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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

RFU clears TW to play at *all* levels of rugby

352 replies

Kit19 · 14/10/2020 13:01

the absolute fuckers!!!

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OldeMagick · 22/10/2020 19:02

Finally got a response to my RFU insurance email.

RFU clears TW to play at *all* levels of rugby
ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 22/10/2020 19:15

So presumably that means their insurance costs are going to be going up considerably?

Greektome · 22/10/2020 19:44

I'd have thought it was a pretty clear case of negligence. An increase in injuries is reasonably foreseeable.
Could it be more than this, as the increased risk is so deliberate?
Is there a personal injury lawyer who can give a view?

OldeMagick · 22/10/2020 19:48

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

So presumably that means their insurance costs are going to be going up considerably?
One would hope they'd weigh up the pros and cons of males playing against females and realise it's an insurance minefield.
PearPickingPorky · 22/10/2020 19:50

Not necessarily.

They would need to make it explicitly clear that they are now playing women in mixed-sex rugby. They won't have said that. Also, the insurer (which could be one woke underwriter) would need to ask the question and then interpret their answer as "mixed-sex rugby" and price accordingly, and risk being called transphobic. The City insurance market is very woke. They (the insurance underwriter) also probably doesn't understand the EA legislation, as they'll probably have been Stonewalled.

PearPickingPorky · 22/10/2020 19:54

It would be negligence, Greek. Especially since the evidence (thanks to Dr Hilton and T. Lundberg) is clear.

I guess a potential stumbling block in a civil claim is whether the injury severity could have happened versus another female. And potentially an issue around disclosure when trying to making the point that the player collided with was actually male.

FindTheTruth · 23/10/2020 06:05

@Kit19

the absolute fuckers!!!
Yup. My perception is that media reporting on this is changing. Like Highgame said, even the Guardian !!!! quoted Fair Play For Women FPFW and RFU. The media knows that the public is against the RFU decision. And like others have said upthread RFU didn't want to get sued by the 10 players.

There’s hope... FPFW are challenging the RFU on this right now. Their work led to World Rugby's decision… there is hope. if you can, you can help here and here

Fair Play For Women were the first women’s group speaking up for females in policy review meetings held by World Rugby, IOC, World Athletics and Sport England. They’ve even got the UK’s Sports Council commissioning an independent review of their trans inclusion guidelines.

Deltoids1 · 03/11/2020 21:18

Ross Tucker has addressed the World Rugby research and guidelines in his latest podcast. Worth a listen.
twitter.com/seaningle/status/1323721987647307778?s=20

Deltoids1 · 03/11/2020 21:36

Ross Tucker has addressed the World Rugby research and guidelines in his latest podcast. Worth a listen.
twitter.com/seaningle/status/1323721987647307778?s=20

UppityPuppity · 17/05/2021 13:04

Top repudiation of RFU’s approach and policy:

www.academia.edu/48771372/Response_to_RFU?email_work_card=thumbnail-desktop

Useful for other sports too.

persistentwoman · 17/05/2021 13:42

Thank you for that link UppityPuppity . It makes really interesting reading.

The RFU's draft policy is a document that displayed an unbelievable level of policy capture to the extent that it invented insane new definitions of male and female:

Male: refers to a person who produces testosterone at puberty and adolescence.
Female: refers to a person who does not produce male levels of testosterone at puberty

So I was pleased to see Pike's takedown of such batshittery:

Whilst the definitions are incoherent (they don't fit together), they seem to evince the belief that maleness and femaleness are matters of degree, that sex is a spectrum. The belief that sex is a spectrum is ideological. By ideological I mean both that it is false, (Bhargava, Arnold et al. 2021) and that it is constructed to serve a set of interests.Such claims have no place in a public policy document .

Leafstamp · 17/05/2021 17:02

@UppityPuppity

Top repudiation of RFU’s approach and policy:

www.academia.edu/48771372/Response_to_RFU?email_work_card=thumbnail-desktop

Useful for other sports too.

This is fantastic, thank you for sharing. I particularly like the damning sentences:

The ignoring of the precautionary principle is a profound ethical error made by the RFU.

This error was avoided by WR in the construction of their guidelines.

Artichokeleaves · 17/05/2021 17:02

Wow, that is quite a document and some very useful breakdowns of equality law in many ways with many applications.

I particularly find useful the two questions:

  • who is most negatively affected by this proposal

  • could they reasonably reject it

Many irrefutable points made.

Helleofabore · 17/05/2021 19:19

And here is the latest from French Rugby.

www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/57147702

Helleofabore · 17/05/2021 19:21

The French Rugby Federation (FFR) said transgender women who are transitioning from male to female could play as long as they could certify they had been on hormonal treatment for at least 12 months and their testosterone levels were under five nanamoles per litre
Under current FFR regulations, people who have already undergone a gender transition and changed their civil record may play in the league that matches the gender on that record.

powershowerforanhour · 17/05/2021 22:53

What evidence are they waiting for? A woman with a snapped neck because a brick shithouse landed on her?

No, a statistically significant number of women with snapped necks because brick shithouses landed on them.

Am astounded by the arse-about-face nature of the decision: the burden of proof has been placed on women to show that having a brick shithouse landing on them is dangerous, rather than the burden of proof being on the RFU to show that having brick shithouses landing on women is safe.

Kind of like the Highways Agency replacing all their workers' hi viz jackets, vehicles and cones and flashing lights with plain black ones with no lights, because a very small handful of motorists with particularly sensitive vision complained that they were too bright and dazzling, and then saying that there was no proof that plain black jackets and cones and unlit vehicles were any more dangerous for night time motorway work than hi viz ones.

powershowerforanhour · 17/05/2021 23:21

*The RFU's draft policy is a document that displayed an unbelievable level of policy capture to the extent that it invented insane new definitions of male and female:

Male: refers to a person who produces testosterone at puberty and adolescence.
Female: refers to a person who does not produce male levels of testosterone at puberty*

Wow. They have, of course, defined male first and then female in relation the male definition- as a straightforward "non-male" in fact. So far, so depressingly familiar.

But look closer. All people (with possibly some ultra rare exceptions)- produce some testosterone from being an 8 week old foetus onwards. In fact all mammals- nay, all Chordata- produce testosterone. So, because they do not specify a level, their definition of male is: all humans past 8 weeks of gestation. Their definition of female is in reference to the male definition and therefore does not include any humans (or mammals) beyond an 8 week foetus. So pretty much literally subhuman- good to know that we are not only an inferior species, nor merely beneath the class that encompasses mammals to amphibians, we're in some completely different sub fucking phylum as well.

powershowerforanhour · 17/05/2021 23:41

Feeling whimsical, I conducted a quick google search- turns out some invertebrates including slugs and freshwater shrimp produce testosterone. I have lowered my sights accordingly but am still hopeful that we qualify for the Animal kingdom.

persistentwoman · 17/05/2021 23:48

Does anyone know what has happened to this document? Have any adults entered the debate to remind these fools about safety, science, women's sport etc? Or is this all still in the hands of dubious individuals doing Stonewall's work for them and making their careers out of putting women at risk of harm?

Sophoclesthefox · 18/05/2021 09:24

Plopping on to the thread to remind me to come back later when I’ve had time to read the document that uppity puppity posted. The first few paragraphs are blistering!

MiddlesexGirl · 18/05/2021 10:01

It defies belief that the RFU document defined male and female by their own extraordinary criteria. Where is the oversight for such a document? How do they get away with such poppycock?!

Helleofabore · 18/05/2021 10:07

middlesexgirl

It is really easy when people who 'dissent' are considered bigots not worthy of listening to.

And that everyone is so 'no Sebastian Chabal lowering his testosterone and playing in the women's team is not worthy of considering. Chabal is NOT a transwoman and never will be'. Like Gabbi Tuft never happened...

Horizons83 · 18/05/2021 15:53

[quote Helleofabore]And here is the latest from French Rugby.

www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/57147702[/quote]
And of course there is some superb gaslighting from the BBC in that article.

From start to finish it is inaccurate in stating that trans women have up until now been banned from playing sport, and ends with:

'The FFR is the first national federation in France to allow transgender women to take part in elite sport'

Pray tell, at what point was a trans woman ever banned from playing for a men's team?

persistentwoman · 18/05/2021 15:56

The Times have covered this as well. Share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/aff78172-b73d-11eb-98e3-d1306649ebf7?shareToken=e50324f7611bcd0c7a68614079fadc30