Louise O’Neill in The Times

[tabbycatstripy]

Another article about TW in sports that replays the same arguments about Michael Phelp’s feet and about how some people are better adapted to sports than others but we don’t call it unfair.

Why don’t these people understand that the purpose of competitive sport is to find out who is best adapted in a particular category? We want to watch the Michael Phelps’s and Williams sisters of the world. We want to see the remarkable results of their remarkable physiques, combined with their determination and strategic skill.

What we don’t want to see - and we have seen, in the case of Laurel Hubbard - is the average sportsperson beating people in the wrong category. We don’t want to watch 50 year old heavyweight boxers knocking out 25 year old flyweights. It’s not interesting. We don’t want to watch Andy Murray dominate a women’s tennis match in his late 40s. Not interesting. Not fair.

Why can’t they see the same applies to males in female sports? It’s not interesting. Just cheating.

Someone having big feet is unusual
Someone being male isn't

What are The Times up to?
Yesterday they had a TRA piece.

Some comments were it's great to hear the TRA opinion because it's so batshit no one could possibly agree. It used to be "no debate" and "acceptance without exception" on the issue. Now we're hearing all they have to say and thinking -

What are the reasons they TRAs think it’s fair? I find it difficult to understand

I think they had to include a pro trans piece so they can demonstrate a degree of balance. However, I believe they are firmly in our camp. It's heartening to read people explaining to posters doing the usual "why can't you be kind" that this has been going on for years and women have discovered a)kindness doesn't work and b) what about TRAs being kind to us. There are also increasing numbers of men speaking up. Maybe it took a sports story to get their attention????

@peonyred

I think they had to include a pro trans piece so they can demonstrate a degree of balance. However, I believe they are firmly in our camp. It's heartening to read people explaining to posters doing the usual "why can't you be kind" that this has been going on for years and women have discovered a)kindness doesn't work and b) what about TRAs being kind to us. There are also increasing numbers of men speaking up. Maybe it took a sports story to get their attention????

It's naive to think they're in anyone's camp. Individual journalists are, but The Times is a Murdoch newspaper - they exist to sell copy. They have realised that their readership is largely GC, so they predominantly print GC articles, with a smattering of TRA ones, to drive traffic to the site (readers rush to comment), while keeping the media regulators at bay with a veneer of balance. They would turn on us in a heartbeat if it made them more money.

Isn't she that awful libfem Irish author? Such a disappointment. I really liked some of her books but she is so wilfully blind on this issue, reading her books she almost seems to get it then comes out with tired, weak, dickpandering like this.

What are The Times up to?
Yesterday they had a TRA piece

That's all good, we should be happy about this:

1. It 's not us who want 'no debate'
2. Most of the TRA arguments are so rubbish that they actually make our case for us
3. "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" - Napoleon Bonaparte

She (rightly imo) gets slated in the BTL comments. She is the same age as one of my adult children and I often wonder if this pro-trans movement by women is a generational thing? I am called a TERF by my two daughters.

@Circumferences

What are The Times up to? Yesterday they had a TRA piece.

Some comments were it's great to hear the TRA opinion because it's so batshit no one could possibly agree. It used to be "no debate" and "acceptance without exception" on the issue. Now we're hearing all they have to say and thinking -

The Times are presenting a balanced view here.

It is not their fault that the views of extreme trans activists are not based in logic, science or with a few to protecting female’s sports. And that readers can see through their arguments.

But the Times is putting the perspective of the activists out there. For the general public to read. Not just the all confirming twitter bubble !

Sunlight often makes flaws easier to see.

I’m fine with them publishing an opinion piece. But the opinion is drivel.

I think it's great that they are allowing sunlight to shine on the incomprehensible bullshit that is trans ideology.

And the comments are great.

What does she think sports are actually for? To make a handful of individuals (who just happen to have penises) feel good about their 'identity'? Is that what it's all about now? The British Cycling statement seemed to be saying something similar.

Great. I quite fancy going round one of those tracks on a snazzy bike and getting paid to do a bit of travel. I'm middle aged and not very fit but hey, high level sport, apparently it's your priority now to make everyone feel included and happy about themselves regardless of suitability, and if my inclusion takes the place of a girl who has trained hard and dedicated many hours of her life to the sport well, as Louise says at the end there, isn't it worth it for my happiness?

@Saltyquiche

What are the reasons they TRAs think it’s fair? I find it difficult to understand

They don't care if it's fair, they just want everything that is set aside for women to be available to them. It's misogyny on steroids.

There are also increasing numbers of men speaking up. Maybe it took a sports story to get their attention????

Men prefer the sports angles because it allows them to point out that they are the superior athletes. They're less keen on the toilets/changing room/prisons angle because it focuses on how much more violent and predatory they are.

@Saltyquiche

What are the reasons they TRAs think it’s fair? I find it difficult to understand

The arguments for fairness from what I gather seem to be derived deep from within gender ideology mythology such as:

-You can't tell anyone's sex without genital inspections,
Therefore no advantage for TW because there aren't differences between the sexes.

-TWAW full stop, no debate, stop being a bigot.

-Trans people will all kill themselves if you don't affirm them
Therefore forcing them into male spaces is "literal violence" and it doesn't make a difference to women anyway because see above.

-People with a vagina aren't as good at sport because they don't try hard enough, so having woman who were wrongly assigned male at birth in their sport will be a benefit or inspiration to people with a vagina.

-My little sister can run faster than me (said by male bodied TRA) so of course men aren't better at sports....

That's the gist of it I understand.

(Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim, continue to Offend)...

‘as Louise says at the end there, isn't it worth it for my happiness?’

Of course. Forget the core purposes of sport. Forget human enjoyment in watching someone beat the best of the rest. Might as well replace the Olympics with a fancy dress sack race. As long as everyone gets to take part and a male person doesn’t have to feel left out...

Sport is about competition

It is not meant to be fair

But males and females deserve equal access to sport and that cannot occur if you believe males van switch to being females

Females deserve equal access to victories over other people in their categories. They deserve to to win because they’re a fraction of a second faster than the person who missed that key training session, or who chose a slightly different technique, or who isn’t as well-adapted as they are, given a fundamental baseline of fairness.

They deserve not to have to compete against people who have used drugs to alter their natural capabilities.

Some comments were it's great to hear the TRA opinion because it's so batshit no one could possibly agree. It used to be "no debate" and "acceptance without exception" on the issue. Now we're hearing all they have to say and thinking -confused

Yes this.

The Times is certainly not a pro feminist or pro Genderist newspaper- they are basically conservative. What they have done for several years recently (as they and most other papers always used to) is separate their news from opinion and publish a range of opinions.

I want the Genderists arguing their case as widely as possible, because their case is shit. That's why Stonewall have completely avoided the normal approach to changing public policy and why they are willing to spend millions attacking the likes of Alison Bailey for trying to bring sunlight to the issue.

She is the ultimate handmaiden. Her lines never change and she adores the c-- word.

Ireland is full of mushy liberals like Louise O Neill. I blame the Church. Anything the church doesn't like must be wonderful and progressive by definition. No matter how batshit crazy it is.

@sunshinesupermum

She (rightly imo) gets slated in the BTL comments. She is the same age as one of my adult children and I often wonder if this pro-trans movement by women is a generational thing? I am called a TERF by my two daughters.

I would love to read a few long pieces explaining this. Why would young women not see the negative consequences of this? Or do they see them but are comfortable with being submissive and passive? Or what?

I am sincerely starving for some information on the so-called generational divide.

As I haven't seen any, right now I have to be content with speculating, based on a few conversations I have had online.

Those suggest that many young women believe sex equality has been completely achieved and nothing will change that. Not sure how what happens in so many other countries (Afghanistan, say) doesn't register for them or why the unequal earnings and unequal numbers of women and men in positions of power doesn't register for them.

But perhaps they are not yet in the labour force, trying to accomplish work, family responsibilities and so on at the same time. Many of the negatives appear more strongly only after early adulthood for women.

@MrsJorahMormont

She is the ultimate handmaiden. Her lines never change and she adores the c-- word.

The truly awful thing about observing how the female sex gets erased for quite a long time (and often by feminist women in writing) before anyone even begins dismantling the male sex was that it looked to me like a natural experiment on how women, as a sex, got subjugated in the first place.

Be kind and give space surely played into that, while the men on the left saw nothing wrong in demanding that kindness and inclusiveness from women.

But I also saw the disparate treatment of so -called TERFs. Men with gender critical arguments got treated fairly politely in most cases, women with gender critical arguments got treated with incredibly rage. This is such a clear example of the sexist or misogynist expectations societies still have about women's proper place.

@sunshinesupermum

She (rightly imo) gets slated in the BTL comments. She is the same age as one of my adult children and I often wonder if this pro-trans movement by women is a generational thing? I am called a TERF by my two daughters.

There is a cultural assumption that the young are more in tune with truth because they represent "progress". What is new is "progress".

But also, they lack experience, and they often have somewhat less complex/abstract thinking in place. The two are probably related.

It's like looking at maths vs literature or history. Most mathematicians do their best work in their 20s, even their early 20s in some cases. It's all literal and logical. Whereas in literature and history, most scholars or even writers tend to produce their best or most authoritative work in middle age or sometimes even old age. There is a built up, layered body of inter-related knowledge and complexity that is very often non-linear.

One of the things I've found very interesting about what's going on currently is that I remember a lot of the arguments about these issues going back into the 80s, up through the 90s. Younger people like I was at the time tended to be very confident that all of these new ideas should be implemented, that not to do so was crazy and backward. Conservatives made all kinds of arguments about slippery slopes (as I saw it) or human nature, or how unintended consequences fall out over a few generations.

Now, thirty and forty years later, I can see that in many cases they were correct, there have been many of the consequences they predicted, and I can see how it happened too.

Flippant response, having not RTHT but Why don’t these people understand that the purpose of competitive sport is to find out who is best adapted in a particular category? My immediate response is because they are a bit hard of thinking. Had to get that off my chest...... Better now!!