Legal action over Rugby Union's ban on transwomen playing competitive women's rugby

[zanahoria]

The Rugby Football Union have been rocked by a legal challenge against their ban on transgender women from female contact rugby.

The governing body’s council narrowly voted to ban trans women “assigned male at birth” in a bid to “prioritise fairness of competition and safety of players” in July this year.

But Telegraph Sport can reveal transgender player Julie Curtiss has issued the RFU with a pre-action protocol letter - a legal document written to resolve a dispute before court proceedings are commenced - following the controversial decision.

The legal challenge - which the RFU says it will 'robustly defend' - is being brought by London-based law firm Russell Cooke on behalf of Curtiss, one of the seven registered trans women in England who is no longer eligible to play following the ban.

www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/09/03/exclusive-rfu-hit-legal-action-transgender-women-ban/

I forgot we can link to Crowdfunders hence the hidden post above.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was there’s not much financial support for big Julie. Funny that.

Hardly unexpected, but Harper will be a key witness for Curtiss' case to support the case there is no advantage....

twitter.com/fi_tomas_/status/1567430752509345792?s=20&t=bfUmXISyYUS2izuRCsmoGQ

That will be tricky for Harper, seeing as JH's own research shows minimal reduction in male advantage for TW. It's merely JH's opinion that this retained advantage somehow doesn't matter, because no-one cares about winning, it's the taking part that counts. Or something.

Yes. It is a tricky one. Harper has resorted to 'yes, ok there is an advantage, but exclusion hurts so it outweighs fairness'.

Fortunately the EA 2010 considers fairness and safety to be more important than being kind.

It ALL boils down to "because I want to and don't try to stop me".

Toilets
Sport
Safe spaces

When you get to the core its because they want to.
Facts don't matter to them.
Won't SOMEONE consider their feelings??????? (which are far more important than anyone else's)????????

If I had unlimited cash I would contribute to the griftaid. Just so this muppet can take the case to court as the sunlight would be amazing.

Fucking hell. My son is a rugby player, he's 110kg and 6'8 of pure muscle. Would I let him tackle my 5'9 65kg strong and fit DD? No. What if he comes out as trans? Still no. What if he takes testosterone blockers? Still no. He's faster, denser, stronger and has a massive physical advantage in every way. This particular person may not be in the same league but come one, come all.

Yes, some people don't seem to follow that argument. If you allow this "nice", "little", "non-threatening" transitioned male, that's great but the next one might not be and you won't be able to say anything!

PS do you worry about your son hurting other blokes? Not trying to trap you, just wondering as my boys look like they might be big units!

They can play - on men's teams.

But that means they couldn't bully women or get into showers and changing rooms.

Good example.

And if he explained to you that your boundary (of not body slamming and risking injuring his sister) made him really sad?

I'm pretty sure I can imagine your response.

(At what point I wonder does the sister get considered as to her potential sadness about the situation, or perhaps a feeling of social duty to offer herself for body slamming and willingness to absorb the risk for her male sibling? Who is not expected btw to offer the same equality of duty of care for some reason...)

Fgs this is so ruddy sexist it's unbelievable.

Girls, by accident of birth, you're enablers on this planet to males who have a list of instructions as long as your arm, starting with 'lie through your teeth that your sex is what designates you as a subhuman male support unit and good male support units don't mention their biology or safety or feelings or needs ever, cos males don't like hearing about it.

Fuck that. Just fuck it to the far side of fuck and then fuck it some more. My daughters are getting raised to be bloody Boudica, not a bunch of meek and codependent enablers.

Only affected 7 people?

Are women not people?

Every member of the team these EiMs play on, and every member of every team they play against, is affected.

But of course, they're only women . . .

*TiMs, not EiMs - not sure how that happened . . . 🤔

SecretTransTwitterEngineer · 04/09/2022 12:10
Shocking that a blanket ban was put on trans women when it only affected 7 people. They could have easily done it on a case by case basis, but given the current trans moral panic, I guess optics were more important.

Yeah, because there's nothing like the optics of watching a man slam a woman down on the rugby pitch.

So sporting.

“I would have been content to walk away from this debate were it not for th support of cisgendered female players - including some current England women's players - who have reached out to me and said they are appalled by this decision…”

Yeah you can just imagine it can’t you? ‘Yeah, that’s a terrible decision mate, such a shame…’ then behind their back rolling their eyes and thanking the Lord for sanity.

😂yup!

Is it just me who does not believe that trans women just want to play, If they wanted to just play they could play with men I don't understand why they want to be within the female division so much

They want validation that TWAW.
That there rights are more important than women's rights.

And to con themselves that they are elite level athletes

And to expose themselves in changing rooms and showers.

I'm afraid this seems to nail it. There seems to be an absolute inability to even acknowledge never mind care about the impact on any female involved or female sport in general, so long as the males involved get whatever makes them happy.

Which is the point that responsible authority has to start gatekeeping.

To answer a PP do I worry about my son injuring other blokes? Yes. I also worry about other blokes slamming into him. Just being big doesn't necessarily protect you from injury unfortunately. The forces at play in the mens/ semi pro and professional game are insane - it's like being hit by a truck. I'm literally terrified about anyone being injured in a match (especially my boy obviously) to the extent that I actually pray that no-one is hurt. I hate seeing all the dirty little tricks too

The argument that rugby is a game for all body types is true to an extent, you've got 5'9 players and 6'9 players and some women players may well be stronger / faster than some men, but if all this is true why is there not an appetite for mixed rugby? Oh yeah. Women don't want to play against men, because on the whole they have a physical advantage, and because women don't want to be grappled by men. Have you seen how a scrum is set up?! You get very intimate with other people. I think I've missed the point a bit because my initial thought was about the danger / impacts etc. But there's surely a consent issue as well. Women are being asked to consent to being physically pinned down by a male bodied person. Or rather not asked.

Anyone can go and play mixed touch rugby though.. no sex / gender / body slamming involved