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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

“ How families are fighting back against laws targeting transgender athletes”... Guardian article

51 replies

SuperSleepyBaby · 15/07/2021 02:15

www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/14/maddie-jenifer-north-carolina-transgender-athletes

Very one sided article. The language is misleading as it talks about how these ‘girls and women’ just want to be able to play sports with other girls and women.

Also, see this part...
“ With her husband still skeptical, Katie found a therapist who evaluated Maddie and noted that the five-year-old never wavered in her beliefs. This wasn’t a phase”

OP posts:
CiaoForNiao · 15/07/2021 02:21

Interesting how being trans is apparently nothing to do with gender stereotypes, yet all it talks about it how Maddie played with girls, with her sisters toys, liked pink, wanted to wear dresses. Hmm

thinkingaboutLangCleg · 15/07/2021 23:38

the five-year-old never wavered in her beliefs. This wasn’t a phase

How would you know? A phase can last for years. It's terrifying that tiny children can be led into this crap.

NotTheFunKindOfFeminist · 15/07/2021 23:44

Pathetic.

Once again the Guardian, a supposedly liberal and progressive newspaper, is trampling over the rights of women and girls and condoning sterilizing children.

You couldn't make it up.

PurpleHoodie · 15/07/2021 23:52

What a load of old shit.

PurpleHoodie · 15/07/2021 23:52

The Guardian for example.....

yourhairiswinterfire · 15/07/2021 23:57

Still, the North Carolina’s House judiciary committee was introducing legislation that would have banned Maddie from playing sports for her high school that fall.

Bullshit straight off. They're not banned from playing sports, they can play with their own sex class, the group they're equal with.

Parents of transgender children, like Katie, pleaded for understanding and compassion.

Where's your understanding and compassion for the girls that will get seriously hurt or lose out? Sick to death of everyone bleating on about 'fairness and inclusion', whilst being perfectly happy for women and girls to suffer unfairness and exclusion. Just stop pretending you give a shit about fairness.

PurpleHoodie · 16/07/2021 00:08

Yes. Just that.

They are not banned.

They just need to compete/play in their own sexed groups and teams.

abettercat · 16/07/2021 00:36

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NiceGerbil · 16/07/2021 00:45

'When Maddie was two years old, she loved nothing more than to parade around in the teacher’s high heel shoes at Sunday School. Maddie played with her older sister’s toys and dressed up in her clothes. At the playground, Maddie’s mother, Katie, watched her child run right past the boys for the huddle of little girls. All of Maddie’s friends were girls.'

NiceGerbil · 16/07/2021 00:50

'paraded around' in high heels

Not allowed to join a gymnastics club for girls

Trans people not playing with those matching ID means they somehow can't do sport full stop

I understand why parents want their children to be happy but the total lack of consideration for anything or anyone else is crappy imo.

Whatwouldscullydo · 16/07/2021 06:55

So again, despite opportunities to attend mixed classes etc the parents decide to try and join ones fir the opposite sex then play the victim when told no Hmm

If they attended a mixed class or one dsignated fir their sex they'd not be a problem. Much like I could attend an adults swim.class but would be rightfully told no if I tried to join one aimed at children.

InvisibleDragon · 16/07/2021 08:01

This article makes my skin crawl.

When Maddie was two years old, she loved nothing more than to parade around in the teacher’s high heel shoes at Sunday School. Maddie played with her older sister’s toys and dressed up in her clothes. At the playground, Maddie’s mother, Katie, watched her child run right past the boys for the huddle of little girls. All of Maddie’s friends were girls ... When Maddie was able to express herself verbally, it became clear that she didn’t recognize herself as a boy at all.

So Maddie is identifying as a girl before she can even talk??

It was decided that Maddie would transition in the summer between kindergarten and first grade.

That is very scarily young. At 5 years old, I doubt Maddie understood that she can't actually change sex.

In April, Katie and Maddie stood in front of the state judiciary committee, so they could see Maddie in person, so they could see just who this proposed statute would hurt. Maddie isn’t a runaway athlete. She actually has asthma. She’s simply a kid who loves sleepovers, video games and playing sports with her friends.

This is just emotional manipulation - both of us, the readers, and the state judiciary committee.

I’m glad I was there and I could hear what they were saying and trying to argue – that they were right and we were wrong,” said Maddie, who let her newly graduated lawyer mother do the talking. “It was difficult to hear them say trans kids aren’t real boys or girls. It’s hard to hear them contemplating my existence.”

Again, the same nonsense argument, but this time with the logical fallacy made clear: a statement that there are biological differences between trans girls and natal girls becomes the same as stating that trans girls don't exist.

It's like a bastardisation of "I think, therefore I am" - as if whatever I think about myself is automatically true. "I know that I exist and I know that I am a girl, therefore I am a girl. If you say I am a boy, you are questioning my existence."

AnyOldPrion · 16/07/2021 08:19

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AnyOldPrion · 16/07/2021 08:23

And yes to all the nonsense about how unathletic Maddie is. Maddie’s personal achievements are irrelevant. Changing the rules for unathletic Maddie changes the rules for everyone. That will include boys who are very athletic indeed.

Tibtom · 16/07/2021 08:30

I don't suppose the judge also saw a five year old girls who was a keen athlete and heard how her ambition, her chance of scholarships, her chance for fair competition would be destroyed by this?

KarmaViolet · 16/07/2021 08:53

Agree with everything that's been said, but I also do feel sympathetic to Maddie - in North Carolina, Maddie is hardly likely to be accepted onto the boys team either. So the practical outcome is that Maddie can't play team sports at all. I know some here will say well, tough shit, the boys need to get more progressive, but that doesn't solve the immediate problem for Maddie (without a time machine with which to go back and impress upon the parents, the school and the church that dresses are not the sole preserve of girls...)

Noterook · 16/07/2021 08:59

It's scary, when I was younger I would rather play with boys as I enjoyed the games they played more, i was happy enough wearing my brothers hand me downs and playing with typically 'boys' toys (going by society constructed gender norms rather than reality). If I had been young and if my parents had flouted the idea, plus if I had access to the Internet and could spend hours immersed in all of this stuff online I probably would feel that I 'should' be a boy. Instead thankfully it was just who I was, and now I am just who I am, and thankful I didn't have life altering hormones or surgery just because I didn't fit into the mould someone has made up of what a boy and a girl is.

merrymouse · 16/07/2021 09:06

@KarmaViolet

Agree with everything that's been said, but I also do feel sympathetic to Maddie - in North Carolina, Maddie is hardly likely to be accepted onto the boys team either. So the practical outcome is that Maddie can't play team sports at all. I know some here will say well, tough shit, the boys need to get more progressive, but that doesn't solve the immediate problem for Maddie (without a time machine with which to go back and impress upon the parents, the school and the church that dresses are not the sole preserve of girls...)
I agree. I think Maddie is living in a very gendered society, and the answer is more opportunity to participate in unisex activities and more acceptance of gender non conforming children. I would guess that gymnastics clubs anticipate how girls and boys will develop post puberty, and therefore there will always be a level of sex segregation, even at a young age. However, it should be possible to have unisex tumbling displays that include both boys and girls.

America is a country with a lot of problems. It doesn't help that the Guardian lumps together stories from countries with very different cultural influences, but doesn't make those differences clear.

Runningupthecurtains · 16/07/2021 09:10

@KarmaViolet

Agree with everything that's been said, but I also do feel sympathetic to Maddie - in North Carolina, Maddie is hardly likely to be accepted onto the boys team either. So the practical outcome is that Maddie can't play team sports at all. I know some here will say well, tough shit, the boys need to get more progressive, but that doesn't solve the immediate problem for Maddie (without a time machine with which to go back and impress upon the parents, the school and the church that dresses are not the sole preserve of girls...)
I feel sympathy for Maddie, especially as she was excluded from toddler/primary groups where it wouldn't have made a difference, but it doesn't make it OK to sell women and girls down the river to make Maddie happy. Perhaps the time, money and effort spent training to be a lawyer to fight to trample on women's rights and women's spaces could have been used to set up/campaign for trans teams/leagues/spaces? I'm very sorry that trans people are sad and feel excluded but making girls sad and excluded multiples the problem, it doesn't solve it. Oh and a quick search suggests David Beckham and Paula Radcliffe have asthma so it doesn't equally feeble, speccy loser who is last to be pick for the sport team. Hmm
megletthesecond · 16/07/2021 14:57

I would express this level of sexism from The Mail. Don't the Guardian ever stop and engage their brain for a moment?

jellyfrizz · 16/07/2021 15:08

@KarmaViolet

Agree with everything that's been said, but I also do feel sympathetic to Maddie - in North Carolina, Maddie is hardly likely to be accepted onto the boys team either. So the practical outcome is that Maddie can't play team sports at all. I know some here will say well, tough shit, the boys need to get more progressive, but that doesn't solve the immediate problem for Maddie (without a time machine with which to go back and impress upon the parents, the school and the church that dresses are not the sole preserve of girls...)
But shouldn’t the direction of travel be towards boys being more accepting rather than girls being forced to accept males in their sports? If law is being made about this it should be that abuse of gender non-conforming people is not ok rather than effectively saying oh well, boys will be boys so budge up girls.
NecessaryScene · 16/07/2021 15:32

But shouldn’t the direction of travel be towards boys being more accepting rather than girls being forced to accept males in their sports?

Why aren't these people being called out as bigotted for their dogged insistence that "girls" can't play in men's sports?

It's apparently the height of progressiveness that "some men can get pregnant", or "some women have penises", but why can't they figure out that "some girls participate in men's sport"?

NiceGerbil · 16/07/2021 15:35

Agree.

A poster on here told us that the reason the approach to all of this was not to work to decrease the impacts of toxic masculinity. To increase acceptance of those who do not conform to gender norms, reduce the violence from men to transwomen which I have no doubt is not uncommon. And which would improve the lives of countless others.

Is because it's too tricky and 'will never happen'.

That was really inspiring.

SmokedDuck · 16/07/2021 23:39

@KarmaViolet

Agree with everything that's been said, but I also do feel sympathetic to Maddie - in North Carolina, Maddie is hardly likely to be accepted onto the boys team either. So the practical outcome is that Maddie can't play team sports at all. I know some here will say well, tough shit, the boys need to get more progressive, but that doesn't solve the immediate problem for Maddie (without a time machine with which to go back and impress upon the parents, the school and the church that dresses are not the sole preserve of girls...)
I'm not so sure that would be the case though if the parents hadn't pushed the poor child into identifying as a girl. My son loved to dress up as a woman when he was little, or girly things, he loved dolls, now he is mainly keen on boxing and comes across as quite masculine in most ways. To some extent that stuff is learned as I don't think that's really a problem so long as kids understand that it's largely social convention, which they do by 12 or so in most cases.
GNCQ · 17/07/2021 05:16

Maddie is hardly likely to be accepted onto the boys team either. So the practical outcome is that Maddie can't play team sports at all

Being accepted onto the team of your personal choice isn't a human right.
There are mixed sex sports Maddie can join.
Besides, I thought this child was asthmatic? That'll limit what anyone can do in sport. I think the turn of phrase is 'suck it up'. and don't shit on women in sport