Good Mara interview in Athletics Illustrated

[ferretface]

https://athleticsillustrated.com/the-mara-yamauchi-interview-the-acceptable-number-of-males-in-the-female-category-is-zero/

Go Mara, you are a principled and fearless queen!

Mara is relentless and keeps holding organisations accountable. Go Mara!!

The quote at the top of the article lays it all out.

"I have received several death threats, constant trolling online, lost work and had to cancel my book launch after it was targeted by trans rights activists. All for the “crime” of defending fair and safe sport for women and girls. What this abuse shows is that this is actually a men’s rights movement and many of its staunchest defenders present themselves as ‘progressive’ when actually they are simply misogynists."

Wow, she is on fire in that interview.

Thanks, superb and comprehensive from Mara Yamauchi. Her description of the cascade of impacts of men/boys in female sport was very striking. And she made the point so clearly that excluding only post-pubertal males or some male athletes with a DSD is not enough - they are male and have male advantage, which the female category is supposed to exclude.

She's also right that Female + Open is not ideal because men and boys have the right to withhold consent to changing the name of their category, and Open takes account of a factor which is irrelevant to sport.

Snowypeaks · Today 09:57

Thanks, superb and comprehensive from Mara Yamauchi. Her description of the cascade of impacts of men/boys in female sport was very striking.

I was about to post something similar. She has set it out very clearly there and hopefully, some fence sitters may read and have a penny drop.

Wow, she doesn't mince her words! Great interview.

And IF women have to have an acronym [some MNer is going to correct me if this isn't actually an 'acronym'..], we can't accept AFAB, because our female sex is observed at birth, not ascribed, Mara talks about 'Female at birth' and if we have to have an acronym, 'FAB' is fab

She is great. Thanks for posting this link @ferretface I urge everyone to read the interview, even if not interested in sport.

Brilliant penultimate paragraph:
"I support everyone, including trans people, being welcome and included in sport. But categories exist for good reason. Namely enabling everyone (not just young adults, able-bodied males) to be included fairly and safely in sport. Categories only make sense if they are based on things which affect our physical abilities, namely sex, age, weight (in some sports) and types of disability. Categories based on things which have no relevance to our physical abilities, including how one identifies, one’s religion, voting preference, star sign etc., are meaningless nonsense. I accept anyone’s right to identify however they wish. But sport and its core foundations — fairness and safety — cannot be thrown in the bin simply to validate some people’s identities."

Great interview, Mara, well explained 👏