Poor Semenya

[RumNotRun]

https://news.sky.com/story/if-women-must-stop-competing-so-be-it-semenyas-rallying-cry-over-olympics-transgender-athlete-ban-13525463

He's fighting for women's dignity apparently. The article says nothing about the children he's fathered, whilst being a woman of course.

I think it only feels like that to people on mumsnet because it’s such an echo chamber

I’m simply arguing I can see why CS wants to carry on seeing herself as a women at the same time as not being allowed to compete in women’s events and people are aghast like I’m saying the earth is flat

I'm not outraged with people who think they can see why CS wants to continue being called she. I just think they're fools who can't see that CS was recruited specifically because he was a man with a DSD and only says he's a woman because that makes him a lot of money.

It is though.

Your position is "Other than sports, CS should be treated as a woman because CS regardless of CS's actual sex, "Woman" is what CS believes CS is so it would be cruel to say otherwise"

Whether CS uses the T-word or not, that is the exact argument made for trans identifying men's right to appropriate and redefine womanhood to suit their emotional needs.

And my argument to both issues is also exactly the same.

Female people exist.

The word woman means something specific, and it's us.

Women only laws, rights, spaces and opportunities, including women's sports, exist because of the real world needs and capabilities of women, needs and capabilities we have because we are female.

To open any of this up to men because of how they feel is to change the basis of womanhood for all of us.

It changes womanhood from a recognition of the reality of our bodies into an assumption about our minds and how we feel about ourselves.

It changes the basis on which it's justifiable that we have women-only spaces and rights and protections and opportunities from recognition that our sex brings risks, challenges and injustices that it is fair and humane to mitigate, to a bundle of incoherent demands that basically boil down to "because it says Women on the door".

It turns our history from the story of the female half of humanity into the story of people who performed certain cultural stereotypes and through that derived identity and status, leaving the "why" of sexism and of misogynist oppression unexamined.

Accepting men (male people) as women for any reason, trans or DSD, is an act of debasement and rejection of women as complete humans in our own right who are physically different to male but absolutely equal in our human value and completeness.

But do you see CS as a woman, Uglydumpling?

If not, why do you say she/her/herself?

If so, why shouldn’t he compete in women’s events?

He can see himself however he wants. But society - a fair society that truly values women as much as men - should not play along and treat him as a woman because women matter too, and you can't accept a man as "a woman" without reducing and trivialising what being a woman is.

I can think of 2,500,000 reasons why Semenya needs to keep the grift going.

You know we talk to people outside of Mumsnet right?

The only reason CS continues to claim he's a woman is that is how he earns his money these days.

And yes, you are basically doing an equivalent of stating the world is flat despite all evidence to the contrary.

And no one is aghast, just so tried of the lies around athletes with DSDs.

I’m not I’m just not being antagonistic and insisting everyone must call her him

But no examples of actual panic?

.

You can be tired and aghast and still be sympathetic to CS position - I’m also outraged at the fact that CS was allowed to compete with women

you must know the general view on Mumsnet then

Why do you call him “her” though, on a thread he is not reading? Whose feelings are you protecting?

😂😂

My sympathy ran out a long time ago.

Still waiting for the actual panic@Uglydumpling - shall we just agree that was simply a bit of hyperbole on your part?

Because that’s what they want to be known as and how they are described generally - it doesn’t worry me - I haven’t got anything to protect - I’m not threatened by CS wanting to continue to see themselves as female as that’s how they lived their life

Actual panic!

Can someone turn me over please

It’s up to you

I know how it comes across to me

I'm going to call myself UglyDumpling because I feel like that's the right name for me.

I feel like it's the right name for me because I'm stubborn, badly informed and a little bit sexist, and that's what having an UglyDumpling identity means, at least to me.

Can I expect you to honour my preference? Or at least, expect that you will not complain when those who do agree call me UglyDumpling? Or will you be antagonistic to the people who want to support my choice?

No it’s up to you what you do

But he doesn't see himself as female. He may call himself a woman to keep the money coming in, but he sees himself as male. It shines through in every interview he does.

So Uglydumpling is feeling threatened, panicky and aghast. Oh dear.

That's a lot of big feelings to have when faced with reality and science all laid out in increasingly easily understandable ways by incredibly patient women, isn't it?

Edited for the correct UN

"Threatened" is an odd word.

It's not the "threat" of redefining womanhood as a state of mind that is the problem, it is the deep sexism and injustice of undefining the female half of humanity.

I mean, it is if you think female people matter.

Hyperbole it is.

I can see why it suited you to throw that out there - it's all part of your denial of facts.

I’m not threatened by it either. I just know it’s not true. As do you, apparently, so your calling him “she” is a bit baffling.