Sharron Davies and Mara Yamauchi are glorious!

[Soontobe60]

Have a listen to this BBC OS radio interview on the ban on men in womens sport. They are absolutely glorious to listen to - had the interviewer Mark Löwen tied up in knots and challenged his words beautifully.
From 26 minutes in.
https://t.co/GbsDZMQ5jL

That was a good interview. I loved Mara’s point about mental health needs not being a justification for women to run in the kids category, so why should men run in true women’s.
Did anyone else notice the odd editing after the interviewer asked for examples of season ending injuries? SD said (paraphrase) ‘there have been broken legs and there have been teams that opted out of playing a side with men on it’. It really didn’t sound as if the teams opting out point was made then, it was as if she’d said that in answer to another question. I wonder if she listed other examples of injuries and that got cut out. If so, I wonder what she actually said.

This tweet Gaspode?

https://x.com/hecheateddotorg/status/1919972652027961691

Where they discuss how in the league there is 3 of the top 4 goal scorers in the women's games that are actually male players? And they have played not that many games compared to the exceptional female players in the list to achieve those scores so their goals per minute rate is very high?

Oscar "Oskia" Summers (Clapton Firsts & Reserves)
Tom "Tammy" Hymas. (Clapton Reserves)
Justin "Justine" Sauri White. (I think this one also is on this team and a Peckham team)

The Clapton team also has Paul "Paula" Griffin (aged around 60 years) as a goalie.

In Manchester Laces team there is:

Tamsyn Elkie O'Connor (who also used to play semi-professionally in Norway as a woman) as a goalie
Matthew "Emma" Smith (also a goalie and is a BBC Sports journo)
Plus a few more.

I found that a remarkable collection of information. Whoever gathered it found 11 in just 2 teams.

And they listed more. I would predict that that number of 20 was someone low balling to minimise the numbers.

That's the one. Scandalous.

That is really funny,

NB If you've not read Sharron Davies' book 'Unfair Play', I'd recommend it.

It's enraging isn't it. (And I don't even care about football!)

Yes, Sharron and Mara were brilliant. Dennis's thread on Twitter is hilarious.

I've submitted a complaint to the BBC regarding the bias in the coverage of this.

Absolutely nailed it Dennis Kavanagh.

That's exactly how it sounded to me.

It was literally like an episode of Brass Eye.

I had a look at that tweet @Helleofabore. It has blown my mind slightly and I’m having a problem putting my brain cells back in order.
How on earth did we get to a point where man after man after man thought he could put on a skirt and take a tablet and have people championing him as a woman ? I know those of us who spend time here have seen it before, but I still just can’t process it.

I suspected that there must be clusters around the UK. It is like the Flying Bats in North Sydney football League. But here in the UK, news was not getting out. Which is strange, because there must be team mates and opposing team players who knew this was happening.

Either they are fearful of speaking out, or they are enjoying the benefits of having male players on the team so they can win.

And when I saw the report of a 60 year old male, I thought.... do these people not see the disparity??? What 60 year old female goalies are playing in teams that are not age category teams, ie. just in the general female teams?

It really does show there has been so much dishonesty in how FA have conducted themselves here.

Agreed @Helleofabore. I just still have this feeling that I must be missing a piece of the puzzle because it’s so bleeding obvious to me that it’s wrong.

God, I enjoyed listening to that.

Under different circumstances that would have been enraging, but Sharron and Maya are so firmly in the driving seat that, just by being normal, he fell into the trap time after time. It ended up being very funny.

It's infuriating, says Sharron, that people keep asking us about the men

Yes, right. Can I just ask you about the men?

You're doing it too!

No I'm not, I just want to ask you about the men.

🤣🤣🤣

Also, I know it's Mara, I say Maya so much I think it might've been an AutoCorrect 😳

The interviewer was shameful. I thought Sharon and Mara were outstanding in the face of the must infuriating interviewing technique.

Wow I just found time to listen to this (having read the twitter summary first) and oh my days. Mara and Sharron were brilliant. What an appalling display of bias by the BBC. As a pp I have also written a complaint about the blatant bias and misogyny. It was galling to hear "Jessica" and coach Steve espouse their thoughts and feelings unchallenged by the interviewer in contrast to Sharron and Mara being asked "but what about the [men]???" no matter what they said. I also noticed the sly dig of "former Olympians". Surely, having competed in the Olympics, Sharron and Mara are simply "Olympians".

I found it especially shocking that when coach Steve asserted that he'd never had any reason to consider this issue until very recently that the interviewer didn't challenge this given the years (decades??) women have been campaigning about this. And also the assertion from the coach that this is a tiny tiny issue for a vanishingly small minority of people but that there are three TiMs that he coaches?!? Wtf. My head was spinning the whole time I listened to that.

If anyone has not listened to the full interview with "Jessica" it is on the same program on 1 May (also at 26 minutes and 30 seconds in). I would suggest you do listen to it (if you can stomach it) just to really drive home how horrifically biased this coverage is. You'll notice that "Jessica's" program doesn't have 5 minutes at the begining devoted to hearing from women. And there's no advertisement at the end to tune in tomorrow to hear from Sharron and Mara.

I’ve just listened to it.
well done those ladies on relentless picking apart every tiny normalisation of language that’s slipped in.

I flagged exactly that in my complaint. The time spent, the type of questioning, the style of questioning and the choice of people to interview - all deeply sexist.

I asked why they hadn't asked a man on to explain how regular teams would be working hard to be inclusive - Steve the coach actually had some great ideas on this and it would have been good to have had a discussion on that to help other clubs put better offers in place.

Yes that section kind of came across like "there are these solutions but it's unreasonable that we should even consider them". The whole segment felt like a load of blokes standing around scratching their heads saying "I'm not quite sure what they're shrieking about or why it matters but let's have a go at discussing it".

I don’t often reply on this part of mn but I do read it. Thanks for this link. Such articulate viewpoint from the women. Particularly enjoyed them saying about mental health, so if an adult wants to compete in a different age range/ paralympics etc for their mh, it would be disallowed.

I just wish more people could listen to this. 'Jessica' just sounded male as well as 'Rachel' was it?

The interviewer was just nuts, and strangely out of his depth on something so simple. No answer to the 'what if I wanted to race with under 10s because of my mental health?'.

This seemed to just be, 'Oh but come on, this man is upset, it's just one or two men in women's sport, why can't you just be nice?'.

Here are more:

https://x.com/hecheateddotorg/status/1920713618749878532?s=46

So far they have counted more than 20. And it is remarkable just how many seem to be in top scorer list! (not!)

But of course, those male footballers are all repeating ‘there is only 20 of us …’. This is how misinformation spreads. Another FA failure.

Yes, i boggled at that too.

i guess “Jessica” is a former women’s footballer 🤷‍♀️

He admits in that video that he doesn't want to play in men's football because he couldn't compete at the required standard for a men's team. And that he wants the validation of being in a women's team.

There should be space in society for non-conforming men to live happily as themselves - but in men's spaces.

How anyone can listen to that video and not agree that some effects of male puberty are irreversible is beyond me.