Great article in the economist on trans inclusion in sport

[Ozgirl75]

www.economist.com/leaders/2020/10/17/letting-trans-women-play-in-womens-sports-is-often-unfair

Sorry, it cuts off half way through as I’m reading it in physical paper form. Maybe someone had online access?

You get a few free articles every month or something if you register and log in

It should say:

Letting transwomen play in women’s sport is always unfair.

I wrote on the other thread that just one transwoman playing rugby disadvantages a minimum of 17 women, but likely upwards of several hundred.

1: the woman whose place is taken in the starting team
1: the woman whose place on the bench is taken when the woman who should be starting is relegated to the bench.
15: the other team who have to tackle, scrum and ruck against the transwoman.
0-22: the rest of the transwoman’s squad who may all be happy to shower and change with the transwoman, or they may all be unhappy, or any number in between.
1: the referee, who has to make a call on the safety of proceeding with the match despite knowing there is a transwoman on the team and World Rugby’s guidelines say it’s dangerous, but Rugby Australia say it’s up to the referee. This decision could be the difference between a life changing injury or not for a woman.

200+: the number of women in other squads in the same league who end up disadvantaged if the transwoman proves a dominant force for the team they play for, resulting in that team being unbeatable. Also, the number of teams in the league is the multiplier for the 15 above, given to play against the transwoman at least twice, home and away potentially in a season, thus being at same risk of injury, just on a different weekend.

Finally the total number of women in the league includes anyone who is disadvantaged as a result of daring to complain, bringing the wrath of the woke, being persecuted as a bigot, and hounded out of a sport they previously enjoyed because they dared to stand up to the obvious injustice of it all and paid the price.

So it should be always.

Excellent post notbad.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 notbad

So the full article isn’t just about trans women in rugby, it looks at other sports too. I guess to be fair there are some sports where being trans might not be an advantage, but the general premise of the article is that it IS unfair for a number of reasons, both at competitive and “fun” levels.

The article specifically said that women’s sport is created specifically to EXCLUDE men for a good reason and so including men who have transitioned is basically going against the whole premise of “Women’s” sport.

Great post NotBad.

It’s also worth mentioning the potential thousand who will look at blokes playing women’s sport and think “why bother? No matter how hard I train I’ll never be able to compete and that size and strength.”

Letting males play female sport disadvantages every woman who is considering playing sport.

Very Glad to see this. The economist is a reputable right-leaning source (not breitbart et al).

Of course the woke will still pan it as propaganda but they have no argument here. It’s cut and dry.

@aliasundercover

Great post NotBad.

It’s also worth mentioning the potential thousand who will look at blokes playing women’s sport and think “why bother? No matter how hard I train I’ll never be able to compete and that size and strength.”

Letting males play female sport disadvantages every woman who is considering playing sport.

Also those who have any sense of fair play.

Many people won't want to watch it. It's so obviously wrong.

Do trans women ever want to participate in those women's sports where being male-bodied conveys no benefit? Figure skating, gymnastics, synchronised swimming, rhythmic gymnastic?

I don't know any cases but they might exist.

I'd argue that a male body would be an advantage in Figure skating. Men can consitently land bigger/higher jumps, so in solo freestyle, they'd clean up all the technical points. Might be a struggle in pairs, as that often relies on the male partner 'launching' and 'lifting' a lighter female partner.

@kittykarate

I'd argue that a male body would be an advantage in Figure skating. Men can consitently land bigger/higher jumps, so in solo freestyle, they'd clean up all the technical points. Might be a struggle in pairs, as that often relies on the male partner 'launching' and 'lifting' a lighter female partner.

You might be right. On the other hand, female figure skaters seem to be required to be swan-like and so on and that could be harder to achieve with a male body.

My brain said "synchronised swimming" before I could stop it, and now I am going to have to go and have a nice lie-down with a nice hot cup of

vodka

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

My brain said "synchronised swimming" before I could stop it, and now I am going to have to go and have a nice lie-down with a nice hot cup of

vodka

@FWRLurker

Very Glad to see this. The economist is a reputable right-leaning source (not breitbart et al).

Of course the woke will still pan it as propaganda but they have no argument here. It’s cut and dry.

I agree, and actually I would probably consider the Econ as slightly left leaning on social issues and right leaning on economic ones. So they were very anti Brexit and Trump although gave some grudging support to the American economy although basically said it was doing well despite Trump.

The article is very factual and to the point and non emotive and doesn’t even touch on the idea that “TWAW”.

I had an interesting debate with someone recently about TW in sport and their perspective was that if they had transitioned early enough and hadn’t had male puberty, then it was probably fair.
But didn’t have much of an answer when I questioned the wisdom of allowing 12 year olds to decide their emotional and sexual future self before puberty had even started.