned before puberty is less likely to be interested in playing rugby than your average male child. As children are being encouraged towards transition based on sex role stereotypes and it is not “feminine” to want to play rugby, I can imagine the take up would be pretty low (I am a former rugby player and well used to the persistent sexist stereotypes around the game). However, to me, that makes the opposite point to the one I think Sapphos is making - it’s not that it’s not a problem, it very much is a problem, and the problem is encouraging boys who don’t like “boys things” to understand themselves as having the “wrong brain” due to their preferences for activities and pastimes that we have deemed to be feminine.

Adult transitioners are a whole other kettle of fish.

It’s one of the finest word salads I’ve seen in a while

I actually kind of agree with Sapphos comment that a male child who transitioned before puberty is less likely to be interested in playing rugby than your average male child. As children are being encouraged towards transition based on sex role stereotypes and it is not “feminine” to want to play rugby, I can imagine the take up would be pretty low (I am a former rugby player and well used to the persistent sexist stereotypes around the game). However, to me, that makes the opposite point to the one I think Sapphos is making - it’s not that it’s not a problem, it very much is a problem, and the problem is encouraging boys who don’t like “boys things” to understand themselves as having the “wrong brain” due to their preferences for activities and pastimes that we have deemed to be feminine.

I did wonder if that was what Sapphos was getting at with that comment. But I didn't think she would be supportive of the view that children who transition do it entirely because of stereotypes.

Adult transitioners are a whole other kettle of fish.

Sapphos also seems to be implying that transwomen like the one playing in the Porth women's team are not as genuine as those who transition in childhood.

I’m aware that getting to what Sapphos actually thinks is a bit of a performance, but let’s put that garryowen up there and see who gets under it

The insanity of some of the conversations on twitter have read like an activist playbook. Including the tweets by whoever Squidge is saying that not enough consideration was given to the feelings of the people now feeling excluded... (completely no empathy what so ever for female players at risk)

But this conversation between someone declaring that the entire process was completely flawed because 'phobic' people were involved and Ross Tucker who was involved at the conference was probably the most patient twitter conversation I have seen for a long while.

twitter.com/Scienceofsport/status/1285516174126718976?s=20

Pics attached for those not able to use the link.

The outcome was that the person accusing two presenters (one is Dr Hilton) for being phobic, completely ignored Ross Tucker when he said that the information that they presented was in no way phobic (he deliberately said he was not getting involved in discussing who and who was phobic) and the information was peer reviewed and available for anyone to read.

When Ross kept saying 'let's discuss the data presented', the person simply kept on about phobia until they gave up because obviously he wasn't interested in taking sides and they weren't interested in what the data really shows.

I particularly liked this tweet as it is bang on the knocker for how these activists miss the point of having balanced discussion.

As for ‘impartial”, do you think the other people in the room to debate science, medicine, law and rights, but who represented the other side, the inclusion side, were partial? By your logic, there’d have been nobody there.

The fact that those activists in the twitterverse are so focused on 'exclusion' that they are simply not interested in that through being unsafe, women's rugby becomes exclusionary for females who it was introduced to allow to participate.

It is simply bonkers the amount of denial that is prevalent around this ideology. Bonkers.