First transgender manager ignites row by signing biologically male goalkeeper for women’s team

[PoppySeedBagelRedux]

Article in the Telegraph:
www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/08/31/transgender-manager-signs-biological-male-keeper-women-team/

And protests from sex realists on Twitter. These men are making their dislike of women really clear now, aren't they?

I mean, there are top women managers (Sarina Wiegman and Emma Hayes being notable examples). But I think that as (although women have been playing football for many years) it's only fairly recently it's really gained high awareness, I suspect there are still more men than women with the skills, experience and confidence to manage a team. That will change.

(There's also Hannah Dingley who managed a men's team, though I'm not sure what happened with that.)

And female referees like Stéphanie Frappart officiating top flight men's games.

Apologies, my post shifted somewhat to implying there were none at all at the end. I'm glad to learn that's nonsense, but there should be more im-relatively uninformed-o.

no, I don't know. AFAIK, BH didn't return to the team after the spat in early September. no idea what happened. possible that it's very common at this sort of level, eg if players' work and so on gets in the way.

Thanks. Maybe if Blair spends a bit more time on Blair's work Blair's research on transgender sport science will be of a higher standard

Thanks for the update. I've been wondering what happened next.

I was involved with women's football in the UK for 30 years and there are very few female coaches. Of the dozen or so coaches I had over that time, only one was female, though I think it's getting better now.

I couldn't say whether the dearth is due to fewer women being involved with the game or other things putting them off, but its probably a bit of both. A friend said she found it difficult to be taken seriously when she did her coaching training about a decade ago.

I preferred a female coach. I ended up doing a bit of coaching myself just before I retired and the team appreciated that dynamic. I won't list the frequent challenges with male coaches but, let's just say, from my experience there seem to be plenty who get into it as a power trip or to pull women.

Thanks, that chimes with what I hear and read.

The FA are having a big push to train women coaches - I think they are doing courses for women only. Actual women. Big-name players are getting their pro licences under this scheme.

So, if they get hired, that should increase the pool of top-level ex-players. I think it's probably a lot harder for a club to assess a woman coach because of her comparative lack of experience, the huge disparity in resources at the clubs she may have coached at, etc, and I wonder if some clubs play safe and just appoint a more experienced man, who may or may not be as talented.

The increase in the size of the talent pool cannot come too soon for me - when I see male coaches celebrating I often think of men showing off their dogs or bikes to each other. Some of the male coaches are absolute gems, I'm sure, but I prefer to see women coaches in women's team sports.

I walked away from the game after being called a transphobic bigot for raising concerns about fairness and safety by a man who liked to style himself as a saviour of women's football, but who let self-IDing transwomen play and told us it was our duty to support them.

What an arsehole.