Badminton England - new guidance on 'transgender' players

[ArabeIIaScott]

https://www.badmintonengland.co.uk/about-us/equality-diversity/

'Recreational activity 1. Badminton England encourages transgender and non-binary players to play badminton recreationally in the gender they identify as. This includes all recreational participation, including No Strings Badminton, and club night activity'

...
'Unsanctioned and sanctioned competition 3. Unsanctioned competition comprises of local tournaments and league play. It also includes Tier 5 (social) competition and events staged for players in education (e.g., primary school, secondary school, further education and higher education). 4. Sanctioned competition includes Badminton England sanctioned tournaments, national championships, the National Badminton League and county events where players are selected to represent their county, including county restricted events. 5. Competition at these levels has the potential to enable players to secure ranking points and/or representation at county level or higher. Therefore, fairness of competition will be prioritised. This requires competition at these levels (unsanctioned and sanctioned) to be categorised as:

• Female competition – players assigned female at birth
• Open competition – all individuals will be eligible to compete in the open category. This will replace the men’s category.'

Hallelujah

Well, it's a start.

I'm not in agreement that recreational sports should be mixed sex. That leaves the possibility that many women will stop participating because of males in changing rooms, and/or safety issues, or just because a mixed sex sport is very different from a single sex sport.

Brilliant. I responded to this survey.

Does recreational just mean down to individuals? Like if I played against my DH or a male friend non competitively but for fun?

Yes that's how I'd take it. Non-competitive which means it's down to the individuals booking a court and going along.

I think recreational also means clubs.

So you could have a women’s badminton club and under these rules a male player who declared an internal self-perception of ‘woman’ would be able to join and change that club from single-sex female to mixed sex, thus removing a single sex recreational provision from women.

I think recreational will mean any activity by a badminton england affiliated club, except the sanctioned & unsanctioned competitions as listed in that paragraph.

I expect most badminton clubs have a club night where they play each other, which will count as recreational, and then they also enter teams in local leagues which will now be female & open.

Yes I think that is how it's meant.

I find it hugely disappointing that all these sporting bodies have only tackled competition level sport and I think it shows they haven't grasped the breadth of this issue for women and girls.

A quick google shows a number of women's and girls badminton clubs clearly designed to encourage participation. They're probably not massive clubs either - I bet some average 20 members or less.

A forced male presence women can do nothing about will mean some women leave and self exclude.

Maybe Badminton England think it's no different to mixed sex clubs that exist already but in reality it's not the same. Women join single sex clubs for a reason but even in mixed sex clubs the dynamic is different. It's one thing to be in a club with men, it's another thing entirely to be in a club with men you are not allowed to say are men.

As Badminton England have decided men can join as women recreationally I assume it will also be impossible for the women to maintain single sex changing areas in whatever facilities they are using.

Yes that is disappointing as it puts girls and women out of control once again in their own sport.

Why are sporting bodies keen to give up any aspect for women and girls?

Why?

Better than nothing, but I'd be concerned how it affects girls and women with the potential to become elite athletes. Does it limit their opportunities?

Also, Female competition – players assigned female at birth opens the door to situations like what happened in the 2016 Olympics women's 800m - gold, silver and bronze all taken by players assigned female at birth.

“Also, Female competition – players assigned female at birth opens the door to situations like what happened in the 2016 Olympics women's 800m - gold, silver and bronze all taken by players assigned female at birth.”

Good point. I hadn’t spotted that their wording would include males with a DSD.

Possibly as a sop towards trans activist arguments.

It's not working, though, this is still being called 'genocide' for all those males now BANNED from playing women's badminton at high level.

It's just toxic manipulation then.

And the organisations shouldn't be appeasing them by giving away women's grassroots sports as a halfway measure.

'Genocide' really does not mean 'can't play in the women's category at Badminton'.

My God some of these twits really do need to notice the world beyond the inside of their own head occasionally.

It really annoys me. I will never be a competitor elite player, but I nonetheless want only to play single sex sport. I have tried mixed sex (not badminton) and it is a completely different game (and, for me, not a fun or interesting one).

Full disclosure, when I made that post, I hadn't seen anyone use the word 'genocide', just complain that this was 'transphobic' new guidance. But being pedantic, I googled to check, and ...

'. Anglo terfism is spreading like a malignant cancer. And what’s worse is that they are now targeting countries which are objectively more dangerous like Mexico and Latin America. It’s very easy for uninformed cis people to be duped into believing these are women’s rights advocates and not a genocidal hate movement.'

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/15ng6rk/badminton_england_effectively_ban_trans_players/

I’m actually starting to worry that someone will (God forbid) start an actual trans genocide & nobody will act to halt it for ages because we’ve had years of being told not allowed to change next to little girls/compete in women’s sport/commit crime without sanction is genocide.

Also, while it’s better than nothing, they’ve made a real mess of this.

Badminton clubs tend to be mixed, and people will often play doubles/singles in line with different players’ abilities rather than purely sex, but usually the competent male players can easily batter even the really good women. There has never been any restriction on who can book a court and play.

’Recreational’ will refer to competitions like local leagues where clubs play each other. Here, of course sex should be respected. There’s usually lots more male players than female anyway, so allowing males to take women’s places on women’s and mixed teams will further discourage female participation. At recreational level, there’s no good reason for a transwoman not to play as a man. I really don’t see why women should lose out.

I think this is a great development for competitive badminton. As for recreational, I'm getting the impression they think "anyone can play anyone as this level doesn't matter" and to be fair you usually get to choose who you play against in recreational, but it might still make women and girls feel like their contribution doesn't matter or make it difficult to pick women for competitive teams.

I played badminton with my 90 year old father; he was good and always beat me.

Fashionable 'inclusion' seems to mean fucking women over for happy man feels...