"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.)

Shaking your dangly bits about is a pretty good sign that you are not actually non binary though.

Don't make stupid points about science. Emma has declared that science is irrelevant.

Science is inconvenient! If science showed that TWAW and can play sports against women perfectly fairly, then our Emma would have been shouting from the rooftops about it no doubt.

But if gender really is irrelevant then I think that's important to grapple with.

I do think that organisers should be able to have Hurricane rides (or whatever) that are female only - and should be able to hold and advertise those rides without being attacked or cancelled. But yes, having something called Breeze rides that is for any person with a female body or a femme gender who doesn't feel confident in a main-club ride - I genuinely think we should be able to see that without starting to talk about dark motivations of the riders. I think this requires change from GC people too.

any person with a female body or a femme gender

But why should we group those two categories together? What do they have in common that justifies shared provision for them and excluding everyone else from it?

You might as well have rides for people with female bodies or who prefer to wear white socks.

Because people with a "femme gender" don't think people with female bodies should be allowed to have anything which doesn't include them.

There is no other reason for this group to exist.

I graduated from nursing school nearly 50 years ago. We were taught in anatomy and physiology that there were two bodies male bodies and female bodies. That is science that has not changed. And it does matter to me. The underlying physiology does not change if the external genitals do. Males should not be competing as females. End of story.

In another tweet or video clip, can't recall which, Emma Vigeland also states that women's sports is a young thing and if it can't absorb trans-identifying male athletes, then it should just go away.

So yes, she is not a feminist at all, probably and Emmaist, i.e., focused on her own interests.

But watching this and several other events happening within the trans debate does often feel as if I am following a natural experiment on how women first got subjugated as a sex:

Many were scared to speak up, others decided to root for the physically stronger sex, to get the crumbs falling off their table, and many others were told to be 'kind', to place the needs of men and children ahead of the needs of themselves and other women. You would only have needed most men and a handful of women of this type to create the hierachies history so clearly demonstrates have existed in almost every place and which still exist, sometimes in the harshest possible form (Afghanistan), sometimes in more disguised versions.

I am not disheartened, though, as I see many women and also quite a few men now speaking up, even though the response is so often a vicious burst of rage and attempts at canceling. But the struggle will not be short or easy.

I could get on board with gender being irrelevant if biological sex was acknowledged as important. Have your hurricane rides segregated by sex and your breeze rides segregation by gender fine but only if the changing and toilet facilities are by sex and the breeze ride have no impact on qualifying for the hurricane rides.

But I do think we need to consider sinister motives. Would TRA accept such a compromise? If not what not?

When have TRAs ever accepted any form of compromise? Seriously can anyone name one?

I followed a Twitter convo yesterday which fits in with this. Someone wrote a tweet explaining that they are perfectly fine with treating people as the 'gender' they wish to be seen as in most situations but that the person draws a line on women's sports, single-sex spaces where women are vulnerable, such as prisons, changing rooms, toilets, rape shelters.

The response by the fairly famous trans activist was that it would have been quicker for that person just to write that she or he or they is transphobic.

So no, there is no compromise that would be acceptable for the activists who are loudest online. I have yet to find one who would agree to compromises.

But I'm not longer so certain that compromises would be that, given that the male sex is not asked to compromise on anything (hardly ever see 'impregnating parents' for fathers or 'ejaculators' or 'prostate-owners'. So even what we would be willing to view as a pragmatic compromise is carved out of our skin.

@nepeta
Yup exactly

And you are right we are watching how we got subjugated playing out before our eyes.

Most women are generally kinder and more prepared to compromise. But as you say, the compromise, isn't fair with women giving and men gain. For many men I would argue compromise is not getting every single thing they want but for women that means giving. And sadly women are conditioned to see giving most but not everything as a compromise even if they don't get anything in return. Or maybe that's just my life experience

Quite. What compromise is possible, when the demand is that women must have nothing for themselves, at all, ever. They must unconditionally surrender everything to males, never mention their own needs and just suffer the consequences quietly for the betterment of men.

Fuck that.

No trans person 'needs' that. Accessible facilities, yes. Male supremacism, fuck off.

I don't think the ideology is set up for compromise.
If 'trans women are women' then they can't have any compromise at all as just one rule, criterion or policy making transwomen not women results in the whole house of cards tumbling down.

This is how we ended up with a double rapist in a female prison and the downfall of Sturgeon.

This is why period products, breastfeeding etc cannot exclude TW by linking these biological functions to the word woman.

This is why debate discussion and speaking out scare them? Transphobic? I think it's the trans activists who are phobic, of the truth and those who dare to speak it.

Well she’s right. They do get to compete in sports if they identify as women.

JUST NOT WOMEN’S SPORTS

If they don’t like that, tough shit.

Is she nuts?

Is that her problem?

She appears to have gone to a private school where annual fees exceed $48,000 in the upper yesrs.

She's presumably had the best education money can buy, yet she comes out with this nonsense.

"Nuts" may be a plausible explanation.

Just noticed this article:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2023/05/28/espn-sam-ponder-calls-bigotry-fairness-in-tweets-about-trans-women-sports/70262521007/

Don’t be fooled by the people who screech about "fairness" to cloak their bigotry toward transgender girls and women, the transgender girls and women who have the audacity to want to play sports, in particular.

This is, and always was, about hate, fear and ignorance....

Oh stop being so dishonest.

There is absolutely nothing to stop trans women and girls from playing sports.

In the correct sex category, like literally everyone else manages to do.

What do you mean by anti-trans? Not letting males into female spaces?

Bigotry - "obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group"

So in what way is protecting women's sports for women bigotry? It's not unreasonable because science shows male physical superiority (in terms of speed and strength). It's not obstinate to refuse to pretend that physical differences don't exist.

There should be 2 categories people born with a penis and people born without a penis. It's really that simple.

Well, women like Emma believe they have something in common with males with a femme gender identity. They want to share social solidarity and enjoy a hobby together in a supportive structured environment. It seems to me perfectly reasonable that a sport should organise a ride branding that includes both, if it has no connection to competition. Hence Breeze.

Though obviously as a GC woman I'd prefer the description to be accurate. 'Women*' maybe.

Participation in women's sports is always going to be a TRA goal as although there are few trans eathletes they are always going to win and therefore fundamentally undermine women's sport and highlight trans people to a wider public. Sport gives acceptance and adulation to some trans people so they will want to compete (or cheat).

The fact of new policy guidelines from major sporting bodies needs to enforced fairly and vigorously with regulatory bodies strong enough to deflect political pressure. No doubt the regulatory committees of cycling and athletics are the new hub of xenophobia now so will need support to do their jobs. Grass roots is in my opinion the most difficult to ensure rule compliance.