English Blackball Pool Federation

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The hearing is scheduled for 7th-11th April at Canterbury County Court.

Tribunal Tweets will be following the case…

Live tweeting sessions Abbreviations
J - His Honour Judge Parker
HH - Harriet Haynes, claimant
RW - Robin White, claimant’s barrister
CC - Colman Coyle, claimant's solicitor
EBPF - English Blackball Pool Federation
PT - Paul Thomson, defendant
AG - Anna Goodwin, defendant
SC - Sarah Crowther KC, defendants’ barristers, and
SS - Sapandeep Singh Maini-Thompson
JRL - JR Levins LLP, defendants’ solicitor
JG - James Goodwin, witness for defendant

The original thread has been deleted for “breaking Mumsnet guidelines”. Not sure why but possibly “misgendering” or possibly making it too easy to find the crowdfund @mumsnet it would be good if you could let us know so this thread can stay up. Do we have to pretend that the Claimant is female?

I had some discussion about handicapping back on Twix a while back. After short discussion, it was obvious to me that this would still result in unfairness to women, even if the system was perfect, because you would still be increasing the number of competitors in women’s sports (making the odds of winning worse) while decreasing the number of competitors in male sports (potentially making the odds of winning better).

The only way you could use handicapping fairly, assuming it is possible at all, would be to remove the separate men’s and women’s competitions and have everyone competing against each other as you would have finally created an equal playing field.

I then laughed as I thought about the tantrums some top male competitors would have if there was a fair playing field and they started to lose to women, as they would if it was genuinely fair.

Anyway, I think when you consider that all players could play together, if only they could do the calculations, it seems fairly obvious it couldn’t be done, which means it absolutely shouldn’t be done for a tiny selection of men who want to invade women’s sports. It’s nonsensical.

This stuff from RMW feels a bit personal and soapboxy to me. 'The most insulting and unpleasant thing you can say to a transwoman ...' [is play in the men's category]. All about the hurty feelz. The law? Not so much.

Not to mention that you can only handicap one factor (eg add weights to a race horse jockey's saddle), or in one way (eg make one competitor start behind the 100m line). There are a raft of factors which differ between women and men.

Also - WHY????? 😁

Do the male horses run faster to show an interest in her?

Another dystopian vision coming closer to reality...? This is both entertaining and scary on the handicapping front, and feeling increasingly relevant...

https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/lesson/1440/Harrison-Bergeron-Short-Story-Equally-Unequal.pdf?rev=9051

Just reread it - it had been a while. Hilarious and utterly horrifying!

on the talk about horses - horse breeding is ruthless. any foal with abnormalities is usually sent to slaughter pdq

I could really derail this thread on the topic of genetic and congenital conditions in horses... but I will resist. 😁

Who brought up handicapping anyway? Was it RMW? Why the hell should any sport turn its own rule-book upside down, completely re-organise the way in which they run competitions, just to satisfy the hurty feelings of a tiny cohort of men? I can't believe they are even wasting time talking about it.

Proof positive that RMW has no lived experience of being a teenage girl. I know I had far FAR worse than that shouted to me daily walking to school.

RMW introduced it. I got the distinct impression that it was a 'sudden rush of shit to the head' moment and it was out of the mouth before the brain had any time to examine it.

From over on the Sandie Peggie thread (another case where someone wants to get into women's spaces). The judge is deciding on Tuesday about access, with NHS trying to keep it behind closed doors.

If anyone wants to write in to that decision making, asking for public access and for Tribunal Tweets to be allowed to continue tweeting when the case resumes in July, the address is
[email protected]
subject
4104864/2024 - Peggie v Fife Health Board

There have been a considerable number of transwomen at Canterbury County Court all this week. If they have been using facilities designated for women such as the loos or the robing room, I do feel for the women encountering them in those spaces. Or not knowing if they will.

Email sent.

Oh come on, it's all about inclusivity.

Let's have heavyweights boxers fighting lightweight boxers, with one hand tied behind their back. It's only fair.

Even better, let's have abled bodied people strapping their feet together for the Paralympics. Or maybe they could wear a blindfold.

At least bloody include them, bigot.

If we're going to have handicaps, we could put all the men and women in together, and as well as giving out handicaps for size and strength, we could have handicaps for skill. If you win or are highly placed, next time you get some kind of starting penalty to even it out. Then I could compete too, and with all the better players hobbled I might even win!

Was trying to find information on this case in news (other than Mail, Times or PN). Found an article from Dec 2024 with an interview with Harriet and this quote rather leaps out from that. Um.

'“The evidence that we’ve received from our expert witnesses shows that I have no advantage. They’ve shown that pool isn’t a gender affected sport. Having that on paper is just brilliant. I believed it before but now we have it in fact. My outlook has changed and it’s spurred me on to practice even harder,” she said. '

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/transgender-pool-player-harriet-haynes-ban-b2653361.html

I was also struck that the reporter did not make any connection between threat of legal action from Harriet and the reversal of decisions were linked to wanting to fit in with guidelines of IOC and World Professional Snooker and Billiards Association. The article does however mention that the female players are taking legal action. This is a real whitewash of Harriet's actions. Have I misunderstood? Did Harriet not threaten all three organisations with legal action and the only one that stood firm is now in court because of this.

Apropos of RMW's brilliant idea of handicapping TW competitors in Women's pool, I have 2 thoughts:

The failing to take it seriously thought. TWs have to play with a cue made from rubber. That would be a serious handicap and would be as funny as fuck.

The sensible thought. If RMW thinks that the problem of TW players in the women's game can be solved by handicapping then RMW is effectively conceding that TWs have a measurable advantage over women.

Just not very bright. I thought you had to be right clever to be a barrister.

I won't hold my breath waiting for the biggest men's sports which pay £millions to the top competitors to start allowing female players to enter via a handicap scheme that, for example, allows female basketball players to play in the NBA standing on stilts or female sprinters to run in the Olympic 800 metres final riding a motorbike.

So we could have Keely Hodgkinson on a motorbike v Emmanual Wanyonyi in the 800 m? I'm there for that.

she is already fast, to be fair, maybe an e-scooter would be fairer.

Yes, I did pick both Olympic winners. So how are we going to handicap Mondo Duplantis in the pole vault?

Chop the end off his pole?

Or a rubber pole as suggested above re cues, could lead to comedy prat falls.