Public want trans women kept out of female sport (Times, 16/6/22)

[BettyFilous]

The Times is reporting on research undertaken by the More in Common think tank. The article covers multiple domains, not just sport.

^Only 19 per cent of Britons supported allowing trans athletes in women’s sport against 57 per cent who did not. The report found consistent opposition to biological males in women’s sport in every group surveyed, even among groups who backed transgender inclusion in other parts of
public life.^

(snip)

Support for trans women using women’s lavatories and changing rooms depended on whether they had undergone gender reassignment surgery. Those who had were twice as welcome in single-sex spaces as biological males who identified as women. But it was the question of sport that proved to be the “red line”.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4d010462-ece3-11ec-8821-d2e916a7eab3?shareToken=3725b577b2d58b381a2773f04ce1f860

Such different reporting to the Guardian surprise surprise. Thanks for sharing!

Turns out, Britons don’t want penis people in women’s sports, changing rooms or toilets. They don’t want children to take irreversible treatments (and MIC didn’t explain to their focus groups any of the concerns about puberty blockers). They never brought up, given that people don’t want intact males in toilets, how we would monitor this. Nor, at any point whatsoever, did they even mention women’s prisons. People were happy to recite the twaw mantra. So all in all, it seems the general public agree with the gender critical positions in most practical sense, but are much more in be kind mode.
It remains to be seen how kind they will all feel if they verbalise their practical positions on a public stage and are savaged for them.

Report written by ex-stonewall employee

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4d010462-ece3-11ec-8821-d2e916a7eab3?shareToken=b85b49ccf2372cc67ff13afa747db28e

I’m chuckling at (snip) then a paragraph about chopping off penises 😂

Give it a few more years and the stats will be reversed. That's how it works. That's what's depressing.

I'm surprised it's only 57%.

Does it feel like damage limitation/a PR manoeuvre to anyone else?

From the toxic debate across social media you’d assume the country is split into trans activists and transphobes. But when you speak to ordinary people across the country you realise that nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, most Britons take a nuanced, compassionate approach that is rooted in society doing what it can to make trans people feel accepted but which also balances inclusion with fairness

But the problem is that those people who take a nuanced and compassionate approach eg JK Rowling and the vast majority of posters on these boards are branded as transphobes by the trans rights activists. Any deviation from the TWAW mantra is seen as transphobia. How do we address this?

Exactly what I waa going to say.

I think part of the issue is the fight against the no debate culture the TRAs have tried to militantly force on the world. What is a fair and decent perspective (as you rightly point out is shown by JKR and the overwhelming majority on this board) is knowingly wrongly classed as literally violence and bigoted abuse by those with the alternative perspective.

The 'problem' will never be resolved while one group is so aggressive and pushy and tantrums when they don't get their own way.

Guardian take on the report:

amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/16/britons-not-bitterly-polarised-over-trans-equality-research-finds

I think journalists should be careful to specify what they mean and always say trans women in women’s/female sports, not trans people. Trans people should always be welcome in sport, this is not about being anti-trans or discrimination against trans people because they are trans. It’s males in women’s sport that is the problem. Trans-identifying females are welcome and do play in women’s sport.

Another article from the Guardian on this -www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/16/twitter-trans-rights-gender-identity-report?CMP=fb_cif&fbclid=IwAR2_XRnalnvFUY51NI8zeZfVbDzWxC49mT44LtHb1sV5oJ1SzW48dzoJ4_g

It's interesting, from the Guardian

“The fact that men have physical advantages over women means that for very many people the inclusion of trans women in women-only sports is not fair and will lead to an uneven competition, and in some cases may not be safe,” says the report, warning that this is one area where the public are at risk of becoming polarised.

We all know that if we posted this on Twitter it would be reported for transphobia and deleted.

It's odd that this is identified as being a risk of polarisation but that

46% agreeing with TWAW is seen as widespread acceptance

Guardian 🙄

However, people did feel strongly that trans women should not compete against cis women in professional sporting events

dolorsit yes it's rather choice framing isn't it.

This!

Feels like a giant waste of the last 7 (or whatever it's been) years. But useful probably, even so.

That Guardian headline??

It’s a good question @Willhewonthe67

And I’m still struggling with the logic where a large chunk of the public agrees that TWAW and yet a lot of the same people must be saying also that they do not want them competing in woman's sport due to physical differences. They are clearly a different ‘type’ of woman. Ie a trans woman, not a woman.

I suspect the majority still think that TWAW is a polite fiction and not a demand that people accept that men are literally women.

And the irony of the fact that “most people hold a nuanced position” when the nuanced position described is literally the prevailing position among those smeared as bigots and threatened with violence is typical of this whole debate.

We’ve really had a number done on us.

Just to flag @RoseLunarPink (don’t shoot the messenger) that MN don’t allow the use of the terms trans identifying male and trans identifying female. I’ve had post deleted on this basis. Referring to “male bodied people” (or female bodied) seems to be ok, though won’t work if you want to refer to someone who has had gender reassignment surgery.

Yes what are we? Bigoted or nuanced? TRAs don't accept anything other than their stance.

And yet 48% support wasn’t enough to keep the UK in the EU.

What I find most interesting about this survey (and this comes out of the more detailed Guardian report) is that while 46% of people say they agree TWAW and TMAM (so the minority, but only just):

• only 19% think TW should be able to participate in women’s sport

• Only 24% think male bodied TW should be able to use women’s changing rooms

• only 29% think male bodied TW should be able to use women’s toilets

So of the 46% who say they believe TWAW, less than half actually seem to think TW should be treated as if they were women for all purposes. So don’t really believe TWAW at all 🤷‍♀️

And as someone else points out, respondents weren’t asked about TW in women’s prisons but we can guess the likely response to that (and also to TW in women’s hospital wards/domestic violence refuges/rape support groups).