Transwomen in womens sport: advice sought..

[TraumatisedinTwickenham]

I’ve name changed as this may be outing.

As a hobby I play a team sport. I play for a womens team in a womens league.
We played against a team recently which had two trans women in the tram. Both well over 6 ft and faster, stronger than the women on my team.

They were both in the ladies changing room before the game. I wasn’t changing as I had arrived already in my sports gear but there are open showers in there and I certainty wouldn’t have felt comfortable showering in knowing that there was a trans woman in the space.

I’m really quite traumatised about it. I thought a womens league was inherently a single sex league but this doesn’t seem to be the case here. I have thought about going to the governing body of the sport but noticed that their website has an interview with the club for which the team we played represents as part of LGBTQ+ history month.

Incidentally, both of the trans people were very pleasant friendly people, not that this is really relevant, why wouldn’t they be. But it doesn’t change the fact that anyone who has been through male puberty has an undeniable advantage over women. I just don’t think that they should be participating in a womens team in a womens league but don’t know what the actual legal position is.

I was really upset (unexpectedly so) during the game and now half my own team thinks I’m a bigot..

I just don’t know what to do.

I played in a mixed hockey team and was happy to do so. All the women knew the score and were content about it.
I also played in a women's team.

There is a massive difference in having a mixed team where men and women chose to play together and having a women's team where men elbow their way in by saying they are women.

A women's team should be what it says on the tin - a women's team
Transwomen can bugger off.

Telling that they opt for a women's team and not a mixed team. Just proves it's really for validation.

Thank you @TofuonToast I (think I!) DM’d you.

@CanIPleaseHaveOne

When you say they were in the changing rooms do you mean they strip down naked?

If so, how do they other women not object to that?

#baffled

Very difficult - others would accuse you of being transphobic. That’s if the trans players aren’t in earshot. Since they were in the changing room already, it’s hard to see how anyone can take them on.

DerryWitch

Why is it transphobic to object to a male bodied person, naked in a female changing room?

[quote CatsOperatingInGangs]Looks like we’ve got GIRES to thank for this one.

www.englandhockey.co.uk/governance/equality-diversity-inclusion/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-updates[/quote]
Interesting that the picture used is that of what is clearly a child playing against adults. I imagine that this is a friendly practice or training event and that the adults playing are aware of the child and compensate for his presence by not playing to their full body speed and strength because as responsible adults they realise that they have distinct advantages and take responsibility for the child’s safety. I do not imagine that it is a match situation, even between members of the same club, let alone a visiting club.

However, in the OPs case two adult male bodied players have chosen to play as part of an adult female bodied team against an adult female bodied team in a match/ league situation . Did they choose to modify their strength and speed to accommodate the female members of either team. I doubt it.

If I was the OP I would ask team members if they would feel happy playing against small children as the photo demonstrates, and if not, why they then think it appropriate to play against male bodied opponents in a match for women players where the same discrepancies of speed and strength apply.

she just feels so sad for anyone who have to resort to such drastic measures and we should have compassion for them.

If you try this pity approach on a disabled person or a BAME person you're likely to be told to gtf and stop being so patronising, because it shows that you are not seeing them as real and equal people. It's insulting.

This position excludes gender atheist females, females with incompatible protected characteristics and females just plain afraid of getting hurt, wanting privacy and dignity in changing rooms and showers, and who think this is politically unfair and wrong from accessing female sports. In order - by this woman's account of how sad she is - to indulge male people. Female sport and the females there are not a support service for male people. It's really worrying how many male and female people seem to believe that they are.

Writing that, it sinks in to me all over again.

"Women! You have equality! You have your own sports, your own ambitions and sports careers and achievements, your battle in a man's world is won! But only until men need it and you, and then of course you must stop thinking about yourselves and your sports, put all of that aside, and focus yourself entirely around nurturing them."

A biological subordination through accident of birth. You can borrow resources and play with them a bit until the real humans want them back, and then you're back to being nurses. Nannies. Props.

@Charley50

Hockey is a very physical sport. Common sense tells us that having men playing as 'women' will both give an unfair advantage to the team they are in, and put all of the women in physical danger of getting more injured than they would against just women (female ones).

Women also have the right to single-sex spaces when they're getting changed. For obvious reasons. For legal reasons.

What is so hard to understand about this? Please complain. You are not transphobic, you are realistic. And the dichotomy for me is, if these people feel so 'womanly' why don't they understand that most women do not want male-bodies in their sport or their changing rooms? Where is their empathy for women?

Totally agree. I have teenage daughters and actually feel glad that neither of them play a sport. It is dreadful for girls and women that this is happening.

That’s a fair question but it’s still what they’d face if they complain. I suppose the logic is that the woman would be objecting to the mere presence of transwomen = “transphobia”. And/or by implication saying they are not women. Again: nowadays stonewall, the LibDems etc include denying someone’s gender identity in their definition of transphobia. Pointless to argue you’re not denying their gender identity you’re simply pointing out their sex.

If there are mixed teams it would be kind of the transwomen players to play on those.

@TheWatersofMarch

If there are mixed teams it would be kind of the transwomen players to play on those.

Don’t be silly, being kind is women’s work. Sorry , I mean being kind is cis women’s work. It’s so confusing when there are so many different sorts of women and some of them are expected to act like women are traditionally expected to act while some of the other sorts of women can carry on acting like men and that’s ok, while another sort of woman isn’t allowed to act like men because it is seen as being anti men and that’s not ok.

Thank you @TraumatisedinTwickenham for speaking up. I am dismayed to hear that this is happening in Hockey, though I did see it coming.

Reach out for all the help you can find. I wonder how many of the GB Senior Women's Hockey players, past and present, would be happy to have given up their place on the team to a male bodied player. I listened to a podcast recently by Kate Walsh Richardson where she talked about what changed in Hockey between Sydney and Rio and how she did it for all those women who did not have the support that the Rio team did. How will she feel if GB put a male bodied person on the squad... when selection is based on fitness, speed, agility, strength, women will be outclassed on every vector.

I think the mixed teams point is a bit moot sadly. Mixed hockey looks like it has strict rules about how many male/female players are on the pitch at any one time. I briefly played mixed tag rugby which was similar.

So the same problem arises in a mixed team: does a trans woman play as a male player (unlikely to be their preference) or as a female player (which gives their team an unfair advantage in terms of the number of male bodied players on the pitch).

That said, mixed teams is still a better option in that all the women playing will have explicitly consented to playing against a mixed team.

I had a look on this site... www.womeninsport.org/research-and-advice/our-publications/project-51-toolkit/. but the information is a little out of date.

Women's sport receive 4% of media coverage, one of the barriers to women's sport is the availability of sex segregated facilities. Do we really have to wait until women and girls start dropping out of competitive and recreational sport in their droves before we recognise that having male bodied participants in female sport will become a significant barrier.

My children play mixed hockey (not in the UK) and at every level, the challenges are significant. My daughter also plays girls football and it has been a real challenge when some of the competitions are still mixed. (we are a few decades behind here).

Genius

@viques I meant your reply was genius

I think this is a tricky one. I've played recreational hockey on and off, mainly for mixed teams, for years. There is a physical element but not in the same way as rugby or soccer, such that safety isn't a major issue (bearing in mind that any sport carries a risk of injury).

It sounds like the league OP plays in - which is at the end of the day comprised of the constiuent clubs, including her own, accepts trans players.

So looking at things purely from the viewpoint of natal sex, it's structurally the same as a mixed-sex league. If so, it's up to the OP whether she is willing to play alongside them or not.

She of course has the option of trying to find a local trans-exclusionary club or league. Based on the received MN wisdom that a majority of people are GC, I wouldn't've thought this would be a problem?

I don’t know why I am still so upset about it because I’m generally a very upbeat person but this has really thrown me.

For what it’s worth, I usually experience the reaction you describe (including the first stage of being wholly unable to hide my emotion) when I am feeling angry (because something seems completely unfair) and utterly powerless to do anything about it.

I’m glad you have been offered help. I hope that you manage to make your point and do so without too much negative fallout.

They’ve really done a number on women. The idea that we must not only accept something that is to our detriment, but must also feel terribly sorry for the people responsible for doing it to us is as close to unbearable as it gets, for someone who has been gaslighted too often in life to see this as anything but another version of it.

I play hockey too, and i think sadly England Hockey is pretty captured.
Ive also been wondering what I'd do in the samr situation, and what Ive come up with is this:
In the short term, if you know of a women's team that has TW playing, make yourself unavailable for that match. You can still make yourself available to play for s liwer team in your club, if there is one. If you're brave enough, explain your real reasons to your captain. If you're not, just make up something about the timings of the fame which mean youre only free to play for the lower team.
If a TW joins your club, ask to drop down to a lower team, if there is one.

If enough women do this, clubs will be unable to field a team for fixtures against TW. Unfortunately, in the short term it will be the opposition clubs that suffer, but in the long term it will send a powerful message to the league, and to the team with the TW on. And it will also disincentivise clubs from fielding TW: they might get a by and 3 points for every match, but most people actually want to get a game every week.

Also, please PM me the team which you played against. If its in my division, I'll make myself unavailable for their match.

@sharksarecool

I play hockey too, and i think sadly England Hockey is pretty captured. Ive also been wondering what I'd do in the samr situation, and what Ive come up with is this: In the short term, if you know of a women's team that has TW playing, make yourself unavailable for that match. You can still make yourself available to play for s liwer team in your club, if there is one. If you're brave enough, explain your real reasons to your captain. If you're not, just make up something about the timings of the fame which mean youre only free to play for the lower team. If a TW joins your club, ask to drop down to a lower team, if there is one.

If enough women do this, clubs will be unable to field a team for fixtures against TW. Unfortunately, in the short term it will be the opposition clubs that suffer, but in the long term it will send a powerful message to the league, and to the team with the TW on. And it will also disincentivise clubs from fielding TW: they might get a by and 3 points for every match, but most people actually want to get a game every week.

Also, please PM me the team which you played against. If its in my division, I'll make myself unavailable for their match.

Or you could engage in debate around the subject and try to persuade people to your views, instead of engaging in a campaign of exclusion and intolerance.

It seems like most people in the OP's club, and the club she was playing against, were fine with the TW being there. Mixed hockey works fine, it's not a safety issue.

I will very likely make myself unavailable for the return game. I just think it’s a shame that I’m the one that has to give up a game.

To the pp, engaging in debate is difficult when you either get told by your team mates that they don’t agree with you and don’t want to talk about it.
Or you get labelled a bigot and thrown out of your club (not yet happened in my case but it’s entirely possible). Or those that agree with you will tell you so in private but not in public.
I’d love to have a debate. But who is going to debate with a “trans phobe” who is trying to bully a poor trans woman, whose only crime is to want to be accepted as a woman and play hockey.

Or you could engage in debate around the subject and try to persuade people to your views, instead of engaging in a campaign of exclusion and intolerance.

It seems like most people in the OP's club, and the club she was playing against, were fine with the TW being there. Mixed hockey works fine, it's not a safety issue.

Yes, because the polite approach is working so well for women.

Discussion and evidence have done nothing whatsoever to improve the ridiculous IOC situation. It’s long been said the only thing that will work is when women start to boycott, or set up their own sports.

Women are having their sports taken away from them and you think they need to prioritise tolerance for the men who are doing it?

NoThankYou.

Mixed hockey works fine, it's not a safety issue.

Perhaps you haven't read the thread fully - this isn't a mixed team.

It IS a safety issue, and a fairness one.

Transwomen shouldn’t be playing in the women’s category.

@titchy

Mixed hockey works fine, it's not a safety issue.

Perhaps you haven't read the thread fully - this isn't a mixed team.

I have read the thread. The GC position would be that these are mixed teams, because the clubs themselves, and their governing body, have decided that men and women may play alongside each other. And indeed, men and women are participating.

If there is a demand for leagues in which only natal women are allowed to play, then those will happen in quick time. However it sounds from the OP's teammates reaction that most of them are happy with the status quo.