Oh Fuck Off, Claire Balding

[Igneococcus]

Because the way to advance women's sport is to have mixed teams, it seems:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/ec86fbbb-d2df-447e-b597-269bc8970097?shareToken=f639188b858cc1b676e48c918f8bc94a

Perhaps the more audiences and players are directly and simultaneously shown the physical differences in male and female athletes the sooner the realisation will penetrate about keeping women’s sport separate?

So how will a highly regulated mixed sex football team work? Does the format dictate exactly which sex in each position? Or will all the key positions for driving goals end up being male players because obviously they will try to simply overwhelm the rest of the field ? Oh and always a male goalie unless specified?

Again, all it takes is looking at the current teams with male players either due to male’s with DSDs that have meant their bodies virilise, or in inclusive teams to see exactly what happens when even 1 male is playing against female people. The reports of injuries in teams playing the Flying Bats in Sydney also shows that it is the female players who end up losing their ability to ever play again if they are seriously injured by the male players.

All female players would need to be made fully and comprehensively aware of all the risks. Including head injuries. Including taking a header when kicked off a male foot! The potential over time of simply connecting a woman’s head and the impact on the neck etc needs women to fully understand the additional risk. And that is not including women being tripped and ‘tackled’.

I am very surprised that Balding used football as an example. But hey, apparently, posters on MN don’t know much.

And apparently a BBC sports presenter’s opinions are inconsequential too.

I read the article this morning but didn't have time to post, pretty much anything I would have said has been mentioned by pp. As was touched on earlier re. rowing, you can bet mixed sexed teams would definitely be by biological sex to avoid disadvantaging men. TW might find it even harder to get a game and TM wouldn't get a look in unless they'd avoided damage from pb and weren't on testosterone.

Can anyone say how this is going down in the comments?

Yeah no. I train in a martial art and everyone at my club is male so I have no choice but to fight men. It's fine and my choice but there are drawbacks.

I can win practice fights against some of the less skilled and less strong men but they are friendly fights. The bigger and more practised men I don't have a chance against partly just due to the fact their arms and legs are longer and they are heavier. I also get injuries, particularly from the teen lads who can get a bit less restrained when the fight gets going and their blood is up. The heavier guys can also bulldoze me pretty easily and I fall hard - it's just physics.

I'd never fight competitively against men. It would be too dangerous.

Walking football, perhaps? 😁

Actually, if I had to do it, I'd put all the males in the core - central defenders, midfield, one up front, and put the women in the outside positions - where they were out of harms way. They could receive a pass on the wing and play it back in fairly successfully, or cause some irritation to an opposition winger as a full back. I could not want female defenders up against fast, heavy, strong male attackers when they had the goal in sight.

And I would absolutely advise the women not to head any balls, with the possible exception of rebounds or throw ins.

But apparently truthfulness MNers know nothing.

Well, that's just my personal opinion having played (and more latterly managed and coached) grassroots football for over thirty years and played and organised mixed-sex team sport (including football) for a dozen years. Nowhere near elite level though.

Perhaps we should have a mixed-sex fantasy league and test our strategic assumptions 😂

Over 500 comments, big majority (and all the posts with a high number of recommendations) are critical of her comments and the fact that the article doesn’t address the trans controversy at all.

Wow what a traitor.

Lesbians (and I say this as a lesbian) are sadly often the most self - loathing as women. Anything to dick pander and fit in. Still so disappointing though. How sad for her to keep mentioning golf after all those incredible female golfers signed the letter of protest against the TIM stealing women’s medals.

really can’t wait for this nonsense to arrive at an end

Suzanne Moore in the Telegraph

https://archive.ph/gUX9I bypass the paywall

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/29/clare-balding-mixed-sex-sport-women-trans-athletes/

I think we've all seen the piece from Reem Absalem's recent report 900 medals lost by women to tw. SM explicitly states the flip side, that not one single medal has been taken by a tm from a man. I mean, well duh! However, it's pretty stark to see it spelled out.

She's popped up in the Telegraph again to clarify

https://archive.ph/yIUl8

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2024/11/07/clare-balding-interview-said-wrong-thing-mixed-gender-sport/

Jolly good. Says some nice things about Chris Hoy at the end.

Do you have that without it being behind a paywall please? As I think she's drawing back from mixed sports being great but I can't see?

There's an archive link right there. Can you not use that?

Yes, the first link should work. Apologies, I forgot to label it.

Apologies I missed that!

D'oh !

Thanks for the link.

That's great. Thanks.

Good for CB for coming back to clear up misunderstandings. That's pretty much what I thought she was getting at first time around - except for the mixed football idea and she's clarified she was talking about it as a platform rather than as a sport.
Personally, I really like mixed relays - no-contact sports. I also think mixed doubles in tennis and badminton are great options for social sports involvement as well. Sport by sport, it's worth looking at mixed sex as an option, if the sport is no-contact. It does attract attention and the athletes love these events.

There's a difference between mixed sex competition, properly and appropriately done, and mixed sex participation. ParkRun is supposed to be (but is not, of course) an example of mixed sex participation, with everyone usually running together but the women's times and records recorded separately. That's different from a mixed doubles tennis team, or an archery duo when there is one of each sex on the team and the teams compete directly. And sometimes, having a couple of boys in each team will be the only option available if there aren't enough girls/women to make up two five-a-side or seven-a-side football teams at school, and the alternative is no football for the really keen but not necessarily especially talented girls. An all-girls football session would be the ideal but may not always be doable.

Good. I am glad she clarified as I like CB.

I can see what she meant about sharing platforms and raising profiles to
get funding. That’s somewhat different to what the headline was suggesting. .

Edited to say: I suspect that she will be able to be more direct once she stops working for the Beeb.

The clarification that she means things like having men's and women's competitions in the same venue and on the same day to maximise crowds and media coverage makes much more sense. Good.

At DS’s senior school, girls are can elect to join a boys’ sports session, but not vice versa. Sickening, especially for the more gentle boys. For adults, I don’t mind so much - at least at that stage, they get a choice whether or not to participate.

Well Clare might think that, but let’s face it, the men who are pushing to be allowed to participate as women in womens sports are not going to be interested in sharing the top spot winners podium with other people, they want to stand there alone, triumphant, their glossy locks floating in the breeze, the gold medal pressed to their luscious lips, their heaving bosoms barely contained in their Lycra vests, and the women who they have unfairly beaten standing at either side like silenced handmaidens .

Just seen update, fair enough, but she is a seasoned enough broadcaster to know that you need to make your intentions crystal clear from the start, it is all too easy for people to cherry pick remarks, take them out of context and use them for their own purposes.

that sounds like an out-take from Triumph of the Will II, @viques !