This BBC article is racist?

[TheCriticalThinker]

This is one of the most bizarre articles I've ever read and I can't believe it's been published.

A white man said he saw a black man get racially abused in 2014 and he reacted by making it entirely about himself - he was so upset by it that he (the white man who was not the victim of the abuse) claims he had a nervous breakdown, which meant he was too scared to go to a football match for the next 8 years.

(The actual victim, Anthony Gardner, is only mentioned once in the article.)

The white man says what happened to him means that men should play in women's football, so he's now a trans activist.

If I was Anthony Gardner I'd not be happy about this.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cgl5x9kdk8zo

Sounds like a total crock of crap. Pathetic nonsense.

Very odd article

Only 45% of the 800 members are LGBTQ+. I'm reading that as a majority are concerned family members desperately trying to get their loved one out of the house. Or DEI wannabees getting something for the CV.

The start of the article reads as a bunch of non sequiturs.

That was an incredibly messy article.

Starts off with racism at football stadiums before sliding into homophobia, then slips in with no best friend to go to matches with and is so lonely , before tumbling into autism and non-binaries and then finally ends up with transwomen not being able to play football.

My god, I'm exhausted with following his thoughts trying to shoehorn everything in.

It's nice that Chris has a hobby, I suppose?

I wouldn't want to go back to the days when visiting fans at Watford would make up ribald chants at Elton John's expense, but Chris's story of "I heard someone at a match shout racist abuse at a black player, so as a gay man I felt unsafe to go to a match for eight years, so now I support men playing in women's football"...

Do we know that Chris really exists, and this isn't some Titania McGrath type spoof?

@TheCriticalThinker
This is the proof that if there was half a brain in that white man's head
He'd be even more stupider, dangerous and hysterical than he already is 🙄
He had a "nervous breakdown "seeing/hearing" what he saw
But fuck Anthony Gardner who was the one assaulted; no sympathy there, whilst considered a black sponge by this white moron who can easily soak up/ take all the racist abuse going
This story is a sorry mess and somehow I think the trans movement could be quagmired by the surreal absurdity of it all
And us black folk ain't too happy either about the "supposed true sufferer of the piece" I would thus describe as an object you would hold to open a door

That is a strange article.

I think a lot of these people are actually just in need of friends. But I do think it might be better if they weren't all centered around identity.

Not going to a match for 8 years seems like an extreme response.

What a bizarre article. And an almost surreal situation.

actually, I’m not sure it is saying they think TIMs should be playing in women’s football.
The problem was (as with so much genuine transphobia) that the blokes they used to play with didn’t want them any more and that these chaps, being inclusive (presumably mixed sex though it looks to be mostly males) were happy to play with them - well, I’m all for males of whatever sexuality or gender identity playing sport together.
Another player recently came out as trans but "didn't feel they had a space anymore to play football".
"The people they used to play with didn't want to include them anymore because they were trans," Laley said.
"And because our sessions are fully inclusive they're now able to come and play football week in, week out and there's a space for them.

You make your own choices in life, and deal with the consequences.

Yes I agree, it is a very strange article but unless I missed something, I don't think he's saying men should play in women's teams. It's an LGBTQ-etc team which is inclusive of all.

Hearing racist abuse (directed at a player) at a match, and then feeling so afraid that you might also hear homophobic abuse that you are scared to go back, seems excessive.