English Blackball Pool Federation

[Signalbox]

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?

And honestly in my opinion, until there is solid, peer reviewed evidence that there is no benefit to males competing in a women's sport then sex segregated sports should persist. The burden of proof shouldn't be for organisations to prove the differences in male v females in a particular sport, The status quo exists until it is changed. Not the other way around.

Is RMW arguing for pool to be mixed sex, and that there is no need for a women's category?

Or is the argument that there should be a women's category but some men with special gender feelings should be allowed to participate in it?

There has been previous debates about whether pool is even a sport but assuming it is and it has a physical aspect there should be the ability to have a female league especially with prize money involved. The trouble with this "it isn't gender affected" - how would we know for sure and why are we ignoring the experience of the female organisers and players who say that it is? That in itself seems highly sexist. There is a clear physical aspect along with a strategic aspect.

Personally I feel any competition organisers should be legally allowed to have women since birth type criterias (including rare disorders of sexual development who have been living female since birth) without having the burden of unequivocal scientific proof / legal battles. The individual concerned had been playing as a man up to their early twenties with all the benefits of that. Pool is a very masculine sport and female categories are important. NB the other category is "open" so they would not be left unable to play. NB I've seen woman players in "mens" tournaments, this isn't unprecedented.

Ironically perhaps I know quite a bit about pool because ex partner was a keen player...

Quite. Also if the claimant is seriously arguing that there is no advantage to being male then there will logically be no disadvantage to HH playing in the male category. You can't have it both ways. If pool isn't a gender affected sport then the female category has no right to exist in law at all and they should be arguing for it to be banned entirely.

That seems to be RMW's argument. Can you have single-sex categories in sport where it's not for fairness or safety reasons?

Am working so have only had time to pick up this very helpful submission from RMW:

"Historic facts re pool that relevant. Is called pool but etymology is uncertain. Possibly C14th French from word for chicken or later where ppl paid into a pool. In Virginia in 1797, and later in US in C19th after which it moved to the UK"

Was well worth dropping in for - now I'm thinking about chickens.

OK, off to reverse into a bin. See you all later.

In French a poule is a chicken. It's also used to refer to a female q.v. 'chick' in English.

Just seen this, just been posted on FB.

Link posting fail there.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1132971915509814&set=a.587644723375872

Does that work?

So, in the female sport, they’d have to discriminate on the basis of sex or on the basis Gender Reassignment.

So, you’d have to discriminate against the entire biological sex category for which the female event was created in order to allow a male with a piece of paper to be admitted if you’re going along with the fiction of people changing sex.

Completely destroy the fairness and opportunity of women and girls in sports.

I think these people are arsonists. I think they are nasty, misogynistic arsonists who target the world of women and girls going about their own business. People who are trying to cobble, and dismantle, the ability of women and girls to fairly and safely negotiate society. All the while pretending it is only self-regarding rights (for the lads, lets face it) which effects nobody else.

I'm guessing the argument that RMW is trying to make is that snooker, being a bigger table, makes a longer reach more of an advantage.

Any woman who has played snooker against a man knows this is absolutely true.

However, it's still true of pool, just to a lesser degree.

Plus hands span, and hand size.

And yes, you're going to have trouble convincing anyone that men who are also-rans in the men's league but are suddenly BOTH in the final of the women's, don't have an advantage.

Here’s the threadreader link for this morning’s session…

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1909167282850242580.html

can we just... stop that?

I’m still struggling to work out the claimant’s case.

Is it that there is no real advantage to being male in pool but if there is going to be a separate category for women (for neither safety or fairness) it’s discrimination (on the basis of gender reassignment) not to allow men to compete in that category if they identify as women even though there’s a second open category they would be welcome to join?

Just received my link for remote.

Just reading through this morning's transcript and roaring at the judge's "well England" retort to RMW. Way to start off on the wrong foot. 😂😂

I have my link too WFTCHTJ now :-)

just looking at the tribunal tweets thing. Right at the start RMW said "Fairness is discussed alot, which is somewhat a moveable feast. Sports ppl are often unusaul eg don't see x, y. So is an element of selection"

can anyone explain this to me? i have played, in my time, hockey, cricket, volleyball, football in teams. (I was in the army, they love sport). I have also played squash and badminton. In none of these did we not immediately notice if we were up against someone of the opposite sex. I have met thousands of sportspeople in my life. Not one is sex-blind.

I also participated in a sport not unadjacent to one of the very recent ones where a woman refused to play against a man (she got a black card)

And because i went to a girls school, and because none of the local girls schools did this sport, we were in a local schools league where every other school only had boys. So every tournament, every match, every time we pulled on our kit and went out to do sport it was against a boy. (age categories)

we never got relegated from the league because it only had one division. But we never ever placed anywhere other than bottom. Because while we may have taken the odd point, or even one or two of us won against one of their novices, in general, at age 16, 17, 18 they were all taller, with longer reach. Which is important in some sports.

ETA: clearly it's fencing. But the point is: whenever i went into competitions (segregated by age and sex) I often won or got a trophy for top 3. So i wasn't useless, but still most of the boys in our league could beat me.

WFTCJTJ here too!

I laughed at that too!

That is the only argument I think they can make

Hmmm. I’m in but have a black screen but can see chat and list of observers. Anyone else in?

I'm in - all good

Presumably the all male final is a little inconvenient for HH’s case?