BBC cheering on mixed-sex ice-hockey

[NitroNine]

Remember the thread a month ago about “Team Trans” & the ice-hockey match that featured a trans man requiring hospital treatment for concussion?

Well thankfully the BBC are here to tell us dreadful transphobic bigot TERFs we have Got. It. All. Wrong. “Team Trans” is a wonderful magic sparkly thing & people get concussed all the time so it’s totally fine especially because the concussed player said so. And the NHL are supporting them too & we all know that no sporting body has ever made a decision that would endanger or disadvantage athletes playing at any level. They will reprimand you if you don’t “validate” people’s gender identities &/or question the wisdom of mixed-sex ice-hockey. They’re also providing financial support - but don’t yet, unlike the former women’s league, have a trans inclusion policy 🤔 Strange that they are having praise heaped upon them for their vocal support of transgender athletes rather than being castigated for violence against LGBTQ+ individuals. If bans on trans participation in community or school sports leagues qualify as such, why is it not also Literal Violence that trans men cannot play ice-hockey in the men’s league, especially given they have to stop playing in the women’s league on starting to take testosterone? No, I am mystified. Baffled. I cannot think what might be going on here 🤷‍♀️

As for the article itself? Doubtless the work of the BBC Pride Network. No responsible journalist would have handwaved the concussion: Alzheimer’s Research UK are very clear that even with the need for further research & the fact CTE can only be diagnosed post-mortem there is a risk here. Sports are changing their rules based on said risk - & there are calls for ice-hockey to do the same because legal manoeuvres (like the one used in the “Team Trans” match) are responsible for a high number of concussions with attendant risk of CTE. They’re not convinced, & not keen on that idea though. Despite the stats really not looking great.

Yes, I saw that too - the "life-saving" match where a female player was (surprise, surprise) seriously injured by a collision with a male player 🤦‍♀️ Not to mention all the hyperbole about how getting together to play was so terribly dangerous (but playing mixed ice hockey was totally safe, honest guv...). This, just AFTER there have been fresh discussions about BBC bias, too!

Some of the photos were quite telling, though...

This darkly reminds me of when I was a child and I had bruises on my head from my dad. And I was insisting, INSISTING that he just had a very bad day and I pushed him too far. "I would know! I'm the victim and I'm defending him! That's proof that he's not a monster and he did nothing wrong! You HAVE to take my word for it!" Or the way that people in dangerously controlling religious organizations that start with the letter C defend the abusers in charge to the bitter end.

The handwaving away the concussion injury is shocking with what is now known.

females have more delicate brain nerve fibres. The handwaving away of the extra male speed and impact is chilling.

It was written by Emma Smith, a transwoman. Way to go, BBC, for your propaganda.

Lots of emphasis about how vulnerable they are - referencing the Club Q shooting - while failing to mention the shooter was non-binary.

Absolutely no surprise the injured transman player is saying it's safe. I've witnessed first hand the pressure women are put under to say they're happy to play transwomen players in competitive contact sports, and a transman has even more invested in the lie that there's little difference between the sexes.

I suppose this comes down to consent.

My child's rugby club rents out a pitch to the local American football club (in England). They appeared to have men and women playing together last week.
(In Rugby only Primary school kids play together... leaving aside all the controversy over transitioning players)

There are very often mixed-sex versions of sports, but in my experience that is very different from playing a single-sex sport that now admits transwomen.

In mixed sex you know what you're signing up to, almost invariably the males moderate their playing, and there are often rules to help mitigate the advantage. E.g in softball you have to have equal numbers of men and women and women hit a lighter ball. Much mixed-sex sport is also not competitive in the true sense, and tends to be social, where winning and losing is less relevant.

When a transwoman plays as a woman in a competitive sport, there is no incentive to play at less than their full strength - why would they? They're just a strong woman, after all...

Sport is one area where you can consent to harm, yes. But the framers of that law did not envisage mixed sex contact sports, which brings one back to the question of the limitations of one’s right to consent to harm. Serious harm in single-sex sport is a known risk - but it is a vanishingly rare occurrence. In mixed-sex sport the risk changes dramatically: can female athletes consent to life-changing injuries &/or developing CTE?

Moreover, given the context, how freely is the consent of the female members of the team being given? They are under immense pressure to hold the line than TWAW & TMAM; that TW belong in female sports as they have no physical advantage over [so-called] “cis” women. If they withdraw their consent they will be accused of being transphobes, traitors, TERFs & truscum. They will lose friends, support systems & entire social networks.

Consenting to be harmed under duress - even if you do not consciously appreciate that’s what you’re doing - is not consenting at all.

@BringerOfDoom it has that ring to it, doesn’t it? Or even my friend ruefully telling me her dad had battered her the night before, blaming herself because she’d let him catch sight of her & he’d always belt her after he’d been drinking if he remembered to, but if he didn’t see her, he wouldn’t remember to. Which is how she learned about object permanence, which cheered her up a bit.
I’m sorry your dad used to thump you 💐

@MrsJamin explains the desperation to pretend it’s totally safe & fine… absolutely churning out propaganda but they get accused of being transphobic because occasionally facts & reality manage to slip past the censors!

'"It was accidental contact; there was no malice. We're all friends on this team.'

Well, that's lovely, but friends don't endanger each other's lives. Nobody's suggesting they're doing it on purpose, ffs, but mixed sex ice hocky is dangerous. I don't know how to spell it out for anyone who can't see Sir Obvious McObvious of Obvious Towers standing right in front of them.

Remember, too, that because of genderism children are being taught that sex is a spectrum and that there is no real discernible difference between male and female bodies.

If someone understands properly all of the things that impact risk on a game like this (size, weight, muscle mass, strength, etc) and how different those things are in a male than they are in a female - fine.

But how many girls actually are given to understand that a 'transwoman is a woman' and no different from them, physically?

I'm sure the lawyers will he using that argument once the inevitable lawsuits start (see professional football and rugby union and league players suing governing bodies).

"My client was led to believe that there was no difference between my client and persons born male" (presents mountain of evidence). "In fact there was already evidence of differences in physiology and effects on brains of person born female" (presents said evidence).

All I can say is that if this grows in popularity then female persons are going to gradually disappear in sports and males are going to start dominating. So progressive! 😒

"Serious harm in single-sex sport is a known risk - but it is a vanishingly rare occurrence. In mixed-sex sport the risk changes dramatically: can female athletes consent to life-changing injuries &/or developing CTE?"

I wouldn't say it's vanishingly rare even in single sex sport. In my sport of (very) amateur football, I know a woman who had a life changing brain injury and many others who had injuries which meant they had to stop playing. The chances of serious injury against natal males is vastly increased.

Most women who play (and who are terrified of being accused of being transphobic for pointing out there are differences between men and women) have absolutely no idea how disadvantaged they are by sexual dimorphism.

This is so true. My older sister is taller than the average female and she is very physically active and sporty. She was very convinced that if a male attacker came after her that she could simply fight him off. She sadly learned from first hand experience that that was not true. She was sexually assaulted and she was terrified and could not move as he had her pressed up against a wall forcing her to kiss him. Luckily it did not go any further than that and a butt grab as a teacher walked around the corner. (Yes this was at school) but she was immediately humbled by the experience as she niavely blamed women for being too weak and lazy to fight off attackers. But the male who attacked her was quite the opposite of her. He was not sporty, he didn't run everyday life she did, he was burly or anything and he was quite skinny. Males have physically advantage without trying much at all. It is going to seriously hurt women to try to push the narrative that this isn't the case.

Was not burly *