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This article is about Sutton Women's football team, where the (male) manager has signed a male goalkeeper, pushing out the previous female goalkeeper. Given the physical advantages that men have, this is clearly both unsafe and unfair.
http://archive.today/IrWyX
Last edited by SwalePie; 02-09-2024 at 11:02 AM. Reason: Fixed off topic prefix
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Can’t wait for some of the replies to this.
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Common sense was cancelled years ago. I suppose total equality will see all womens' sporting records and achievements will be surpassed ?
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Showering after games sounds fun
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I'm strongly in favour of trans inclusion and trans rights, but if women's sport means anything there has to be clear rules about who is in and who is out.
The spectacle of the Olympics boxing with certain celebrities calling women athletes "men" based on the word of a corrupt Russian-led organisation that was itself kicked out of the Olympics was a depressing sight.
On the other hand, we also signed a goalkeeper pushing out our previous goalkeeper. If an eligible player (big if) is better than another player, those are the breaks.
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What was really depressing was the IOC deciding who was eligible to box women based on what their passport says. For safety and fairness, we need to return to a cheek swab and proper testing which will determine whether the contestant has the advantages of male puberty. If the tests on the two boxers commissioned by the IBA were in doubt, the rational course of action, that would have respected all the women in the boxing, was to test all the women.
If women's sport means anything there has to be clear rules about who is in and who is out. I agree on that. But they have to be based on physical reality, because it is physical reality that determines safety and fairness.
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Karotype testing can be a useful screen, but the full test suite is incredibly invasive, in places quite subjective, and has frequently been weaponised in racist ways. There are reasons not to go that direction as well.
Physical reality has an annoying habit of being complicated.
As for trans women in women's football, I think it's a lot better it's a goalkeeper than a central defender. Beyond that hard to know. Blair Hamilton has been playing football quite a while. Why the sudden scandal now?
Then again there were complaints about Lucy Clark herself taking the management job from a cis woman, and that I really think was just outright bigotry.
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There are very few differences of ***ual development (DSDs) [or "congenital reproductive disorders" (CRDs)] which result in a clear male puberty advantage, and there are debates to be had about some conditions such as CAIS (complete androgen insensitivity syndrome), but testing based on a cheek swab is sufficient to determine 46,XY 5-ARD. This appears to be the most common condition causing controversy, and may be the case with the two boxers. This is the DSD that Caster Semenya has, and it is now clear that Semenya should not have been competing against women.
The Sutton issue needs no *** testing, as the goalkeeper is transgender not someone with a DSD. The reason it is "a sudden scandal now" is that women are more able to speak out than even a couple of years ago. I am all for transgender people being treated with a reasonable degree of respect (not being discriminated against in housing, for example) but other people's rights also matter. Women should not lose their rights in order to be nice to a man who thinks he is in some sense a woman.
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Nailed it. If "trans rights" means that trans people are afforded the same dignity and respect as anyone else, I'm all for it. I'm sure most people are. But if it means legally changing their identity so that someone born a man can compete against women or get undressed in female changing rooms, I'm very much against it. First, because women's rights matter. Second, because elevating subjective feelings above objective realities sets a very dangerous president.Originally Posted by applepie2
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The cheek swab detects a second X chromosome. That's it. It can't tell a female XY, it can't tell a male XXY. All it can do is signal a possible need for blood testing.
Sorry, I don't buy it. The gender critical voices have been shouting for a decade.
It's nice you think trans people should get just a reasonable degree of respect - not as much as the rest of us right?
Trans people can change ***. My view is that the default should be to be treated as the *** they are recognised as legally and socially unless there's a very compelling reason not to - safety is certainly one such reason. Even then it should be blanket.
(Neither of us has any idea whether the Sutton goalkeeper is also inter*** by the way.)
Most of the rest feels like a rehash of the gay panic of my youth.
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