"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.)

Oh we're already there, have been for years.

Also trans age.

Nor me. Or the fact that we’ve had to wait for the ‘science’ to prove what any 5 yr old would be able to see in an instant 🙄

The women... I think it's team/squad feeling. The person is a member of their squad. They value the feeling that they're accepting and looking after their team or squad member. And sport requires you to focus on how fit and strong you are, not the brutal reality of that additional male advantage.

I found a YouTube 'fun' montage training clip from that year when there was a male in the reserve Cambs rowing crew. That person is almost completely hidden - brief views from behind only. They knew that the person was vulnerable to exposure and the crew worked together to hide them. I know how that dynamic works. It is of course also true that the crew lost that year! I still focus on the woman who lost out, because that person would have been me, but a lot of people do think that the race loss 'proves' there's no issue. Fact is that women's rowing is about skill as well as size/strength, because it has to be; and also races on the Tideway have a lot to do with the coxing, it's a very complex waterway.

The person that you mentioned has since retransitioned, disavowed the conservative hate groups that were exploiting them, and has provided thousands of pages of emails to the media - which has lead to detailed investigations into the political groups that have been pushing anti-transgender policies in the USA.

Fear. Everyone is terrified to speak out in case in impacts their jobs and relationships. I've seen it inaction, the cognitive dissonance is quite something to behold and desperately sad.

Yes. Agree with Big Brother, or it’s the rat treatment for you.

Great points made by PPs about all the euphemisms around ‘gender affirming care’, including ‘gender affirming care’ itself.

Permanently changing and damaging people’s bodies and probably reducing their life expectancy can’t be considered ‘care’ of any sort- quite the opposite.

The person that you mentioned has since retransitioned, disavowed the conservative hate groups that were exploiting them, and has provided thousands of pages of emails to the media - which has lead to detailed investigations into the political groups that have been pushing anti-transgender policies in the USA.

Links to a Mother Jones article written by a pro genderist that assumes a priori that transitioning is a good thing and describes legitimate advocacy within a democratic society between lawmakers (parliamentarians) and different advocacy groups - most of which also happen to be right-wing and Christian.

Let's assume the same happened over abortion - because it probably did. I would not like it or agree with the stances but I fail to see what is actually at issue here in terms of anything being illegal or unconstitutional (not an expert in US constitutional law)?

Mind you, I only skim read it so I might have missed something.

What do you mean by "retransitioned"? Does that actually involve anything other than changing your pronouns again?

Here's Lisa Shupe's own statement.

https://elisashupe.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/elisa-shupe-setting-the-record-straight-about-james-shupe/

God that's a distressing history of childhood abuse and homophobic parents. I hope Lisa finds peace.

I'd just note that if Lisa enjoyed sport, she could compete in an open category throughout her life, whatever her gender identity, with the female category remaining for women.

When you see interviews with people like Lance Armstrong who cheated their way to their wins they seem to have a huge sense of achievement from it. I read in an interview with him that even though his titles were stripped he still sees himself as the winner of those Tour de France. Some people love winning more than anything, even if its not fair and usually if its not fair even if they know they've cheated they will just think that they're cleverer than the rest and get a sense of achievement from that too.

If it was taking part rather than competing and winning then there would be no issue with trans women in sport, nobody cares if Emily Bridges goes for a bike ride but Emily doesn't want that, its winning the competition that matters.

I think its really interesting that by forcing the sport issue and claiming fairness doesn't matter what they've actually done is put an asterisk next to TWAW. If they hadn't pushed the sports angle so much there wouldn't be so many people questioning it

Looks like a woman, sounds like a woman, words and anger of a man.

Most transwomen (by virtue of there being far fewer than women) are not terribly accomplished athletes in their own sex class, but they can suddenly start dominating in women's sports against women who have trained for decades. I imagine that's quite a rush. Many are also decades older than the other competitors, giving them a sense of youthful vigour that is entirely unearned.

Well there are still protests about TW joining Breeze rides, which are explicitly about promoting inclusion of women in cycling clubs and aren't in themselves competitive. I think that's probably a mistake. As a GC person I need to be mindful of how to move forward, and some of that is going to be about identifying where something is about gender and people being oppressed because of their gender, and where things are about sex. If Breeze rides are promoted as a trans inclusive measure for everyone who is shut out of sport by alpha male culture, id be up for that. I personally find diluting the category of woman very difficult to accept but I can see that I might have to.

This is the thing though. The 'middle ground' is that women cede some of their freedoms, rights, space in the world, so men can have more and might stop trying to colonize the lot.

As said above, I used to think ok, there are some women's things and groups where sex isn't an issue.

But it is. I was being naive and male-centric as raised to be. Groups set up to be female only were set up for females to have female only spaces for good reason.

Why would we tell those females that they can only have their female only group if they act as props and therapists to any male people who want to be the exception to the no male rule and to use them and their group? There are plenty of mixed sex groups available, a male wanting the very special female only experience is saying yes, female only is something special, and then taking it away from every female in that group. They are thinking only of themselves.

And groups set up to support female inclusion are particularly looking to draw in the women who will not go to mixed sex group activities.

The minute we start pandering to the special needs and wishes of men, those women go away.

Men are not the first consideration, they will live through the word 'no'. Females are equally important. They need things too - not just what males will let them have after they've finished meeting their own needs.

And you'd think anyone who identified as a woman would manage to care about this.

Yep. In the example of Breeze rides, I’d expect that the reasons women don’t get into cycling are quite different to the reasons men who enjoy role playing as women don’t get into it. The two groups are unlikely to have anything in common and unlikely to be adequately catered for by the same measures

She didn't mention being on the right side of history. Disappointing.

In the case of Lance Armstrong he would probably justify his "wins" because drug use was very widespread in the sport at the time. That doesn't make it truly fair, but you can see why he did it.

„Gender affirming care“ sounds so much like just accepting someone the way they are, rather than facilitating drastic change via hormones and/or surgery.

True. It’s even more problematic when applied to children

Would it not be simpler to have cis woman, cis-man and open categories?

(That's a bit of a thought experiment not a real suggestion)

Since that's a self chosen label of a political identity though? They might as well have Labour women and LibDem women categories.

Women = adult human female. It's not difficult.

But Margot - Schmidt or the normal one eh?!

Most of us here aren't cis because we don't have a gender in the way gender ideologues use it, hence there's nothing to compare our biological sex to. I don't fancy my chances in the open category...

I believe the Gender Hokey Cokey is a bit more complex than that- there’s a certain amount of “shaking it all about” as well as updating your pronouns on Instagram.