Johanna Mellis in the Guardian: Could the Guardian sink any lower

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I can barely bring myself to link this Guardian article by Johanna Mellis on why "cis female athletes must show solidarity with trans athletes".

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jul/07/cisgender-female-athletes-solidarity-trans-athletes

So true

I'd like to see their chief sports reporter Sean Ingle pen a response to this, he's been consistently good on this subject.
(Couldn't read the whole article as it was shit. I did try though)

If you hold your breath and keep going past the lazy conflation of racism with saying no to men with a gender identity, and the suggestion that there is no unfairness in male bodies competing in female competitions, and so on, the author does make some important points about the other ways in which men (without special gender identities) have damaged women's sports and female sportspeople, and continue to do so.

What she doesn't do, however, is demonstrate that 'because of these other bad things, keeping boys and men out of female sports isn't also a priority'. We should be addressing the issues of sexual predation from men, and eating disorders among young athletes, and appropriate clothing and equipment for female bodies, and ensuring that girls and women are not expected to tolerate the unfair and (in contact sports) unsafe inclusion of natal men. That's feminism: worrying about all the problems facing women and girls, rather than closing your eyes when #bekind requires you do so.

I do hope Johanna Mellis, as a professor of History teaches her students to be more circumspect with their source material, and more able to produce a coherent rational argument than she appears to do herself.

And while I applaud her previous ability to beat boys in certain swimming events I very much doubt that she was racing boys when she achieved her peak wins, because Johanna, it is not the rhetoric of a racist paternalistic trans hating mafia to state that boys who have been through male puberty are taller, more muscular, have bigger lungs, larger hearts and differently aligned pelvic floors all of which enable them to run, jump, and swim more efficiently, faster, higher and quicker than girls. It is fact.

Didn’t read the article, won’t give them the click.
But I had a look at her web page:

Dr. Mellis is also a cohost of the End of Sport podcast with Drs. Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva. They interview athletes, critical sports journalists, and fellow academics to explore all the ways that people use sport to harm others - i.e. through racist mascotry, the NCAA and higher ed’s exploitation of Black and Brown college athletic workers, sexual abuse and harassment, transphobia, and more.

so she’s a grievance hunter ( but she’s looking in the wrong place)

There are so many excellent reasons she should be quietly let go, and yet the most likely source of her downfall always seems to me to be the extraordinary volume and range of tedious shit she encourages(?) Adrian Chiles to hold forth on. 🤯

(Couldn't read the whole article as it was shit. I did try though)

I started off intending to read it, but in the end kinda skimmed through it. Illogical, unfair, flat-out lies, it had the lot. Bullying by male coaches in sport, especially swimming, has been over the news in recent years, and rightly so. But the dishonest way the author attempts some easy linkage between that, and her bat-shit views about trans people in sport, is disgusting. And lousy journalism.

I really think we should be asking "what is a transwoman" because it seems to me people don't understand. What is the difference between cis men and transwomen?! Nevermind about the end of womens sport this lady could easily beat them all - there's no problem!
I read the Guardian for 20 years until Cologne 2005 - I really hate what they have become and how my left wing friends fall for it.

I would too. It surprises me that the article was in the sports section, which is usually quite sensible, rather than in the Comment section (often batshit) or the US section (completely and consistently batshit).

I’m not going to read anything by a journo who uses the “c” word when we already have a word: woman/women. No prefix needed.

They keep sinking lower and lower, so yes I’m confident that there is further to go in their relentless misogyny

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen That photo says everything about why men shouldn’t be playing against women in sport.

I’ve no doubt that the guardian has a whole bunch of handwringing/most marginalised ever/they just want to peer/beee kind you big meanies articles lined up in the wake of recent court case successes and sports governing bodies finally showing some common sense

the will be a lot more of these type of articles over the coming days

Oh God help us

That is a frightening photo, indeed.

Male brutality against a woman at its finest.

Wouldn't wipe my arse with the current Guardian. Used to love it, though. Tragic

I know this is how I’ll feel so I won’t bother

Reading the posts is enough

This article is ludicrous. It's like the author tried to stuff as much transactivist absurdity into it as she possibly could. It's even got a reference to that mythical trans genocide happening only inside their minds.

What a load of disingenuous claptrap that article is.

Every time I see shit like this I am hopeful of how many more people it will peak, but I do worry that plenty of readers will swallow it as gospel

Well, it's in the Guardian. Not some 'Elvis on the moon' wacky tabloid. The Guardian used to mean serious journalism. Clearly, those days are long gone.

I do hope someone writes in to take apart this utter load of bs. I would if I could. And factual inaccuracies pointed out. Why did no one exit it?

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