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Transgender man wins women's 100 yd and 400 yd freestyle races.

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Comments

  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I follow an African American feminist, Suzanne Forbes Vierling (radical feminist - too extreme for me, but I agree with some of her points on blatant unfairness towards women). I can only imagine how she and her followers would view a white man conflating what was done to her ancestors... with her views on biological sex mattering.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    I follow 5 African American feminists and I'm the pope.

    You seem foreign to the concept that black people can be bigoted too? Homophobia is famously rampant among Black Americans for example.

    This doesn't get us any closer to how "the science" you find so contemporary and compelling is not simply phrenology 2.0 for another age and another segregation target.

    Also your race based argument against me being white only reinforces my observations here.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 18,245 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatFromHue


    Have you looked at any of the reports on this?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Yes.

    If Blacks have held the 200m mens record ro 28 years how is that not unfair to whites, if Usain bolt racing as a woman is unfair to women?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,524 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    It's not necessarily racist, there were white slaves too. Slavery didn't just exist in the deep south of the USA.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Chattel Slavery for whites?

    I hit the nail on the head. Already found someone to defend slavery as not racist. Convinced more than ever of the bigotry fueling this antitrans guff.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 18,245 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatFromHue


    I think you've completely forgotten our previous conversation on this.

    Over a range of sports (athletics, swimming, weightlifting) race becomes irrelevant in performance. Biological sex does not.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,194 ✭✭✭Jarhead_Tendler


    A great day for female sport. Let's hope more organisations have the courage to follow.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,524 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    Flo Jo's (Black woman) 200m record of 21.34 is suspected to be strongly wind assisted and Flo Jo possibly doping.

    Paul hessian (pasty white Irish guy) has an Irish record of 20.34.

    Clearly the white guy got closer to Usain Bolt.

    Now what has a greater influence sex or race?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,524 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    So only Black slaves count?

    I said not necessarily racist or do you believe that keeping someone of the same ethnicity as a slave is racist.



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Nothing I said has anything to do with how African Americans can be bigoted - only you brought that up. You, with incredible arrogance, cynicism, shamelessness and tone deafness, used the plight of enslaved African Americans as a comparison with the mere recognition that male athletes are physically stronger than female athletes. Those with male biology are physically stronger than those with female biology. We all know this - it's why those with male bodies can do more damage to those with female bodies in unfortunate cases of domestic violence. It's why those with male bodies can overpower/restrain those with female bodies more easily than the reverse. There are exceptions, I know, but that's exactly it - exceptions. My point was how utterly insulting it would be to an African American person who disagrees with gender ideology trumping biology in sport, to have that view compared with the monstrousness of slavery. There was nothing in what I said that indicates a lack of awareness that African Americans can be bigoted.

    It doesn't matter what gender each man or woman identifies with - they play sports with their bodies, not their genders. That's all it is. There's no hatred of anyone - it's something that's just a fact. A fact you accepted until whenever you felt you had to jump on this bandwagon of viewing biology is bigoted. You literally don't have an argument against it, because there is no argument against "Men are physically stronger than women". So no need for quote marks around science. But saying it's incorrect or bigotry or phrenology to state that male bodies are stronger than female bodies... that's taking enslavement to ideology to a crazy level. And anyone who genuinely cares about fairness for women would have no problem seeing this.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,177 ✭✭✭Fandymo




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,524 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    Oh wait it's chattel slavery you meant.

    You need to specify or you look silly when clearly there were white people forced into unpaid labour aka slavery.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    What do I care which influence is greater, good enough for me that you acknowledge both are influences, and a source of bigotries.

    Really the wrong hill to die on trying to equivocate indentured slavery to chattel slavery though, speaking of "which is greater." Both are terrible, but trying to "all slaves matter" the argument is a tad too ironic.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    That's not science that's a meme and an invitation to clickbait.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    That person is doubling down on their pretence that the reason for sports being segregated by biological sex is due to bigotry. When it's (obviously, as we all know) due to differences in the male body and the female body…


    More accurately, it’s something that’s claimed anyway, as the reason for sports being segregated. The reason for segregation in sports, from a historical perspective, is that the men who organised the sports, didn’t want women participating. It wasn’t unusual at the time that women were regarded as being inferior to men and were only suited to making and minding babies and children - confined to their domestic domain, excluded from public life, never mind getting any notions of participation in sports, because anything women did that wasn’t expected of them, was regarded as unladylike and a threat to the natural social order which dictated that a small group of men were superior to all beneath them.

    They didn’t just think this of women, they thought it of whole groups of people in society based upon their characteristics and social standing. They maintained their dominant social standing by ensuring that nobody could ever be in a position to threaten their dominant position. Even they knew then that were everyone to be regarded as being of equal value, it would mean they could no longer regard themselves as superior to everyone else beneath them. They justified the maintaining of the social order under the premise that it was divinely ordained, and when they couldn’t argue it was divinely ordained any more, they had to come up with all sorts of “scientific evidence” to support their bigoted beliefs, not just about themselves, but about the people they regarded themselves as superior to.

    Ensuring women couldn’t participate in sports had nothing to do with differences in male and female bodies; it had, and still has, everything to do with claiming that men are superior to women, and in the interests of being “fair”, women are relegated to participating in sports separately from men. The fact that women also enjoy far less reward for their participation is somehow seen as “fair” too, and excluding people who are transgender from participating in sports is just more of the same thing as has been evidenced throughout human history - their exclusion isn’t based upon scientific evidence. It can’t be, because there simply aren’t enough numbers of people who are transgender participating in sports in order to determine anything.

    The vast majority of those participants who are transgender, like most participants in any sports, have never won, and will never win anything. They participate because of their passion for the sport and for the idea at least, that they might win. There are other factors of course such as the opportunities offered to those participating in sports and the sense of community that participating in sports gives it’s participants.

    For some people, sports are all about winning, but for other people they are motivated by other reasons. Assuming it’s obvious that all participants in sports think the same way as each other is what would be preposterous, just as preposterous as suggesting that Government should have called off the marriage equality referendum because Paddy Manning objected to it on the grounds that marriage is a legal institution with a purpose: Children -

    https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-20329976.html


    He clearly didn’t think that one through, any more than anyone who would imagine all people on the basis of their characteristics they have in common should, or would, think the same way.

    I’m certainly not a feminist either, no interest in that particular political or social ideology, but that whole crock of suggesting that anyone who argues in favour of treating people fairly without discrimination as to their sex, gender or sexual orientation must be a this, that or the other? That’s next levels of no true Scotsman fallacious nonsense. It sure as hell isn’t based upon any legitimate scientific reasoning or any credible scientific evidence whatsoever. It’s a purely political stance.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    "It sure as hell isn’t based upon any legitimate scientific reasoning or any credible scientific evidence whatsoever. It’s a purely political stance" - and the very same can be said about some on this thread.

    Whatever about its origins, sex segregated spaces and sports are for the benefit of adult female humans. I'm an adult female human - this is about fairness for those from the same group. It has nothing to do with hating trans people are being anti trans - neither applies to me. That's a deliberate misrepresentation of us women. Actual anti trans people are far less likely to be feminist. They tend towards being on the right and are anti abortion, anti same-sex marriage, anti drag entertainment. I am nothing like that - I have nothing to do with people like that. I just don't want women in sport to lose out because of someone having a biological advantage due to not having female biology. This is twisted into hatred and bigotry and I'm utterly disgusted by so called liberals responsible for this vileness. Not to mention the horrifically violent and sexually obscene language used by extremist TRAs about women like me. Tweets laughing at feminists becoming ill. It's fecking evil, and I'm sick of it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,524 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    What do I care what you ommited when you said slavery? You called me bigoted and transphobic for calling out your omission.

    I didn't say chattel slavery and indentured slavery are the same I said both are slavery and slavery in all forms is wrong. However you are so bigoted you only see chattel slavery as slavery unless indentured slavery is pointed out to you because it was black people.

    A better Irish or other white male runner might get closer to Bolt. No woman has managed Flo Jo's time in 30 years even though training shoe's etc have improved.

    You don't care that sex is a greater difference than race because it doesn't suit your agenda. Take other sports and you might find white people dominate and others like where there is no difference. Now show me the equivalent in sex segregated sports.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    One person who whatabouted in relation to slavery means you hit the nail on the head and it convinces you more than ever of bigotry fuelling "antitrans guff"? No it doesn't. You're not even trying to hide your dishonesty.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    You don't care that sex is a greater difference than race because it doesn't suit your agenda.

    And you seem to be uncomfortable to the fact that there are still race differences evidenced, which is very incongruent with your own agenda.

    My agenda is what, inclusivity? History has shown us how evergreen this hill is.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    You're not my psychologist and you're not a psychic?



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Well you do that all the time.

    No, because you couldn't genuinely think that one person whatabouting in relation to slavery means that people here are just anti trans bigots. The two don't even have anything to do with each other.

    If inclusivity means someone else losing out (e.g. women in sport against Lia Thomas and Laurel Hubbard) how is it inclusivity?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,524 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    No not uncomfortable with it, quite the opposite. To be honest I don't care about race in sport or anything else in life. If you didn't bring it up I wouldn't.

    It's not incongruent either, across the board in almost any sport excluding equestrian and any other sport not segregated by sex men out perform women. You can't say that about race.

    You can have inclusivity or fairness but not both. I believe in fairness. And you in inclusivity? or some minority you can be outraged for.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 676 ✭✭✭mjsc1970




  • Registered Users Posts: 13 end_101


    Let's see them do this in China or any other non-white country. They'd never tolerate it, because the agenda is clearly in place to disrupt and destroy women's athletics (biological females born with a reproductive system, i.e, a vagina - I know, it's come to this.). The absurdity of the post-modern left to over-turn and invert all proper natural law and order, will only lead to the death of the Western countries while others on the brink of world power like China and the rest of Asia will remain strong and sweep in to pick up the pieces. Essentially it all serves their agenda like so many other heinous ills of our society that have been given a huge unpopular push by our compromised governments in the last few decades.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 18,245 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatFromHue


    In sprinting there are some races who do better than others.

    Over all sports there is no one race which does better than others. Look at the top finishers in the Decathlon for example, that's very mixed race.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    I’ve just pointed out that the intent of sex segregated spaces were never for the benefit of women*, they were actually to women’s detriment, and that’s why society finds itself in a position where women are still regarded as being inferior to men, and treated as such in terms of both the spaces they are relegated to, and the fact that in most sports they don’t get the same recognition as the men’s game, and they certainly don’t get the same rewards in terms of pay and conditions.

    I know for you it has nothing to do with hating people who are transgender or anything else, but the effects of policies which ensure exclusion are based upon prejudice and, dare I say it - bigotry. I don’t mean that to be inflammatory towards you, I’m referring to the people who seek to introduce policies which subject other people to unfair treatment on the basis of their beliefs about that group of people. It’s a bit like your suggesting that anti-trans people are far less likely to be feminist. I’m guessing you mean they’re less likely to be a feminist by your standards of what it means to be a feminist. You hardly need it pointing out that women who call themselves liberal feminists have all sorts of beliefs that they associate with their ideas of what it means to be a liberal feminist, quite different from your own beliefs. As someone who does hold traditional, conservative right-leaning values, I know exactly what you mean when you say you’re nothing like them. It’s easy to differentiate between someone who holds legitimate opinions in defence of their interests, and someone who’s only interest is in breaking people’s balls, just for the hell of it, who couldn’t even spell the word principles without the aid of a dictionary.

    I don’t want women to lose out in sports, in any domain in fact, either. But what’s obvious is we have different ideas of what we mean by that too - I want to see women being given equal opportunities as men have, and given equal recognition, respect and rewards for their achievements. That doesn’t have to come at the expense of men, any more than men participating in what are traditionally women’s competitions, comes at the expense of women. We can’t do anything about biology, but certainly we can do plenty about sports, the same as we did in other domains like employment, education, healthcare and housing. Still a long ways to go in each of those domains too, but equality for every person in those domains didn’t mean anyone actually lost out on anything, it simply meant that everyone was given the same opportunities to participate on an equal footing for the same prize. That’s what fair means, as opposed to the idea that it would be unfair to someone who has a vested interest in maintaining things as they are, to treat everyone as being of equal status. Women are undoubtedly and without question going to continue to be the losers in that game.


    *I know you refer to yourself as an adult human female, but I refuse to use that sort of terminology as I associate it with incel types who refer to women as ‘females’ and all the rest of it. I understand the intent of it, and it’s being used in a different context and all, but as far as I see it, using that sort of terminology like adult human females and biological females and female bodies and all the rest of it, just… no thanks. In any case, anyone can apply that language to themselves, and there’s nothing to prohibit anyone from doing so… you probably understand where I’m going with that without me needing to explicitly say it, but it would result in the same terminology you wish to use to distinguish yourself from others, simply being co-opted and used against you in the same way as TERF was originally intended to be a benign designation, and we actually do all know how that turned out - not in women’s favour, same as the “real” woman stuff that has gotten legs on social media, referring to themselves of course, as though other women are not women because they don’t share characteristics in common with the person making the claim. I just use the word women when I’m referring to women, I’ve never met anyone yet who didn’t understand who I was referring to. I’d be loathe to refer to anyone as adult human female or adult human male. It’s not just cumbersome, but I imagine they’d look at me as though I must be one of those incel types they’ve heard about online.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I say adult female human though, because yes, I know "female" as a noun is used as a pejorative by woman haters. I would prefer to use "women" but the gas-lighters have trained themselves, through extensive cognitive dissonance, to ensure to twist the word into meaning whatever a person feels like.

    Biology mattering in sport isn't predicated on bigotry though - just biology.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,714 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    It's funny that he brings up race in sport as if it's an argument against it when it really isn't.

    Elite middle and long distance running has been absolutely dominated for years by the Ethiopians and Kenyans who seemingly have a natural gift for this kind of activity.

    Given that a small natural advantage can lead to dominance in a sport, what do we think will happen when trans women enter women's sport? Those who come with the retained biological advantage of having gone through male puberty will absolutely walk it even if they are few in number.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    I don’t think anyone has ever argued that biology doesn’t matter though, it’s the discrimination based upon gender or sex that they take issue with and refer to as bigotry, not biology. That being said, I wouldn’t refer to anyone as bigoted because I know well it’s inflammatory.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    “It's funny that he brings up race in sport as if it's an argument against it when it really isn't. Elite middle and long distance running has been absolutely dominated for years by the Ethiopians and Kenyans who seemingly have a natural gift for this kind of activity.”

    are you suggesting we segregate the Ethiopians and Kenyans? What



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    They as good as do, by arguing that gender (intangible) trumps biological sex. George Takei referred to it as "so-called 'biological sex'". 🙄

    And yet, he's a same-SEX attracted man. Biological sex matters, and can't be just spirited away by a feeling.

    Thanks for your civil posts by the way. Because usually people arguing what you argue are never ever civil.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,714 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    That's not what I'm saying, what I'm saying is that when one group has an advantage, the elite level tends towards those that hold that advantage. If you look at distance running where one group hold dominance, you can ask yourself whether that has been good for the sport? At least in that instance you have regional competitions that give others a realistic aim.

    The retained advantage of having gone through male puberty puts biological women at a disadvantage. What you will then see is the elite level filling with transwomen to the exclusion of biological women - because they can't compete or is too dangerous. At that point you may as well wonder why segregate sport at all since it is biological men that are excelling at both.

    And you think this is inclusive?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,102 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    Personally, if this becomes a thing I can see female athletes protesting, disrupting and boycotting events… id fully support them.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,045 ✭✭✭✭astrofool


    The irony is that if all segregation was dropped, the numbers of trans athletes would also be 0 effectively (along with 0 female athletes at events such as the Olympics, World championships etc., bar mixed team events).

    On the other hand, without weight segregation, we wouldn't have Conor McGregor anymore, so every cloud.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    There’s no evidence whatsoever for that presumption though. The rules are what limits anyone’s participating in sports, not their anatomy. Well, the rules and being told they don’t belong in the sport, and if you want an example of irony, being subjected to all manner of horrific abuse -

    https://amp.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2021/jul/30/murky-elite-sport-women-tokyo-games-abuse-sexualisation

    https://amp.dw.com/en/indias-female-athletes-contend-with-sexual-harassment-in-sports/a-62110783

    https://www.sportanddev.org/en/article/news/sexual-harassment-sport


    Harassment which scores of women involved in sports receive on a daily basis, even easier for anyone who is of a mind to do so in the online virtual space, who bear no consequences for their actions, egged on by their supporters. It’s an attempt to put people off something they want to do.

    If you want another example of irony - it only makes people more determined that they won’t be shoved out of the sport, and they have their supporters too behind them, both women and men alike who don’t share your perspective.

    Erica Sullivan put it well -

    Many of those who oppose transgender athletes like Lia being able to participate in sports claim to be "protecting women's sports." As a woman in sports, I can tell you that I know what the real threats to women's sports are: sexual abuse and harassment, unequal pay and resources and a lack of women in leadership. Transgender girls and women are nowhere on this list. Women's sports are stronger when all women—including trans women—are protected from discrimination, and free to be their true selves.

    https://www.newsweek.com/why-im-proud-support-trans-athletes-like-lia-thomas-opinion-1689192?amp=1

    We could still have Conor McGregor, and we could have Erica Sullivan.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,290 ✭✭✭BruteStock



    This post ^ is the last stand of someone whose totally given up on a fair and honest debate.

    Equating people who just want women to compete against women to sexual predators now? Sick!

    Lets be clear the motivations of sexual predators and not frame it like they just want to hold them back from reaching their goals( because that's your smear for people who oppose men on the girls team) .. No. they derived pleasure from molesting girls. That's all there is to it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,775 ✭✭✭DeadHand


    An observation.

    Most of the champions of male bodied athletes being allowed to compete with women have a thing in common: they know nothing about sport.

    They never played it to any serious level. They don't watch it. They weren't interested in it until it was made into a cultural battlefield. They will not be interested in it when the battle moves on.

    People who have participated significantly in sport understand the physical advantages males possess over females in that realm.

    Perhaps more importantly, they understand the dispiriting effect of unfair competition.

    Hence, you see few genuine athletes, current or former, come out in support of the participation of trans athletes in women's sport.

    An experiment, for those inclined. Take the few users on this thread insisting that male bodied athletes should be allowed to compete with females. Tally up how many posts they have between them in any of the many excellent sports fora available on these boards. Few, if any, I predict.

    These people spend more time on twitter than they ever spent on any sports ground. This accounts for the absurdity of their arguments.

    Thankfully, the relevant organisations, who it can be assumed are peopled by those who know and love sport, seem to be taking the path of common sense over ideological derangement in this particular. This will represent a crucial defeat for progressivist extremism.

    Women and women's sport will be protected.

    As for the extremists, they will move on from sport to invade another world about which they know nothing, to tell the poor souls already there what they have been doing wrong, what they must do differently, and attempt to ruin it for all involved.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    Equating people who just want women to compete against women to sexual predators now? Sick!


    Except nowhere in my post did I do that.

    The point was being made that it was an inevitability that if men were permitted to participate in women’s sports, there would be no women in the top tiers of the sport.

    Not only is there no evidence for this argument, but it overlooks a whole multitude of other factors which influence anyones participation in sports, ie - without even going near the top tiers, attempts are made to force women out of sports. There are numerous issues within women’s sports already which inhibit their participation, at every level, before they even make it to the top tiers where they are subject to abuse.

    The issue of men wishing to participate in women’s sports is quite literally being blown out of all proportion, in proportion to the issues which women actually face in sports which has a far greater effect on inhibiting their participation.

    There was no smearing of anyone whatsoever, regardless of their position, much as you might like to portray what I said that way, and then try and suggest it was a last gasp attempt having given up on fair and honest debate. You’re obviously working off a different understanding of fair and honest than I am by the way you interpreted what I said, but I’ll leave what I said where it stands, and maybe you could address the issues raised rather than dismissing them out of hand as if anyone has to actually agree with you that that’s all there is to it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    An observation based upon your own prejudices, that confirms your own prejudices?

    I for one, am shocked at this totally objective observation… revelation, even.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,177 ✭✭✭Fandymo




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,775 ✭✭✭DeadHand


    @One eyed Jack

    A contribution briefer than your usual walls of boring sophistry, though no less empty.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,524 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    To be fair no women left in top level sport is an extreme which would firstly depend on enough good but not exceptional male athletes transitioning and secondly the sport. You will never see enough good athletes transitioning for no women left (I think).

    I could compete as a man against good female athletes and get well beaten but I'm not a good athlete, if I was I would likely win. The male puberty advantage comes into play where you are comparing athletes of a similar level within their respective sex categories. The disadvantage of transitioning is less than the male female disadvantage.

    Also the sport will impact it, some sports will have a greater male advantage. More skills based sports will be affected to a lesser degree though not unaffected.

    What is true is that transgender women would be over represented compared to the general playing population at every level except maybe local club level where there will be a lot of clubs with no transgender athletes. That will be unfair on every woman displaced because of transgender women.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    Yet another astute observation based upon your own prejudices 👍

    By that standard, I can’t imagine what you make of the walls of boring sophistry which make up the rules of participation in any particular sport. I’ve no doubt you’ve read them all, in spite of any evidence of ever having done so. Naturally enough, when they express a point of view which you share, their output is riveting and they’re making great and honest contributions and they’re as invested and interested in any sport as you are!

    It’s really not incredible how that works.



  • Site Banned Posts: 12,341 ✭✭✭✭Faugheen


    Funny this, because from what I've seen the very people celebrating the IRFU's decision are those who don't give a f*ck about women's sport until the trans issue is raised.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I don't know how people can always tell if someone on either side of the debate is interested or not interested in sports.



  • Registered Users Posts: 807 ✭✭✭greyday


    How would you know this?

    Over 17 million people watched the English women's soccer team win the Euros, a lot of male golf enthusiasts log on to LPGA tour after PGA tour on weekends to see how Leona and Stefanie have done, plenty of people interested in Athletics have followed Sara Healy since her youth to see how far she can go, a huge number of people follow Katie Taylor, could it be that you like to make unsubstantiated claims to suit your own biases?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    The disadvantage of transitioning is less than the male female disadvantage.

    I don’t know what criteria you’re using to make that comparison in order to come to the conclusion you have, but it’s clearly not true in the cases of athletes who we know have transitioned, and been subjected to vilification on an international scale. We also know it’s not true of athletes who have refused to undergo any form of attempts to coerce them to adjust their natural physiology which it is claimed bestows upon them an unfair advantage in the events in which they wish to compete in, and they too have received similar vilification on an international scale, with the intent to either have them conform, or push them out of the sport with the intended effect that it sends a message to anyone who might get any notions.

    The sports won’t impact anything; the way any sport is organised is what has a greater impact on whether or not people are attracted to the sport, for any infinite number of personal reasons. It could well be for the fame and glory of international recognition, or it could be because they feel like they belong in the sport among people who they identify with, or it could be that sport offers them opportunities they wouldn’t have in other domains such as academia. Caitlyn Jenner, as an example, saw sports as an avenue to opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise have been available to them as a consequence of being dyslexic, and that’s what drove them to be successful, which, as we now know, success came with it’s own personal pitfallls -

    Talking about the impact that struggling with dyslexia and gender dysphoria had on her sporting career, Jenner said: “Being gender dysphoric and dyslexic - that’s what made me down the line. When I got into sports, it became more important for me to succeed at sports and work hard at sports because of all these issues.”

    https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/other-sport/athletics/caitlyn-jenner-opens-up-effect-20829408.amp


    There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that boys or men would be over-represented at any level in women’s sports, or that they would be denying girls and women any place in sports. Even in the case of Lia Thomas where an athlete who didn’t qualify for the national competitions held Lia Thomas personally responsible for her failing to qualify, by suggesting that had Lia Thomas been excluded from participating, she would have qualified (the argument being that Lia Thomas took her place), this argument ignores the fact that the same athlete was eligible to qualify for her national team, and qualify and participate and represent her nation at the Olympics -

    Reka Gyorgy, who competed at the 2016 Olympics for Hungary and now swims for Virginia Tech, wrote a letter to the NCAA, objecting to Thomas’s participation. 

    “This is my last college meet ever and I feel frustrated. It feels like that final spot was taken away from me because of the NCAA’s decision … I know you could say I had the opportunity to swim faster and make the top 16, but this situation makes it a bit different and I can’t help but be angry or sad. It hurts me, my team and other women in the pool,” she wrote.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2022/mar/21/lia-thomas-victory-at-ncaa-swimming-finals-sparks-fierce-debate-over-trans-athletes


    Similar arguments were made in other domains that the equal participation of one group would be to the detriment of the dominant group, such as the idea of giving women the opportunities to participate as equals in the labour market would be to the detriment of men. History has shown that prediction to have been untrue, not that there was ever any truth to it in the first place as it was simply based upon fearmongering and the way things were then. They have since evolved and changed and it has been of greater benefit to everyone in society, and still there is nobody who is forced into anything as the argument is being portrayed here by way of suggesting that any woman would be forced into an unfair position such as having to fight Conor McGregor or anyone like him. There are plenty of men who wouldn’t lower themselves to McGregors level either, so I’m not sure why the argument exists that women would be forced to do so.



  • Registered Users Posts: 807 ✭✭✭greyday


    Your posts achieve nothing but to strengthen peoples opinions that fairness is the last thing to come into your mind when it comes to trans people in sports or womens spaces.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,394 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    I’m guessing you’re not familiar with the concept of respectability politics, though you practice it very well it has to be said.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respectability_politics

    Imagine if I actually cared what people who are completely unknown to me thought of me personally, I might even shut up 😂



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