Stonewall Lobby World Rugby

[SunsetBeetch]

Ffs I am so sick of this agenda-heavy lobby group and their war against women's rights!

(Note that they are controlling who can reply to them too.)

“We are asking rugby clubs at all levels of the game to stand with us against a ruling that is exclusionary and that will impact some of the most vulnerable people in the community”.

Join us and
@LgbtiqS
in calling
@WorldRugby
to #TackleTransphobia lgbtiqsportalliance.org.uk/uk-lgbtiq-sport

twitter.com/stonewalluk/status/1296801438211944455?s=20

Their premises are, TWAW, and that it is impossible for recognising the "rights" of someone to be unfair for others. Rights in this case meaning right to identify as a woman.

I think this is right @Goosefoot.

You start from the premise TWAW, you arrive at the conclusion "therefore they should be allowed to play women's rugby and anything else is discriminatory."

Then you look at a photo of the player for Porth Women's team who "folds opponents like a deckchair."

At this point, formal logic allows you two options.

1. You think "That's crazy", treat it as a reductio ad absurdum of your starting premise and realise that TWANW.

2. You hang onto your premise, deny the evidence of science and your own eyes, and insist that women's sport be shat on from a great height.

Unfortunately, human nature and lack of critical reasoning skills being what it is, a lot of well-meaning people in the "be kind" camp instead choose to live with an untenable, illogical third option of "be kind, parrot stuff about inclusion, and do not under any circumstances allow yourself to look to hard at the consequences." Cognitive dissonance writ large.

Any sane person should be in camp (1), there's nothing we can do about camp (2), but the really worrying people are those in the untenable third place getting splinters up their arse, because they're the people who'll vote Labour even when Lisa Nandy says she's cool with male rapists being placed in female prisons, because they want to "be kind."

(2) is really an extreme position, the real political fight is between the people who instinctively think "reductio ad absurdum" and the people who go "la la la, not listening" and continue to act as unwitting supporters of position (2).

TRAs bounce people out of position 3 into position 1. They did it to me, and they will do it to others. It took a few incidents, because I desperately wanted to 'be kind', but eventually, continuing to 'be kind was too starkly a choice to be downright nasty to other people.

I think Stonewall are taking this hard line, because the battleground has been set for them. Rugby is where ideology clashed with reality most glaringly, and whatever the final decision is, that is going to be the precedent for every other sport. They wouldn't have picked rugby, had they a choice, but they can't control everyone else's priorities.

Rugby officials had to get the issue sorted out more urgently than anyone else, because it's bloody rugby. World Rugby took a great deal of care with that investigation, and although it's rugby-focused, it's also relevant to mixed-sex competition in non-contact sports. Dr Hilton's work will be read by other governing bodies. The only hope Stonewall have of getting others to ignore her work is to get World Rugby to disregard it themselves.

I can’t imagine the rugby governing bodies being able to get any insurance if they chose to disregard such a painstaking, transparent and thorough review with such unequivocally documented risks. Stonewall seem to have lost their collective minds in taking this line.

Dr Hilton has been fielding many activist comments since the announcement hit. One of the latest involves an activist denouncing her work because no data was used that was rugby specific and they felt the transwoman data from other studies was not relevant.

Oh. And it wasn’t a transgender person who collated and published the study so it must be clearly transphobic with not possibility it was factual. (Not sure I have enough eye roll emojis to convey the ridiculousness of this).

The community is now getting a great deal of unwanted interest.

Again, they cannot defend it on science so push with the transphobic scientist (and non trans specialist) aspect to discredit as they have always pursued.

There can be no acknowledgement of risks so they would prefer to destroy female sport than have to acknowledge that male bodies do not change and they cannot be women in the same way. It is the same as advocating for the abolishment of the field of psychiatry and for the entire prison system. Because both are not needed for the ideal world they wish to live in.

I would have thought that with their resources they would have commissioned an independent review (even just someone independently looking over the studies presented) as this is a landmark case. It is more than likely that no one with any reputation could come up with an alternative interpretation of the studies. If I was the CEO, it would have been the first thing I did when world rugby released the studies.

There simply is no way out except to appeal emotively.

destroy female sport by stating such ludicrous views such as: all sport should be open category anyway and we should stop competitive sports because why should it celebrate the best performers (it should be only celebrating participation and involvement for everyone ).

Stonewall are of course mobilising their “champions” in other sports

twitter.com/bethfishersport/status/1297131318883614720?s=21

They always conveniently 'forget' to add 'from competing with women' at the end of 'trans women face being banned', don't they?

Odd hill to die on choice for me. Stonewall are fairly sucessful in lobbying in general, but this is a total non starter. Beyond a select few total nutjobs, noone believes men should be able to smash women in rubgy. This is the issue that WILL Wake up a lot of men I think..they see its hugely unfair because..well its clearly unfair. Some might not care because 'ugh, womens sport'. but a lot will fight against tyhis

It is great to read Ross Tucker’s (Scienceofsport) tweets on this thread. He lays it out very clearly to a ‘tw aw and are actually female and anyone who doesn’t let them play is simply being mean’ tweeter.

twitter.com/scienceofsport/status/1297563395298856961?s=21

For those not on twitter he states:

‘You’re making a category error. Try it this way: Would you let an adult, 27 yr old man, play against juniors because he’s smaller, slower and weaker than many 17 year olds? If a heavyweight boxer is weaker than some middle weights, can he fight down? Range overlaps are irrelevant.’

‘First, it is an argument against categories? Would you be OK with an adult playing against juniors because they’re not that good? Why does junior sport exist in the first place? Does that adult not take someone’s place? Someone who was entitled to protection?’

‘ Similarly, are you alright with a heavyweight fighting down just because they’re weak, and thus “in the range” for a middleweight fighter? Does the middleweight category not exist for good reason, irrespective of some overlap?

Second, the only way you find overlap is if you...’

‘ …deliberately cherry-pick to compare a very strong/heavy/good/fast/powerful woman against a mediocre or light/slow/weaak man. Then you find overlap. It’s a women at the 90th percentile compared to a man at the 40th percentile. They may have the same strength. But what you’re now’

‘ …arguing for is that man who is at the 40th percentile can cross over, & because they lose very little of that strength with T reduction, they’ll slot in at the 85th percentile among women. So they go from being below average to way above average. That is the very definition of’

‘ unfair. Third, this creates huge risk, because even if you control for the variable you pick (let’s say it’s strength as in my example), you can’t control for the others. So the person may end up matched for X, but not for Y & Z. This undermines safety and fairness even more’

‘ Fourth, how do you match? Aside from the cherry-picking exercise I already explained, you have sports where performance is multifactorial. So which variables do you attempt to control for? I already asked earlier, how you would do this? Any suggestions?’

‘ Fifth, when a sport decides they’ll do this for trans women, they put themselves into a real dilemma. Because now, they’re saying “Trans women are women, but some of them are more women than others, because of XYZ”. So now sport is subdividing a cohort into new cohorts, and’

‘ …then making a value judgment, ostensibly based on metrics they measure or test in a lab (again, let me know which ones you think can be matched, and how), and then deciding that one person can play, and one cannot. In effect, sport is now playing judge of who is “woman enough"

There is at least a couple more tweets too.

They always conveniently 'forget' to add 'from competing with women' at the end of 'trans women face being banned', don't they?

Yes. I noticed that. They are NOT banned from playing. They would be banned from playing in women’s division. They can play in the men’s, no problem.

Spent an hour on Twitter this afternoon, general view is very critical of Stonewall and as many, if not more, men are commenting on this.

It's hugely damaging to Stonewalls credibility, but I suspect not their funding (yet?)

@DianasLasso

Their premises are, TWAW, and that it is impossible for recognising the "rights" of someone to be unfair for others. Rights in this case meaning right to identify as a woman.

I think this is right @Goosefoot.

You start from the premise TWAW, you arrive at the conclusion "therefore they should be allowed to play women's rugby and anything else is discriminatory."

Then you look at a photo of the player for Porth Women's team who "folds opponents like a deckchair."

At this point, formal logic allows you two options.

1. You think "That's crazy", treat it as a reductio ad absurdum of your starting premise and realise that TWANW.

2. You hang onto your premise, deny the evidence of science and your own eyes, and insist that women's sport be shat on from a great height.

Unfortunately, human nature and lack of critical reasoning skills being what it is, a lot of well-meaning people in the "be kind" camp instead choose to live with an untenable, illogical third option of "be kind, parrot stuff about inclusion, and do not under any circumstances allow yourself to look to hard at the consequences." Cognitive dissonance writ large.

Any sane person should be in camp (1), there's nothing we can do about camp (2), but the really worrying people are those in the untenable third place getting splinters up their arse, because they're the people who'll vote Labour even when Lisa Nandy says she's cool with male rapists being placed in female prisons, because they want to "be kind."

(2) is really an extreme position, the real political fight is between the people who instinctively think "reductio ad absurdum" and the people who go "la la la, not listening" and continue to act as unwitting supporters of position (2).

The only thing I would add to this is I think there are a significant number of people in position 3 who are very much affected by what they are seeing as the authoritative medical and scientific position.

That doesn't mean they are reading medical journals, but they assume the medical establishment know what they are doing, people who are helping children transition socially and medically, popular scientists in the media, as well as publications like National Geographic, Scientific American, even Psychology Today. And the flip side, a lot of scientific naysayers have been drummed out of their positions, which looks bad to them.

Even if they feel it's confusing, they often conclude that they just aren't understanding the science because they don't have the expertise.

For most regular people who are buying into it, TWAW is assumed to be a physiologically based concrete position, not something linguistic or even about identity rights.

That's true - I know scientists, experts in their own field, who've been drawn in by a combination of Scientific American, Science op-ed pieces and (of all fucking things) that stupid clownfish thing.

It's a classic - get someone out of their own field and even they are vulnerable to "science buzzword, science buzzword, wordsalad, misuse of statistics, more science buzzwords, ta-dah, TWAW."

(I suspect the relentless propaganda that "TWANW is evil right wing evangelical Christian bigotry" may be playing a part - these are often scientists - particularly in Canada/USA/Aus whose own fields have been directly threatened by science denialism from right-wing politicians, so they automatically assume, if they haven't looked too closely at the actual content of the arguments, that this is more science denialism.)

For most regular people who are buying into it, TWAW is assumed to be a physiologically based concrete position, not something linguistic or even about identity rights.

I don't know Goose, I think at this point the language might be the main issue. People who are fully aware of the physiological side can still be blinded by the Newspeak, "xxxxx women", "she", "male-bodied", etc.

Hm. NGOs, pressure groups and charities are supposed to exist to make themselves redundant. But of course, that means a lot of people would lose their jobs/prestige. So, some of the less reputable ones don't really genuinely want to affect change, just be seen to be doing so.

@RozWatching

For most regular people who are buying into it, TWAW is assumed to be a physiologically based concrete position, not something linguistic or even about identity rights.

I don't know Goose, I think at this point the language might be the main issue. People who are fully aware of the physiological side can still be blinded by the Newspeak, "xxxxx women", "she", "male-bodied", etc.

I think that happens, and it makes it more obscure to try and clear things up.

But there is a large group of people that think there is a scientific basis to the idea of trans. Generally they think that somehow, they are like a DSD that involves the brain. Usually it's vague, but not necessarily as crass as "brain in wrong body."

My local rugby club is brilliant at bringing up the grassroots male players and is trying really hard to replicate that commitment with their female squads.

This kind of arch cobblers would finish their efforts off as no right minded parent would allow their teenage daughter to play.

Yes this is a massive overreach from Stonewall, and men have turned on Stonewall massively on Twitter.

I've played rugby for the past 15 years, admittedly never to a high standard, but have seen many gnarly injuries. I am so glad that the majority appear to recognise that adding biological men into the mix is dangerous- but also that for transmen it is dangerous playing with biological men.

It's something of a side issue compared to the sheer monstrous inequality of putting biologically male individuals into women's rugby, but I also worry about men having to play against TM, and the match officials. Because I think it's unreasonable to place a male player in a position where he either has to go in soft on the tackles, or risk causing life-changing injuries to his opponent. And also the ref is the ultimate guarantor of player safety, and again, I don't think it's reasonable to place the ref in that position either.

It's all very well saying "but the TM has signed a waiver and they consent" - the men haven't signed anything to say they consent to the increased risk they may seriously harm their opponent.

I don't think it's reasonable to place the ref in that position either

If I recall some refs were refusing to officiate at women's amateur games if trans women were allowed to play, because the refs were concerned about injury to women.

Why that have chosen rugby as the sporting hill to die on is just bizarre

Why that have chosen rugby as the sporting hill to die on is just bizarre

There were a couple of interesting thoughts on this upthread.

One is a deliberate attempt to shift the Overton window, by picking on the most extreme cases first (male bodied individuals in women's prisons was also mentioned).

The other (not entirely sure, may actually just be a variant on the above) - go for the most out-there, over-the-top suggestion in the hope that you will then be given free access to the rest of women's sport as a consolation prize.

This is why we have to keep stressing that it's both safety and fair competition that matter. Even if there's no contact involved - 100m, long jump, etc., it's still fundamentally unfair to women's sport to allow biological males to compete regardless of how many drugs they are taking.

Essentially the issue the RFU faces is that in recent years it has been (successfully) moving rugby away from its beer swilling past to become more inclusive, particularly of women. However the issue with trans is that if they say no to it, they'll incur the wrath of Twitter, and once this occurs, the ever cowardly Corporate sponsors are going to get tetchy, given the already dire financial situation, they wont want to risk this, hence why its being considered. However if this happens, it is a massive safety issue, I only play very amateur blokes rugby, but I'm 17 stones, and if I hit most women, its going to injure them, and I'm by no means a particularly hard, relative to lots of players. As such its extremely likely a serious injury (which I can guarantee will occur if this goes forward) means that they may have issues around insurance, in addition to pushback from the base of most clubs, many of whoms members wont even know trans exists. It's a lose- lose situation for world rugby.