England Rugby sees sense re women's rugby

[Fenlandia]

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1550484623280553985

"BREAKING NEWS. Another sport says no to males in women’s teams. Two years after the World Rugby ruling, England Rugby Union now joins the growing list of sports reverting to sex categories."

Thank you FPFW for your tireless work on this. Why the RFU has taken so long to see the bleeding obvious (mixed sex adults rugby. What could possibly go wrong!) is another matter.

I referenced the current concerns about early onset dementia/traumatic head injuries and foreseeable risks in my response to the consultation. I can’t believe these fuckers sat on their hands for so long. A woman could easily have experienced life-changing injuries during this time. Rugby England’s total disregard for women’s safety makes me so angry. I can’t believe they even thought the inclusion of transwomen in the women’s game was reasonable in the first place.

And he allows no comments at all, not wanting a pile-on.

Thank goodness. I honestly thought it would take women being paralysed or killed to make them see sense, I'm glad it didn't go that far.

This week we had former Wales captain and British lion Ryan Jones sadly announcing he has dementia at 41. He joins other Rugby union and League players with neurological issues.
He is also suing (I believe) World Rugby and the WRU.
The trans woman player who “folds opponents like deckchairs” is Welsh.
This has to be a wake up call as even if they don’t care about fairness they (and their Insurers) are going to care about money and I think that’s going to be the tipping point.

My grandad played professional rugby in the 40/50s. He, and all his contemporaries bar one, all died from dementia. Make of that what you will.

It's such a relief. Still unbelievable that it's got so far.

It does seem quite a coincidence doesn’t it? Anything else would suggest they have discovered a modicum of concern for women and girls and the day that happens will be the day every pig starts flying

Is there a connection with motor neuron disease as well as dementia? Poor Doddie Weir is a shell compared to the strapping braw lad he was.

I believe so, Belovedfool. There have been a few high-profile former Rugby players (Union and League) who have suffered from MND. Joost van der Westhuizen died from it.

Rob Burrows has been diagnosed with motor neurone as well. It seems to be getting more prevalent amongst rugby players

There is some evidence that repeated head injuries are a cause, but there's no confirmed link at this time. Another former rugby player announced yesterday that he has been diagnosed with it (Ed Slater), which is very sad.

They're bigger and fitter than they've ever been in the men's game

Check out the quote tweets though ;-) Nature finds a way
twitter.com/nickheathsport/status/1550497258172456961/retweets/with_comments

Would've been great if they'd backed up World Rugby's findings at the time but at least they've finally seen sense (insurers!)

I agree insurers and the prospect of an horrendous life changing injury or death and the subsequent reaction of the public and sponsors to that is more than likely what has changed their minds. I'm too cynical to believe that they suddenly care one iota about the safety and fairness of that second class group commonly known as women, if they did it would never have been the case that they need to backtrack a firm 'No' would have been given at the outset.

So, the RFU had decided it knew better than WR and 8 players went through the testing process. They now admit that the initial findings of the WR were solid and were correct, because now other federations and sporting bodies have also reached the same decision.

The RFU have discovered that the testing they devised may not be relevant against the fairness for females, from what I have read in Sean Ingle’s latest article.

The activists must be livid. They all insisted that testing individuals would be just dandy and workable.

At least now, the RFU with all the issues they have at the moment around head injuries have plucked up the courage to say, actually this doesn’t work in practice. Activists sold us a dud dream. (My words obviously)

I only hope that other nation’s bodies will now do the same. But I also hope the vote goes through to allow this policy change.

It's not even that. Sex is just sex, set at the point of conception and unchanging, regardless of whether there are mutations, anomalies, or whatever.

Sometimes sex is observed at the embryonic stage under a microscope, sometimes through NIPT at 8-12 weeks' gestation, sometimes during a scan, sometimes at birth, sometimes it's anatomically ambiguous enough at birth to require testing at that point, but regardless, it exists and can be observed. Usually very easily. And it doesn't change after the embryonic stage.

I had NIPT when I was pregnant with my son, and it always flummoxed the TRA/TWAW type when I interject to say that my son's gender was not assigned at birth - his sex was known unambiguously from nine weeks' gestation.

We shouldn't cede this ground. Birth is unimportant when it comes to sex.

Sean Ingle’s article says 6 males playing community rugby against women in England. Let’s speculate about the numbers.

Each of those 6 males plays against a team or match day squad of women. If it’s full capacity then that’s 23 women each game. I do know women’s community rugby sometimes struggles with numbers so let’s give a conservative match day opposition squad of 20. These 20 women have to tackle or be tackled by these 6 males each game.

That’s 120 women.

Then factor in each team with a male is likely in a league. On average, each league may have 10 teams perhaps? So 9 other teams to the one with the male in.

9x120 = 1080 women potentially. Playing against males twice a season. Maybe more, maybe fewer, depending on the league and squad numbers.

Then add the referees who took charge of these games knowing or not knowing they were refereeing a game in which the risk of serious injury from a male was increased.

Then factor in the contact training sessions of each male against their own team.

Then factor in the imposition on changing facilities for both home and away teams on every single training session and match day.

Then factor in this being done over repeated seasons while the RFU dragged its feet.

That is1000 women at risk of serious harm and imposition of privacy with several thousands of individual incidents of disadvantage occurring over several years. ^^

I’m putting this out there before anyone tries to claim “it’s only 6 people, what’s the big deal?” 😡

Just going to plop this here for any posters who are going to try the ‘what harm is there’ posts.

www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/watch-transgender-rugby-player-slams-female-athletes-coach-says-three-injured

Men like nick just don't like the idea of 'women only' anything.

TRA gives him permission to question why women are allowed to meet and organise without the permission and inclusion of men. Even for a rugby game, ffs.

A Reddit thread was made about it, granted in r/europe, not in a political or LGBT sub, but the comments are generally "duh of course". People get it.

I find it astonishing that so many involved in sport deny that men have an advantage.

My theory is that most of these are in sports like rugby and football so from a young age have been completely sex segregated.

Whereas for sports like athletics and tennis males and females will train and compete together in mixed events. There's also irrefutable proof in the times.

I sometimes wonder if there is such a thing as wilful stupidity. Even a moment's thought will tell you that sport doesn't have to be inclusive: that's why we don't let 18-year olds play on the under-11s team. It's why we don't allow heavyweight boxers to play against featherweight. And it's why we don't allow men to play on the women's rugby team. It's not difficult, is it?

I sometimes wonder if there is such a thing as wilful stupidity. Even a moment's thought will tell you that sport doesn't have to be inclusive: that's why we don't let 18-year olds play on the under-11s team. It's why we don't allow heavyweight boxers to play against featherweight. And it's why we don't allow men to play on the women's rugby team. It's not difficult, is it?

Exactly. Sport has never been 'inclusive', especially elite level sport, but any sport even at school (particularly team sports) if you are useless at it you won't be picked to do it. Paralympic sport excludes those who do not meet the criteria and rightly so.

I don't think biological males should play against biological females after puberty. However from my experience, i do think the ethos of most community clubs is around inclusion (more targeted at the any shape and size factor) so I think England rugby just got it wrong the first time round and put more focus on that than on safety so it's good they are rebalancing that. I think trans people should be fully welcome to play in teams that align to their biology without harassment.