"I don't give a shit about the scientific explanations. If they identify as a women, they get to compete in sports"

[EdgeOfACoin]

Emma Vigeland, presenter on The Majority Report, a "progressive" internet talk radio programme and podcast, has made it crystal clear that gender identity trumps fairness when it comes to sport.

Unfortunately I'm not tech savvy enough to clip the relevant section from the show directly, but plenty of other have, including Triggernometry presenter Konstantin Kisin, who Tweeted about it. You can see the video on his Twitter page:

https://twitter.com/KonstantinKisin/status/1662390264005120001?t=3-gYh1LvSAt93Fh1N68boA&s=19

Emma has not backed down from her comments and has since mocked "terfs" for being "triggered" by her, declaring that "gender affirming care" for minors would solve all of the problems anyway:

https://twitter.com/EmmaVigeland/status/1662491715352010752

Emma has unequivocally declared that she is right on this issue.

Fascinating to see any pretence that the subject is "complicated" has gone - no, if a person with a penis wants to compete in women's sports, then that takes priority over everything else, including fairness.

As a side note, she used to be a presenter on The Young Turks and made a (very) half-hearted attempt to defend her former colleague Ana Kasparian last month after Ana lost patience with being referred to as a "birthing person". (Interestingly, Ana hasn't retreated from her own comments either.)

Emilia. That all sounds very difficult. It does. And I am not unsympathetic.

But what does any of that have to do with whether women and girls should have their own single sex spaces and their own sporting categories?

People do not compete in sporting categories defined by their own, personal, subjectively experienced identities. If they did, there would be as many categories as there are competitors, and therefore no competition.

A person who was born male and now identifies as a woman has nothing in common with people who were born female. In fact, I strongly suspect that the only people who genuinely believe they identify as a woman are people who were born male, since people who were born female simply are women and do not need to identify as women. I'm sure I speak for many of us here when I say, in the nicest possible way, that I have no idea what you are actually identifying with. It cannot be periods and pregnancy and childbirth and menopause or any of the near universal female experiences I mentioned in my long post above, because you have no frame of reference for these things.

A person who was born male and suffers from gender dysphoria, to the point where they want to change their name and identity, dress as though they were the opposite sex even though their body shape does not lie, and even in some extreme cases have their genitals surgically alterered, has nothing in common with female people who do not have gender dysphoria and do not want to do any of these things.

So on what basis are you saying, "I am not like the men, I am like the women, which means I should get to compete in women's sporting categories"?

Where's the logic?

As @Helleofabore says, the science is clear. The studies have been done. There is no hormone treatment and no medical or surgical intervention which will completely remove the physical advantage a male athlete has over a female athlete, or even come close to doing so. In order to continue to justify trans women competing in women's sport, you either need to pretend that the science says what you want it to say and not what it actually says, or you need to come clean and say, "We don't care about the science, we know this is unfair on female athletes, but we believe the feelings of trans women who want to compete in women's sports are more important than safety and fairness for female athletes. So suck it up, ladies!"

It's misogyny on steroids.

That is what we are objecting to.

Not individual trans people. Not people like you who feel the need to dress a certain way and alter their bodies because it makes them feel better.

We are objecting to the political position that has been taken by most of the political left, centre and in some cases even the right, in the majority of the western world, that you are the most oppressed and vulnerable and that therefore what you want should be prioritised over the wants and needs of the 51% of the population who were born female.

You matter.

You just don't matter more than the rest of us.

I'm a decent swimmer, just swam the Solent in 45 minutes (clang) the other week. I'd get smashed by kids as young as 12 in the UK. That's the way it goes.

I cannot work out if it is intentional or not, but seriously, the emotional manipulation that women are being subject to on this thread is blatant and immense. All the tactics we see playing out in media, including social media, have been used here. It is a live demonstration!

It is like watching all trope rolled out as each attempt is countered.

It started with the shaming and posting of misinformation . Then in the same post moved to the ‘so few’ fallacy. With the threat about women losing prize money if a third category is created (and yes! We understand but you don’t have to threaten us!).

Then came the pleas for extra accommodations because, having your cock chopped off and extreme surgical modifications to resemble a sex you are materially not, life is so hard.

And in the same post, the declaration that they don’t even care about elite level sport, it is all about grassroots and them. With another threat that women will miss out on playing with their mates if sport is again segregated. Those mates who believe they are female when they are male that is.

And the misinformation about the current studies being inadequate. Complete with personal testimony without once understanding the reality of female bodies. Just the knowledge that this male has lost performance and so that means they must be like female athletes!!

There was even an accusation about a vile agenda in some sports federations that must be based on hate. I kid you not. That was there too.

Then that we are all doomed in the UK and will disappear in five years anyway, and a rant about an Australian media mogul and bad media in general who want to report fact based articles.

Then came the justification that some sports already have mixed sex teams, don’t you know. Why should sports be segregated anyway! Like those mixed sex sports and social sports are even at risk!

No, Readers, they are not. They will still be played.

Then the direct accusation that someone was insulting them. That was a claim to victimhood which was not based on reality but aimed to convince readers that posters should be discredited.

Then when so much work has been put in to discuss and point out where the issues lie, a return to the plea that particular males deserve so much more. Because they are having extreme and brutal elective body modifications.

The stream of consciousness took on an even more emotional turn through discussion of ‘force’! With no longer any engagement with the actual topic of sports. It seems to have been a bizarre accusation that women saying no, and media reporting facts and reality is forcing males to choose brutal elective body modifications.

As if that is why women and girls should be kind and allow male athletes to enter the female sports category….

At least Emma Vigeland was honest. She stated she just didn’t care about other women or, in fact, science and material reality.

It's the usual thing. Generally a problem is raised, discussed, solutions are posited, and everyone ends with deciding on the best solution.

In this situation, the presented solution was the starting point: men want into women's sports. It's all arse about face.

The reason for the wild and incoherent flailing around and trying every possible line of argument, shaming, guilting, threats and nutjobbery, is to try and find problems that justify the solution and ways to argue women into doing the wanted thing. (And the time and energy exerted in arguing with women on the internet shows quite satisfyingly that discussions here are providing a good spoke in the wheel.)

The answer is no. Respect women, and cope with the idea they're not your mum or your resources to use. Create new categories if you want them. End of.

@Froodwithatowel

In my kinder days ( about thre years ago) I used to fret about poor transwomen sitting at home weeping because they were unable to pursue the sports they loved, and think creating new categories was the way forward. But not any more.

Because it is perfectly clear that transwomen in sport don’t want their own category to run, swim, cycle in because the chances are they would come up against someone who can run/swim/ cycle faster than they can, and possibly look better in Lycra.

Nor do they want to compete against men who are better runners/swimmers/cyclists , because who wants to come in at the middle of the field, or last.

No, they spotted the gap in the market ie race against people who are genetically and physically smaller and weaker than you and you will find your size nines on the podium more often than not. Since even in todays crazy world adults competing against children is seen as an aberration too far , then competing against women was the obvious solution. And omg, for a while it worked, in full view of the entire world, and no one said anything because they were not sure it was happening, or because they assumed it was legal, or because they were scared of being called discriminatory. They got away with it, they blatantly and boastfully took titles, honours, prize money and records that belonged to women. And then when the world gave its head a wobble and said “Enough already! ” they started in with the emotional blackmail and pseudo science.

Trans athletes aren’t running/swimming/ cycling for the fun of it, they want to win, and the shortest distance between the starting pistol and the finishing line is the one where you trample over other people, specifically women.

And, as an added bonus, if you run as a woman, hey that just confirms that you are one doesn’t it , and if squeezing the meat and two veg into sports gear can be a bit constraining - who could blame you for letting the guys swing out a bit when you are back in the changing room with the other girls losers.

Quite.

It's like the whole 'we just want to pee' falling apart when the answer is 'great, no problem, here's a resource for you, but you're not getting to invade women's spaces'.

I'm fine with as many new categories as work and are wanted, just not with destroying women's resources, spaces and equality because a bunch of selfish males saw them as exploitable resources with no entitlement to a life of their own that does not serve said selfish males.

Of course if this then exposes that the reality is that for some, inclusion and access is not the issue and wanting to let misogyny hang right out is?

That's not my problem. If the TQ+ lobby want to prove that 'trans rights' actually means 'the right to walk over women, use them without respect and destroy their equality rights' as oppose to something else then that's their choice. Their movement, they can tangle it up with incelism if that's what they want.

Not all women who want equality agree that there should be additional categories and explain eloquently why, and I'm all for them sharing their views, and I read with interest. We're not a hive mind and that's a great thing.

The more I hear these male people who declare they are women speak, the more I realise they we are a resource to be used. Whether it is a resource to provide safety, or to ‘heal’ the well being or to provide witness or to provide acclaim, or to provide the numbers/support for treatment plans to be pushed ahead even when it is so harmful for female people or whatever.

Female people are just a resource to be used. And yes, so many posts on these threads read like a trial for convincing troublesome women who hold out on allowing that resource to be tapped by just another man.

In news that might be very upsetting for some male people, the general population of Australia has spoken pretty clearly about the very issue that is women's sport.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/all-the-questions-in-one-place-from-great-aussie-debate/news-story/ca8ab531382816ec97a4151b9088fab7

18. Should transgender athletes be allowed to compete in women’s sport?
No = 82.6%
It depends on the sport = 8.2%
I don’t know = 4.9%
Trans women are women = 4.2%

Note when the population is given an option of repeating an empty, post-modernist fed mantra of 'transwomen are women' just how fucking few people do. Less than 5% of the 50,000 Australians sampled. 4.2% took the opportunity to state the mantra.

But look how many don't agree outright that male people should be allowed in women and girl's sports!

94.8% \

It must be painful to accept that such a small fraction of the world accept male people as being 'women' and accepting that they should be included in sport. And before anyone tries to say that Australia is a transphobic place, well it has some of the most transgender friendly laws in the world. You can try that tactic all you fucking want, but it isn't true. It is currently a country where stating that male athletes should not be included in female sporting categories had one woman slammed with an AVO that had to go to court to have it withdrawn.

The world has started telling some people that the lies don't fucking work anymore. A male person is always a male person and they should not be playing sport as a 'female' person.

It was never true and it harms women and children. It is time to stop with fuckwittery.

Sorry about the break code in there. But I am keeping the bigly number as it is very important that those who don't want to admit it, see it.

Oh no! it is 95.7%! It is even more of the population!

95.7%

Yay, biglys....biglies?....nope....biglys!

I bet of all those people asked, not a single one gave a thought to transmen.

Yes, funny that.

This is interesting because I thought the Australians were pretty woke.

Is it that Australian politicians are completely out of touch with public opinion?

Or are the results of that survey skewed by who chose to respond?

Or do Australians believe that trans women are women - except for when it comes to sport, of course! - in which case there is hope. They just need to join the dots and realise that if you think trans women are women except when it comes to X, you don't really believe they are women. And if you think trans women are women except when it comes to X, have you given any consideration to Y and Z, because perhaps there are also other ways in which they are not women.

18. Should transgender athletes be allowed to compete in women’s sport?
No = 82.6%
It depends on the sport = 8.2%
I don’t know = 4.9%
Trans women are women = 4.2%

Surely "It depends what sex they are" is the correct answer?!

Don't be silly, trans men don't exist. 🙃

TM only exist as leverage against women silly 😛

I think that the politicians have got in very early and there was a lot of capturing the public's push back on the previous government's slowness to legalise same sex marriage (same sex relationships were recognised by law with one or two limitations but they were not 'marriages'). And of course, Julia Gillard mucked around with the Anti-discrimination Act in 2013 which remains an untested issue .

The media is diverse and frankly there is many mainstream outlets who frame these issues in a very unbalanced way such as the ABC.

I am sure that some one will come and give a more up to date reckoning. I think that there is a segment of the population who will be very supportive of full acceptance of trans demands. But I have not yet come across any of my friends and family there spread across the country and across demographics who are fully accepting. Most are unaware and when asked about sport and single sex spaces are supportive of women and girl's needs being prioritised.

One then wonders why the resistance to the idea of having facilities that enable this demographic to be fully accepting and provide the mixed sex environment desired, while tolerating that others do not consent and do not believe, and that they have their facilities and we all live alongside each other. Like other religions.

As opposed to, you know, insisting non consenting women must pretend to believe men are women or be damned. Or in the case of KJK torn apart by a mob of screaming thugs. Who would not really appear from their behaviour to be in any position of competence or sanity to be affecting public policy.

I mean if we're going to exclude people for the sin of refusing to pretend on command that someone's changed sex, and we live in a society that now thinks this is somehow ok, then I'd say excluding for trying to tear another human being apart for having a different belief is considerably more deserved and justified.

It's utterly batshit, isn't it, when you put it like that @Froodwithatowel

I merely replied to someone earlier in the thread who asked to elaborate.
There wasn't an agenda in that reply.
Have a nice day, I am removing myself from this debate.

Cheerio, hadn't realised you were still here!

I think there was no expectation that the studies would be engaged with and discussed . Or that any evidence of critical thinking outside a male individual’s needs would be underlying the initial demands.

When these male people are given ample opportunity to have the discussion there is nothing but that manipulation there. Ever. Because how can there be. It only ever about them and not about women and girls as a collective.

In essence, that video of Ivy/McKinnon is all there is underlying this whole shitfight of a situation. Where the IOC brought Ivy/McKinnon in and Harper and shaped the policy to suit male athletes making them central to the female sports categories. And so many of these male individuals simply then repeat the ridiculous arguments and misinformation as if they are solid foundations for the changes.

The live demonstration on this thread is not new. It is repeated on this board every month. Hence why I have a huge copy and paste ready to go.

The cracks are now wide open and people see there is nothing underneath the extreme hyperbole of Bridges outburst that brought in genocide. That a group of male people thought Bridges child like outburst was good for their movement says much about that group.

This emotional manipulation is all they have.

Just train harder wims!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dbk4zQttKyE

Just train harder.

This is the latest from the Anglers.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12552627/England-ladies-angling-team-refuse-compete-world-championships-trans-woman.html

Those women anglers always have come across as women with integrity. They have maintained they are embarrassed as a team to have such a competitive advantage against other teams.

What on earth are those women wailing about, wanting equality and to do their own sport and chase their own excellence when they could be usefully making a bloke's life prettier?

You'd think they were real humans or something.