This is what happens when women say "No" - Vermont school ban

[Binglebong]

Apologies if this had already been posted - I couldn't see it.

A school in Vermont refused, for reason of fairness and safety, to play against a women's team that had a trans player (presenting female - what is the right word at that age because too young to be transwomen?)

They have now been banned from ALL competitive sports. Because women said no.

It isn't really any wonder athletes are afraid to speak up, is it?

amp.theguardian.com/sport/2023/mar/13/vermont-school-that-boycotted-game-with-trans-player-banned-from-tournaments

That sums up the entire problem doesn’t it? “These people hold one wrong view, ergo their views on the rights of women and girls, sport, and science and everything else in the entire universe are automatically wrong.”

They are so childish. All of them who take this view.

Well they probably do have lots of views on women’s rights and science and such like that I vehemently disagree with.

But, as you say, that doesn’t mean that all their views and actions are terrible (from my perspective). They probably feel
similarly to me about young children getting outside play opportunities, for example. Doesn’t mean that I’d want to send my kids there.

tbh, these kind of thing should really alert us to areas of broad societal consensus. People with all sorts of religious views (and none) can agree on basic stuff like kids should get to play outside or kids should eat meals that are nutritious enough or the physical differences between the sexes mean that some sports should be single sex. Mostly people
do agree on this stuff.

The problem here is that a pretty extreme ideology has managed to convince liberals that only terrible conservatives would agree with the last one - and anyone who isn’t fully in support of some male teenagers competing against female teenagers is a horrible bigot.

No debate is all about preventing any discussion where it would probably transpire that most people - even ‘liberals’ - do actually think that a 6’ 15 year old male teenager should not be rugby tackling teenage girls. No matter how that male teenager wants the world to identify them.

Fully agree, as in Canada the school would never have boycotted the game in the first place. There is almost no push back whatsoever. Those who have are practically bullied out of the country (ex. the amazing Megan Murphy).

Yy @SquidwardBound.

And to the monitors: have you tweeted misrepresenting this thread yet as 'mummies upset they're being called conservatives because they are' yet? Chop chop! Crappy superficial individualist lies won't just tweet themselves you know!

Thanks for posting this - I saw it and my blood boiled. I follow the controversy over biological males in female sports the most. While comments are generally supportive of keeping female sports female, there are always plenty of men saying "women need to boycott ", "women need to stand up", "where are the feminists?" Etc etc

This is what happens when they boycott. All the girls lose more.

Appalling.

What they say:
The inclusion of transgender athletes, especially in girls’ and women’s sports, has been met with pushback from conservatives, with many arguing that transgender athletes have an advantage over cisgender women.

What they mean:
The inclusion of male athletes in girls’ and women’s sports has been met with pushback from rational people, with many arguing that male athletes have an advantage over women.

Does the Guardian actually understand why we have separate male and female sporting categories?

This is what a male trans player on a women's basketball team looks like.

I read, though can't vouch for the truth of this, that the ban applies to all the events this organisation supports, not just sports events. So the Christian school would also be excluded from some spelling bees etc..

But as far as I can tell the reason is in the state law which makes it impossible to exclude transgender students (who at that point have no hormone treatments or body modifications) from participating in the category they choose for themselves.

Massachusetts (another progressive New England state) recently had a state championships in track and field, and one girls' team had a nonbinary-identifying male in it.

A big problem with the nonbinary category is that those choosing it can also choose everything else: Which sexed categories they'd like to win in sports, for example. So male students can compete as female students even without identifying as girls.

But it's not about the pictures.

I know a few slight, delicate lads, and my sport is rowing so I know some real bruisers on the female side. The male coxes might be shorter than most of the female crew. In non-elite rowing people are obviously all shapes and sizes.

Except... you watch the boats move and you can see the additional male power. I know enough about rowing and enough about anatomy to know exactly what it is about male and female bodies that makes the difference.

I know most people don't give a shit about women's sport. It is extraordinary to me that a whole group of people have persuaded themselves that it's progressive not to give a shit about women's sport. That women's sport is worthless unless we lie down and open our legs. I used to get that from a few male rowers but I thought that was just arrogant sexism. Who knew it was actually so fashion forward?

@PermanentTemporary

I know most people don't give a shit about women's sport. It is extraordinary to me that a whole group of people have persuaded themselves that it's progressive not to give a shit about women's sport. That women's sport is worthless unless we lie down and open our legs. I used to get that from a few male rowers but I thought that was just arrogant sexism. Who knew it was actually so fashion forward?

This is what truly shocked me at first when I still thought that feminism equals working to stop sex-based discrimination, sex-based violence, and sex-based oppression on the global level.

Female people really are ranked lower in importance.

All this vicious discrimination against women (in this case women who want to play sports against other women, and not be overwhelmed and injured playing men) is done in the name of the "LGBTQ+ community". Well I am a gay man and it is certainly not a community to which I belong.

Trans people should not be excluded from sport. Sport is segregated by sex not gender. This transgirl (AKA boy) should not be prevented from playing on the boy's team. If they excluded them from that then we'd have a true case of transphobia. They didn't so this is clearly a case of misogyny

Thank you. We need more to stand up against this discrimination against women and to reject the false teaming with homosexuality.

Yes. This is always the thing. They’re not being excluded. They’re just not getting to choose to compete in the category of their choice. it’s just the same as deciding you identify as under 10 so you can compete against the little kids rather than other 15 year olds.

That’s not exclusion. Exclusion is when you can’t do something, not when you don’t like the rules much.

That. LGBTWhatever no longer means a widely diverse group of people with only homosexuality in common. It now means a group of people of any sexuality with a political belief in common.

Hence the endless attempts to redefine homophobia into being a sin committed by homosexuals against male people by saying that sex exists and they are not homogenderal.

Sorry it was a very biased Guardian article - I saw it late last night and just wanted to stop it getting buried so didn't have time to search for a better one. Also why I dropped and ran!

I think this will be quite a useful one to respond with whenever there are the inevitable comments about how women should just boycott if they don't like it. Poor girls, so unfair to them.

One of these days I'm going to ask these people who feel you have to think identically on all point what colour the sky is. There minds will be blown when we both say blue!

Their*. Oh the shame!

EfingNora · Today 06:56

Quote from the article "Trans rights advocates argue for the inclusion of an already marginalized group that has faced historic discrimination, and threats to their lives."

Threats to their lives? Bit like that "decapitate terfs" sign threatening women then. Don't they realise that threats of death and other violence are just a normal part of being a woman?

That's also the part of the article I felt was most salient, I thought, "What? Women?"

If you are allowed and supported in being allowed into a sport, in a category in which you shouldn't have any entitlement, it doesn't really shout marginalised, does it? Or being allowed to make the most disturbing threats online and to rarely be sanctioned. Or to stand next to politicians, with signs calling for murder and to get away with it. Or to assault women, as the Police spectate and threaten to arrest the victim.

No, to me, that doesn't say marginalised, or discriminated against; it says "Allowed to discriminate, with powerful support."

This story was really distressing. I've experienced a not dissimilar situation in this country - we're not even allowed to question men in women's sports. It's industrial-scale gaslighting. I completely despair for women's sports.
Many women go along with it because they are utterly terrified of being branded transphobic or they have convinced themselves transwomen are a vulnerable minority who must have everything opened up to them.

And women haven’t suffered all of those things, for all of history, and are still suffering them today in every single town, village and city in the world?

TRAs always claim ‘threats to trans lives’. But there’s no evidence that trans people are at increased risk of murder. Any increased risk there might be seems to be from suicide.

Threats of suicide are a pretty standard tool of abuse. People repeating this stuff are encouraging this.

It’s unacceptable how the TRAs uses suicide in its rhetoric. And how politicians and various other people just repeat it - rather than questioning it and condemning it as irresponsible.

“The VPA again reiterates its ongoing support of transgender student-athletes as not only a part of building an inclusive community for each student to grow and thrive, but also as a clear expectation by Vermont state law(s) in the Agency of Education Best Practices, and in VPA Policy regarding transgender student athletes,” the association said in a statement.

As usual, all students "thrive" except girls.

Maybe a threat to the lives they want- where they can have everything, including unlimited access to women.

I hope more schools will stand up for girls. It's so ridiculous this is happening

This makes sense.

These days, even British GC feminists are accused of being aligned with and funded by the alt-right, including Christian fundamentalist groups in the US; groups which bear little resemblance to any similar hard-of-thinking movement currently existing in the UK. The Ideology is quite sufficiently lacking in criticality and nuance to reason that an actual British feminist would align herself with the kind of GOP, pro-life aligned cult which conservatively thinks a woman's place is in the kitchen, subservient to her menfolk, happily propagates the Trad Wife in true southern style and denies women autonomy over our own bodies.

Who knew feminism had turned so hard to the right, eh?

(And who recognises anything MRAs are peddling about Difficult Women Who Say No as emanating in any way from the Left? Their kind of rhetoric seems far more aligned with the kinds of sentiments outlined above, which they seem so keen to attribute to the feminists of today).

Top-level DARVO, or what?