Meanwhile, in the Australian election …

[TheSandgroper]

www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-15/trans-women-in-sport-politicised-and-weaponised/100989438

No mention of just saying “TWAW” being all that is needed. No mention of invasion of the change rooms.

I could go on.

And I look forward to seeing more about this research from Dr Ada Cheung. I will read it later to see what she has now. It seems to be being lauded on face value and emotionally manipulative value.

But her claim that transitioned males are 7 kg lighter than her control seems to need to be investigated. Is this the once again seen argument pushed, when it is actually stemming from lifestyle choices to body shape vs a properly controlled experiment?

We have even had Harper acknowledge this is an issue. And surely, that choice of choosing shape over performance should not be considered a legitimate reason to change sporting policy to accommodate that choice? I mean, sure for weight categories, but not for sports without weight categories.

Her entire thread seems driven by emotional aspects. However it is being pushed quickly by those wanting to counter Katherine’s claims.

twitter.com/dradacheungau/status/1517021793554677761?s=21&t=oCYQDuUbiKIWNr7o_WZMsQ

Sorry forgot to add that this research from Dr Ada Cheung seems to counter the opinion of Dr Handelsman ( uni of Sydney) who is also an expert in testosterone and was unequivocal on the fact that males retain overall advantage on SBS this week.

Australia's #sexnotgender campaign. I've heard the logo has been agreed with the WRN and WU here.

Hannah Mouncey is quoted in that article as saying you do lose your advantage, and that they dropped from benching 150kg to 50kg after transitioning. I wish I knew enough to state what I suspect- that that statement is rubbish, and that they can bench more than that if they are training at the same level as in the past. I wonder if they actually believe that?

Iirc, Mouncey wasn’t eligible to play in the WAFL as they hadn’t met the requirement of lowered testosterone levels for a year (and other players noted that they hadn’t had surgery) so I’d want to know what is meant by ‘transitioned’ and what therefore specifically affected their performance. Also if I were ever to transition to a man, would I benefit from the opposite effect and to the same level? (I’d eat every hat in the country if researchers found that I would)

SMH is trying to dance around the subject
www.smh.com.au/national/shutting-down-trans-discussion-only-encourages-the-zealots-20220421-p5af41.html

And I don’t know what to make of this. Are there any Liberal people on here?
www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/this-is-a-joke-farcical-scenes-as-deves-ushered-into-pub-event-20220422-p5afix.html

Very biased article in today's Guardian - shock horror. Lots of pearl clutching because Kath misgendered Lauren Hubbard and Hannah Mouncey. But they admit she has galvanised the campaign.

SMH is also not publishing comments which are supportive of Kath and raising the fact that she is not alone in her concern. Multiple friends have tried to post, perfectly polite and respectful comments, but nope.

Yes I've had exactly the same issue with snh comments. They go off to be 'moderated' and never appear again. I wonder how many of us there are being affected? I'm not sure I'm brave enough yet to call them out on twitter unfortunately

I live in that electorate. This is a ‘look over here’ tactic by the Prime Minister to distract people from the actual issues (rorts, government incompetence) and a dog whistle to the conservative and religious voters in other electorates. He doesn’t care about women or trans issues. His words are carefully calculated to appeal to the conservative voter (‘won’t allow to be silenced’; cancel culture; woke). The liberal party has an awful record on women. Scott Morrison has been rude and disrespectful to women raped in parliament and to child abuse activists. But he is a wily politician who will do anything to win.

Zali is an excellent local member trying to hold the government to account. Her point has been that this is not a key issue for the electorate and deserves a sensitive and nuanced discussion, rather than a trans people be used as a political punching bag.

Many people agree that men should not play in women’s sports but this is not a big issue in Australia at the moment. And the way that the government has used this a wedge politics means that it is hard to have a respectful discussion on this.

It's only not a big issue in Australia because it's all been snuck under the radar.

Incredibly proud and grateful to Kath for sticking her head above the parapet and getting the issue out there.

“Not a key issue” translates as “women have concerns, which are valid, have been proven to be true both in Australia and around the world, but not enough people care right now for it to matter for votes”.

Of course Deves has raised concerns that SHOULD be election issues - women’s rights and the medical mistreatment of children - but she’s been told to shut up instead.

“Not a key issue” is all great until it is too late and it has been passed into legislation again without voters knowing the implications. Like Gillard did in 2013.

Many people agree that men should not play in women’s sports but this is not a big issue in Australia at the moment.

This seems like the ‘only a few’ tactic that the media is pushing is working very well. It is a classic n+1 scenario. Until x women and girls are effected we will just ignore it.

The reality is, there is a reason the swimmers are speaking out. How hard is it to believe that there is a strong potential that an Australian version of Thomas or Bridges will be entering female sports soon.

It is too late to act then.

And it ignores the impact on hundreds of women already by Hannah Mouncey. People either don’t realise, don’t care about those women, or seem to think if it happens again it won’t be significant.

Not a key issue…. There was an article, maybe the age, that said that. And then went on about giving indigenous people land rights in the Mabo decision didn’t mean we lost our backyards. And said there were only 6 transgender people in the Olympics, back to not a key issue. Assuming he was talking about 6 transwomen competing as women, that’s 6 women who can’t call themselves Olympians. And that’s just the headline impact, on the very first Olympics after rules changed. Whoever wrote that article (the foreign affairs editor I think) can fuck off.

it is that scomo is playing a wedge issue and does not care. @Warringahvoter is that actually what Zali has said? I’m surprised, I thought shed said a much more straight out TWAW. I do think she’s doing a good job though.

And sorry, ‘not a key issue’ also downplays the need to have these discussions about the treatment plans available to adolescent transitioners.

Already Victoria, Queensland and ACT at least have brought in problematic ‘conversion’ therapy bans limiting clinicians options for exploratory therapy. This now needs Federal attention. If you haven’t read the UK Cass interim report, please do so.

When you combine the Cass report with the legislation passed during Covid by those state governments with this study linked below with Sydney clinicians raising the alarm on the adolescents who are demanding specific treatment plans and that they are being schooled by outsiders on how to manipulate clinicians to get those- why on earth would anyone be saying ‘not a key issue’…. Should it wait until next federal election?

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26344041211010777

Published April 22, 2021
Kasia Kozlowska, Georgia McClure et al

Australian children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: Clinical presentations and challenges experienced by a multidisciplinary team and gender service

No. I know I am now in the UK temporarily but having watched what has unfolded already in Australia in regards to the treatment of adolescents in gender clinics, I don’t believe Australia has the luxury of waiting until next Federal election to deal with these issues.

Perhaps if people saw through the ill conceived ‘only a few’ to the underlying real issue of ‘this needs sorting now before it is many more’ it would be better.

For instance: It only needs to be a few to make an issue in sports. Look at Layt who claimed the NSW sports woman of the year award years ago.

And please tell us how many of our daughters being given affirming only treatment (because anything else will be considered conversion therapy) and then detransitioning because they needed explorative therapy and would never have transitioned if they had appropriate care is enough to make it a ‘key issue’?

Or having a child removed and made ward of the state because parents want extensive explorative therapy before any other therapy is done.

As a parent of a vulnerable teen, this would be a key issue for me. (And I would have been voting in a bordering electorate… and I doubt the issues in my electorate would be very much different to Warringah’s at all)

Zali doesn’t want a sensitive discussion, she wants no discussion. She refuses to answer questions at all about womens sport and single sex spaces. She blocks anyone who asks her about it on social media.

I can’t say whether she’s been a good local member but I think her failure to declare a six figure donation was awful and she would be scathing of anyone else who tried to explain it away as a “rookie error”.

And yes, I am fully aware that the Cass report is from the UK, but at the moment it is the only independently produced report internationally that can be used.

It does support the RANZCP guidance though.

When this was released, they did say there was some longitudinal studies being done in Australia on trans people… anyone seen anything on that?

www.ranzcp.org/news-policy/policy-and-advocacy/position-statements/gender-dysphoria

Her point has been that this is not a key issue for the electorate and deserves a sensitive and nuanced discussion, rather than a trans people be used as a political punching bag.

So now is the time to have it.

Or is this a situation as we saw in Maya Forstater’s case where there is acknowledgment that there is an issue… but not one senior executive of that particular company could come up with an example of what would have been an acceptable way to phrase anything they found problematic that Maya had said. That to put those very thoughts in words was transphobic.

That is what I suspect Zali will say. I strongly doubt that she would say anything at all because there will be no ‘nuanced and sensitive way’ to discuss this without offending the trans people involved.

That is the point. Considering one of the spokespeople for male inclusion is someone called Roxy who is suing Sal Grover because Roxy was not accepted on the Giggle app… why do you think anything that refers to ‘males’ being unable to compete in the female sporting category would be acceptable?

Re the moderating and disappearing comments- I just remembered this legal case from a few years ago. I don't know much about the details or how far the ruling would extend. But as it related directly to transgender issued I imagine it would be affecting what news outlets will publish in the comments.

Are there any Aussie lawyers here who could provide insight?

www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-09/canberra-radio-newsreader-told-to-pay-transgender-activist-10000/12642722

Oh.... I remember Clinch and that case. That was a doozy.

And isn't it really interesting that without filters etc, pics are often very clear as to the sex of the person in the photo.

I agree as above that it’s probably not been brought up as a local issue for Zali in a big way and I can see how there would be annoyance that their area has been used for this sort of test case.

But you can’t have it both ways. Trans issues have been pushed hard in the media and by local groups (we’ve had many training sessions at work despite having no one). And yet when we do try to talk about the practicalities of moving forward in terms of safeguarding, protected attributes and employment/legislation, the impact on women in sport etc then we just get rapped across the knuckles and told to shut up and that it’s not really an issue!

We can’t go on like this for much longer. The censorship is not reassuring.

This issue definitely not an issue for the ruling or middle classes of Liberal heartland. Working class women however are disproportionately affected by Gender Self-ID. For instance, Richard Pusey is trans maxxing to enter the Women's prison in Victoria. He is not trans. He is doing this to get a new identity - new name and birth certificate as well as access to women he can abuse and the pleasure of humiliating prison guards. Pusey is the notorious Porsche driver who filmed 4 dying police officers and laughed at them while they were dying. He was also charged with assaulting a woman dragging her up stairs and showing her a rope noose. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/melbourne/article-10730077/Notorious-Porsche-driver-Richard-Pusey-appears-court-wearing-pigtails.html

WisdomOrOblivion

I understand the point you are trying to make. However, all women ARE impacted by this. Even if they have not realized it yet. Have you forgotten the issues facing the children and teens?

No, totally understand this affects all women. I 've been in this debate for three years on Twitter but I am new to mumsnet, perhaps I replied to the wrong post? I wanted to respond to the post about the issue not being of a concern to the LNP voters in Deve's electorate. Sorry for my ham fisted approach. It obviously didn't come across as I intended.