Transwomen in Scottish women's football

[ArabeIIaScott]

This is so depressing.

Just as women's football becomes more respected; just as girls start to see more players as role models, males start to muscle in.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/players-scottish-womens-football-leagues-30769302

'When all you're saying is there is a safety element on the pitch and there's obviously a massive advantage that they have with strength and agility."That's all we've said, but for that we are called transphobic and bullies. It's making us feel like we shouldn't speak out. They are not letting us have a voice and that makes us feel like we are doing something wrong."'

And a blog post from 'the trans footballer', presumably the one mentioned in the Edinburgh game.

https://leapsports.org/blog/my-story-the-trans-footballer

Football and hockey have yet to implement the September 2021 guidance from the UK Sporting Bodies..

https://equalityinsport.org/resources/index.html

Worth reading and sending to the football organisations asking them why they have not implemented these recommendations that are almost 2 years old..

Reading that article. Arabella why do some women footballers not see it has being a problem. Makes a arse of women’s football.

was watching the world athletics today and I felt like I was watching women competing not like Rio Olympics.

Scotland wtaf has happened here

why do some women footballers not see it has being a problem.

I wondered this too. When someone finally strikes up the courage to challenge the (obviously unfair) decision to allow some men onto women’s teams, why are there always some women so ready to prostrate themselves? They can’t really be interested in women’s sports or rights.

Perhaps they think accepting defeat is noble, even when it’s patently an unfair competition. I wonder whether they would be as accepting if a woman with an unfair advantage (a professional player being placed on an amateur team because she felt sad to be excluded from the amateur game) was placed on the opposing team. I bet they wouldn’t bend over backwards for her.

My own automatic reactions probably tell some of the story. I was brought up to seek out (and perhaps) befriend those who are different: a kind of positive discrimination, I guess. Being on this board has changed my mind, but I would have probably been one of those who would have welcomed a man dressed as a woman into women’s groups as “the right/decent thing to do”. Life has gradually taught me that some people take advantage, but it’s still there in the background. Putting others first was drummed into me way too much as a child.

If this sort of thing carries on, more and more males will be in female sports, and more and more females will lose out on competition wins. It won’t be long before a woman suffers a serious injury from being tackled by a powerful male. Why should women be sacrificial lambs to gender ideology?

Eventually, there will be so many males in women’s sport that women will have to break out of their own category and set up a new one called XX, purely for natal females. No man would be allowed to identify as XX. Men, however they identify, would compete in a new XY category or else carry on in the meaningless mixed-sex “women’s” category alongside other TW and the few dwindling BeKind females who welcome them there.

This was my sport. Eventually I stepped away after decades of involvement because of this issue and trying to challenge it, with disastrous results. Players are terrified to say anything and many have convinced themselves it's not an issue, or it's more important to be inclusive. It will have an enormously detrimental effect on women's football as more trans players come through (and they will - males massively overrepresent women in the sport). Women will just quietly step away - especially the least experienced - who don't want that kind of physicality in a game, or those who were looking for a supportive female-only environment.

I think it will be difficult to get women's football back to being single sex. Partly because it has always been to welcoming of lesbian and gender non-confirming women and many (ironically) see this as a natural extension of that.

It's also notable to me that the types of transwomen you typically see are not representative of the women playing. Most women give up by their mid-thirties when they have children or injury takes them out. A miniscule number are still playing in their forties and they have to work very hard to maintain fitness, but transwomen players seem to typically be out-of-shape males in their fifties.

I couldn't finish the article by the trans player -

1. The racism. Black women can do whatever they want (within the law) and that is fine with me. Play sports, go to the ladies loo, do whatever they want with their hair - they're women, my sisters and I support them.

But use them as a prop to force inclusion of trans-identified males? No. Suggest Black women are less womanly? Fuck off. Black women are women and fuck off with any suggestion they are lesser.

1. The checks on women to exclude trans-identified men.

Ok. If it excludes men, bring it on. I'll flash my fadge whenever I have to if it keeps men out of women's facilities and services but it doesn't and won't. As people have said, men respecting the social contract of women's boundaries are what keeps men out.

Truthlikeness, that is fucking awful. I'm so sorry.

why do some women footballers not see it has being a problem.

I wondered this too. When someone finally strikes up the courage to challenge the (obviously unfair) decision to allow some men onto women’s teams, why are there always some women so ready to prostrate themselves? They can’t really be interested in women’s sports or rights.

I wonder if it’s more likely where you have a team game. If you are not the person directly effected and being pushed out of the team and you also want to maintain your “progressive” credentials. This obviously relies on the trans athlete being a rarity and also being confident that your athletic abilities outstrip the other women on your team so you are not the one who ends up being ousted.

why do some women footballers not see it has being a problem. Makes a arse of women’s football.

Hopes of sponsorship for the team means they adopt the stance of the FWR favourites, preference falsification and Havel's greengrocer?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved?

If the Lionesses had walked on the pitch last week and 3 of the Spanish players were male, the ensuing tsunami of a common sense outcry would have killed the trans intrusion stone dead. It would have done for womens' sport what Isla Bryson did for the SNP.

I agree it's harder to call it out in a team game, but that's largely because you're conditioned to do what's right for the team and your personal opinions often play second fiddle to the well-being of the team as a whole.

One might argue that letting males into a single-sex contact sport isn't in anyone's best interested, but plenty of the members of any given team will have convinced themselves its ok and of those who don't, they won't want to come out and say so. Believe me, I've seen the results of trying to stand against it and its not pretty.

It's so easy for people on Twitter to say 'all the women need to refuse to play against these males' but the reality is you'll never get enough prepared to do that to make a real difference. If you stand up, you're just ending your own playing career. Most women would rather keep quiet and endure the occasional game against a male to be able to play the game they love. There aren't enough opportunities for women's football that anyone is able to be picky.

Some women (as well as men) go even further and actively encourage transwomen to play in their football teams and leagues and play the role of cheerleader and defender for them, much like you find in other parts of society. As far as I can tell, they've genuinely convinced themselves that these males are marginalised and deserve special treatment and protection from the nasty, exclusive women. I don't think these two camps will ever be reconciled.