Girl with suspected autism faces 12-match ban for asking transgender opponent: ‘Are you a man?’

[rooshoe]

m.independent.ie/sport/soccer/teenage-girl-17-with-suspected-autism-faces-12-match-ban-for-asking-transgender-opponent-are-you-a-man/a1896883124.html

It's in the Telegraph too but that's behind a paywall - has anyone covered this on here already?

I have girls (the female kind) who play this and other 'boy' sports. I'm so worried. To even question the situation could mean severe punishment. What is wrong with this world?!

Why would a man want to play sport with girls anyway?

I mean, that is fucking weird. Unless...

I don't think there's anything wrong with mixed sex teams if everyone knows and agrees that's what they are, and any necessary accommodations are made. Single sex teams however should remain so, and not be infiltrated by males just because they say they are female.

I’m just quoting this bit from hholiday’s rather good post

”The telegraph will has probably been motivated to report it because they were hoping for a reaction like those generated here and on their comments board - ie an outpouring of sympathy and support for the teenage girl and her mum.
But are those reactions wrong?”

because this is what it always boils down to. There’s an ingrained assumption that it is wrong to sympathise with girl’s and women because, somehow, it’s always the men only who are deserving of sympathy.

Women and girl’s deserve to be listened to and are allowed to feel angry, sad, let down or even inconvenienced, even if that means men may then feel hard done by. Men’s feelings are not the default.

This nonsense really has gone too far...

There could hardly have been a more perfect example of the Emperor’s New Clothes, really, could there? Except that, instead of the scales falling from everyone’s eyes as soon as reality is presented by a child, the child is hushed up and prevented from speaking again.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse etc etc etc

Yes, she got it right.

hholiday

What a brilliant post. I think the last paragraph bears repeating too

overall, on this board we are looking to listen and support women and girls whose stories of male dominance and aggression too often go overlooked and unheard. I doubt this story will even be reported , for example, by the guardian- and probably the bbc. And this board is one of the few places in life where we get to share, offer support (sometimes quite instrumental support) and analyse such stories. We’re not idiots - we do look at sources, we are perfectly aware that it’s the right wing media that are reporting stories on women’s versus trans rights that the left aren’t touching. But that doesn’t make them wrong. Our ‘lived experience’ is that women’s voices aren’t being heard or taken seriously by society so this is where we give them airtime.
You may choose not to listen or not to take this girl, her mum or us seriously. But bear in mind, the reason you don’t have to do so is your male privilege - you get that choice. At the very least, it makes for a refreshing change to hear from a teenage girl in a news story, doesn’t it? The vast, vast majority of the time teenage girls make the news headlines is because they are the victims of some horrific act of male violence. So it’s good to hear they have voices and opinions- even if those are things some / a lot of men don’t necessarily want to hear.

I love this! So, I had to quote it.

I’m the mother of a lad who plays 5 a side (so fun kick-about rather than serious sport) in a team with 17/18 year old lads. They often play teams of full grown men (and even boys at 18 are not fully filled out yet and look like boys) BUT there’s no way they would play a group of women or girls!
The boys are much stronger and faster at that age than girls ( and they often beat the men).
My son would not consider it fair at all to play a girl, and the 5 a side league would never mix teams anyway.
Its basic common sense and sporting fairness fgs.

*hholiday's *post is excellent. I am beyond sick of the narrative that seeks to question and undermine the misogynistic crap that women and, in particular, teenage girls have to face on a daily basis.

And my heart goes out to this young woman. She is being punished for saying out loud what everyone around her knows to be true, but is apparently too scared to say: this is a man.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/10/19/transgender-players-womens-football-fa-unfair/

There is another article sorry not archive but attached a couple of paragraphs. Interesting that one team (with more than one TW player) has allegedly made several complaints.

https://archive.ph/bMlPH

Fingers crossed 🤞 link works

I imagine they see it as defending their TW players, who are so uniquely vulnerable etc etc. And it will of course be effective if players from other teams who dare say anything are banned as a result.

This whole issue is a disaster. Trans women who want to play sport: please do so, but do it either on a team for your own sex or set up your own trans teams and leagues.

Don’t forget the portrayal of the mother, by those wishing to undermine the story, as unreliable and hysterical. Some things never change…

Looks as if the gaslighting dad has disappeared but I'm linking an excellent article (by a Telegraph male sports journalist Oliver Brown) about the lack of credibility of the FA in prioritising the safety & inclusion of women and girls in Football.

Extract:
“Complex and constantly evolving.” This is how the Football Association has chosen to frame the deeply uncomfortable transgender row that has reached its doors. Except the brutal reality, which it is high time a governing body had the gumption to articulate, is that it is neither of these things.
Complex? It is hardly an observation worthy of The Lancet that men’s greater strength, stamina and cardiovascular capacity create an insuperable – and potentially dangerous – advantage over women in any contact sport. And as for evolving? The spectacle of a 31-year-old biological male competing in a Sheffield league against 16-year-old girls is not about to become any less absurd tomorrow than it already is today.
By retreating into the language of compromise and conciliation, football has fallen behind the curve in ensuring fairness and safety for women....
On the one hand, the national game luxuriates in the glow of the Lionesses reaching a World Cup final. But on the other, it compels 16-year-old girls to face an opponent who is 15 years older, carrying all the residual benefits of male puberty.
How does this inspire a generation, if girls are saying they cannot play because they might be harmed"

Thank heavens for articulate and informed men involved in sport who are playing their part in arguing for inclusion, not exclusion of women and girls in sport.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/11/21/fa-intervention-transgender-row-resolution/

I was pleased to see Oliver Brown winning Sports Journalist of the Year. Keep up the good work that man.

Me too. The commentators underneath his and other articles completely get the issues about the risks to women and girls & their exclusion from sport by these predominantly mediocre male governing bodies in hock to the trans lobby.

The FA are falling down on this. It undermines all the positive work they have done in recent years about getting girls to play and women to coach plus centring positive coaching. We get safeguarding notices about "dad's V lads" matches being dangerous but nothing about boys pretending to be girls. It may happen to us but my team know if that does we will forfeit I and will personally pay the fine. I've seen our coaches v parents match, which is mixed, and just taking a ball from one of these men is dangerous.

I thinks it's interesting that there's this OTT, spanish inquisition style reaction and punishment when someone says "are you/is that a man?" about a trans-identifying male - and it's happenned to autistic kids before IRRC, one was arrested. But if you said this to a woman no one would, bat an eyelid and even if she was offended, I don't think she'd have much luck getting anyone arrested or punished.

I'm not a lawyer but this seems like sex-based discrimination to me (and discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment) - if someone is a man and get called a man (or just questioned about it) then it's a huge issue, if someone is not a man and gets called a man, that's not a big deal.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here

Unless,,.

They had daughters, they had sisters, they had partners, they had sons who had girlfriends, their friends had daughters, they were 18 and had 17year old girlfriends, the Village team cannot field 11 blokes, the girls team cannot field 11 girls,

Most football matches are played for fun and fitness and thank god they are becoming more mixed. The participation of women and girls is doing everyone good. I’d say.

Melody Malone:
” don't think there's anything wrong with mixed sex teams if everyone knows and agrees that's what they are, and any necessary accommodations are made. Single sex teams however should remain so, and not be infiltrated by males just because they say they are female.”

I totally agree with this. The article is about 2 LGTB+ inclusive teams. There appear’s to have been a complaint made that has forced an investigation process. The decision of the process hasn’t been reached and nobody has been sanctioned yet. The 12 match thing is a maximum potential penalty I assume. It’s use in the headline is misleading.

I don’t disbelieve the girl or her mum. I’m totally willing to be self critical of my assumptions. And thank you for sensible challenges to those.

“Gaslighting Dad” has been parenting. Please can we be civil and not assume the worst of one another.

OK so how old are you, a man playing football against girls, and how old are the girls?

Unless you're saying girls and you mean women 😬

Exactly.

I was compeletly civil - I merely called out the self interest of a man posting on a board of predominantly feminist woimen. It's the demands from men that women are "kind" and "civil" that has led to the trashing of women and girls' rights to safe same sex sports, showers, changing rooms etc. Maybe you might like to actually listen to women?
When you claim to "not be a threat to their safety because I’m not interested in hurting anyone. I’m interested in us enjoying ourselves", your interest in yourself is immediately evident.
Most women here are concerned about the safety of our daughters, sisters, granddaughters and other girls. The demands of men to "enjoy themselves" comes pretty low on our list of people to protect.

Proper mixed sex team sports, or arrangements where one sex might fill in for the other on an ad hoc basis, are completely different in competitive intent and attitude from single sex, serious sport.
Anyone who doesn’t realise this, and who doesn’t understand the risk of injury to women playing such sports alongside men, shouldn’t really be commenting on such things.