Trapping the unwary

[Pale Rider]

Transgender Athletes

Oh good, this again. A complicated mess of thorny issues, with no answers and a discussion thread in which absolutists of all stripes will just talk over each other without being willing to take in information contrary to their firmly-held beliefs. A thread in which no-ones minds will be changed. Why bother?

It's not that complicated unless one is bending over backwards to centre the feelings of males. Magdalen Berns had big hearted liberals in mind when she bemoaned the state of capture in one of her videos.



Every time I see this topic on CC I think "Just go to the Mumsnet feminism chat board." It's the right tool for the job: chock full of every argument you can think of. (Also fiercely moderated, so CCers should feel right at home.) But of course, the more places these conversations are going on the better. AuroraSaab, who always does the heavy lifting on these threads, has apparently swallowed the Mumsnet board whole. If that "Team" thing wasn't so grating on the ear (with the Olympics there's currently no escape from "Team GB"), I suppose I'd have to call myself Team AuroraSaab.

Her sparring partner is usually monkers, who despite being able to put together a decent post is simply outclassed. Hanging out in Fallon Fox’s corner and offering a dubious Guardian link about the Wi Spa didn’t help. Cue flounce:

I will bow out now - there are far bigger issues facing humanity than a very few alleged injustices in sport.

Two posts later, cue unflounce:

Please find something more useful to do than badgering me with your nonsense. I'd already made clear I'm not engaging further.

Whatever you do, never announce that you’re leaving the discussion. This cannot be stressed enough. If you want to go, just go.

Nice to see theclaud pop in to any thread, whether or not I agree with her. Ian H too.

Testosterone levels, size, weight, musculature, etc., all vary widely within cis male & female populations.

For anyone minded to use 'cis', give this a read. Searching "a circular mess of inconsistent gibberish" should help you find the relevant section.

To a decisive extent 'money' will drive the outcome of this issue; rather than philosophical ethics.

Yep.

. . .

Samoa has a name for boys who prefer “feminine” clothing, games and roles: “fa’afafine”, meaning “in the manner of a woman”. Allotted traditionally female crafts and household duties, this “third gender” was revered for combining nurture with physical strength. In modern Samoa, there’s no stigma if your son is a fa’afafine: they are warmly accepted, even celebrated.

A fa’afafine, Jaiyah Saelua, was the first transgender footballer to play in a World Cup qualifying game. She was centre back for the American Samoan national team: the men’s team. Samoans understand that changing gender does not affect a person’s immutable biological sex.

Samoa enjoys few sporting glories but it excels at weightlifting. Feagaiga Stowers, just 20, a child sexual abuse survivor who started lifting while living in a domestic violence shelter, won gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. She looked a cert for the 2019 Pacific Games too, but instead the podium was topped by 41-year-old trans woman Laurel Hubbard. Bumped to second place, Stowers and team mate Iuniarra Sipaia, who took bronze, hung their heads in dismay.

Back in Samoa, the response was more baffled than furious. The prime minister asked how it could be fair that this New Zealand fa’afafine was competing against women. The question will echo across the world on Monday when Hubbard competes in the Olympic women’s 87kg-plus weightlifting. Stowers and team mates aren’t even there. Covid risk is the official reason. But given that all other qualifying Samoans are in Tokyo, there’s speculation the female lifters are protesting at the injustice of their event.

Reviewing Helen Joyce’s recent book Trans, my colleague David Aaronovitch remarked that her tone was too angry. But when I think about Stowers battling such odds, or Roviel Detenamo, only 18, a lifter from even poorer Nauru, denied her first Olympics because Hubbard took her qualifying slot, I’m filled with white-hot rage. What else are women supposed to feel? Pioneer athletes fought for decades to win official recognition for our sports. Women’s weightlifting wasn’t even an Olympic event until 2000. Now, as our hard-won competitions are opened up, our places, scholarships and medals claimed by male-born competitors with physical advantages clear to any child, must we applaud politely this “progress”?

[Pale Rider]

What opportunity is there for discussion when you fill the pages with absolutism?

Person A has a view, in this case explained with thousands of words and backed up with citations where possible. Person B doesn't like that view, denigrating it as "absolutism". I'm not sure person B knows how having a firmly held opinion and expressing it works.

Person A was up to her usual tidy demolition job.

your response is just another remix of 'There isn't a problem, and anyway it doesn't matter, and anyway just be kind and let people have what they want'. There is a problem, it does matter, and your demand for kindness comes at the expense of others

…All you make me do is want to put an arm around each one of them"

Someone needs an arm around them, with a gentle escort out of the thread.

What a mess, with even worse messes to follow. You're better than this monkers! At least I thought you were. Maybe it's the case that I read a couple of good posts of yours a while ago and my opinion of you has been cruising along on that ever since.

Do you want to get the thread locked?

Perhaps you are hoping to disrupt it enough that the mods will close the thread.

Looks like I wasn't the only one wondering.

The Mumsnet board has an entire series (do a search on Bunbury) devoted to community disruptors whose goal is to get threads disappeared and conversation shut down. This looks like it’s been taken from the same playbook.

Step away from the thread

I take it back. The more you say, the more we see.

[Pale Rider]

If I enter the competition I accept the rules. If I don't like the rules I don't compete. If I can't face not winning, I don't compete.

Message received. Female athletes should accept they'll be competing with males or retire.

Probably I'm the one who should step away from the thread. At this point I'm reading it to see how much it can still wind me up, self-winding not being an uncommon phenomenon.

My fellow lurkers, if this subject truly interests you and you want to be better prepared for the many discussions to come, head over to you-know-where for a master class. The regulars have had their arguments honed by countless encounters with those wishing to school them.

par exemple

It’s certainly not been my experience that transallies get hounded out. Personally, I welcome the input, because I want to understand their position. I want for it to make sense. I want people to be able to voice their opinions. I rarely report

.

The issue is that the most prominent critics of the feminist board who show up sooner or later get frustrated and start getting abusive, or find themselves otherwise unable to stick to the rules around language, because they feel they absolutely must call users “cis” or “t*rf”, or call us Nazis.



I understand that it can be overwhelming to come to a place where your point of view is in the minority, and to suddenly come up against posters who will relentlessly analyse what you’re saying, and look for evidence and justifications, and internal coherence, which probably hasn’t happened before. I see transallies get a lot of latitude, probably because users want to have the conversation and don’t report much, so the posts don’t get flagged for removal in nearly the proportion that GC users posts do.



It seems to me that the problem isn’t the lack of moderation, it’s the presence of GC voices at all that’s the issue. There isn’t anything that MN can do to evade the ccusations of transphobia, because the people monitoring the feminism board don’t participate in the rest of the site, have no interest in it, and would be happy to have the whole place taken down, losing a great source of support for women, in the quest to shut down women’s voices.

[close]

This is not to take anything away from AuroraSaab and now Unkraut, who do a great job.

Here's one example of your false facts - you claim that trans people all say that they have changed sex when that is impossible. Trans people do not say they have changed biological sex; it is fallacious, mendacious and a false argument...

I do not accept that trans women are men, nor does international law, European law, domestic law, or in the case of Hubbard at least the governing body of that sport.

If it is impossible for anyone to change sex, then it must follow that 'trans women' are still men, at the very least biologically, and therefore in the context of this thread should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. This cannot be changed (as it were) by a legal fiction declaring a man who self-identifies as a woman is a woman (or vice versa).

You rightly say that Hubbard is just one example, but is one example of a threat that could destroy the whole of women's sports. Toleration is a actually neutral word, although usually considered a moral good ('we want a tolerant society'). In this instance it is negative, the toleration of something harmful to the sporting career of others.

Monkers, it's typical for trans rights activists to have 'educator' in their bio, but have you had a genuine career in education? With the logic and tantrums you've treated us to, I struggle to think of any discipline I'd want you teaching. Let's hope it's not science.

"Inclusivity" has been turned into a meaningless mantra, to join the others. Please stop.

Here's my first paper bag award, symbolising an inability to argue your way out of one:



It's OK, we're not all debating society material. But you're blinkered

It is pertinent that British Cycling cuts ties with [Fair Play for Women] and instead collaborates exclusively with trans-led organisations.

as I was saying, blinkered by an ideology that doesn't stand up to any real scrutiny, and is hurting far more than it's helping.

(Yes, think of the children. Also the chilling affects on free speech, the rampant misogyny, the madness of allowing men into women's rape shelters and prisons, etc., etc.)

So, nothing new from me. I'd give Edwardoka credit for throwing his hands up 500 posts ago if he'd stop twisting them with worry and apply the brainpower he surely has.

. . .

I never felt this sour working as Agony Guy. There must be something in the CycleChat water.

[Pale Rider]

AuroraSaab and I will never reach agreement. I am not an active political campaigner for trans lives... On the other hand, the other person is a seasoned campaigner against trans people with a history of hijacking threads as it suits her.

I am not an activist - like the majority here I'm a cyclist - only I'm prevented from doing so on occasions because I have to waste time debunking your falsehoods.

An activists is someone looking to change things. I haven't argued to change. Instead I have to unpick your gish-gallop on here. You make no attempt to take a balanced view but motor on post after post of supposed evidence and 'legitimate concerns'.

You are advocating change,* and the change you seek is further marginalisation of an already marginalised group. As the one seeking change, you are the campaigner. I just resist you…

Did I mention the planet's overheating and our species faces extinction?

* sic: change has been happening largely by stealth, followed by retroactive debate fraught with threats and loss of livelihood to those who have the temerity to resist. AuroraSaab is actually the reactionary here. See Chesterton's fence.

"She knows what she’s talking about. I don’t. She cares passionately about women’s rights. I don’t. I use every available opportunity to smear her and minimize her concerns (preferably with an outsized comparison which cements my credentials as an ultimate caring person). Because that’s just the way I roll."




the objective world just pushes back

The logical implications of the passing of the US Equality Act would therefore constitute nothing less than the legal canonization of a new priest class of magical persons who speak all of reality into existence and a subordinate class of everyday citizens held hostage by state compulsion to be unwilling stage-actors in their never-ending, incoherent game of pretend. What is at stake here is therefore not simply one of politeness and etiquette having to do with proper names. Rather, what is fundamentally at stake are the very reasons we ought to regard claims about reality as being true or false at all.

...this pernicious and deeply wrong-headed ideology will not suddenly stop on its own if people remain silent and complicit. This can only be achieved if people find the courage to speak out publicly, to keep speaking, and to remember, above all, that they are not alone.

[Pale Rider]

@Edwardoka (like my pointless tagging here?), you raised a smile,

Give me moderator powers, you cowards

a welcome chaser to the <sigh> that escaped after watching you more or less declare yourself for Team monkers. Your earlier post declaring this is

just another vector for attacking Those People Over There

showed a lack of critical thinking skills I overlooked when crediting you with brainpower ↑. This comes dangerously close to calling you stupid because we disagree, which is not at all my intent. I just wish you'd use your powers for good.

This… interesting and challenging subject worthy of discussion… deserves to be discussed respectfully. It's way above the pay grade of people who don't know things but might reckon something about them

It doesn't take advanced education or insight to see that men cannot be women and shouldn't be given XX citizenship at the expense of women's safety and dignity, to satisfy a misguided desire for inclusivity. @AuroraSaab has showed rather amazing restraint, only slipping a few times past polite exasperation. What disrespect I've witnessed comes chiefly from monkers.

I can only imagine how many reports this thread has generated.

That the mods have so far left this alone is a minor miracle. One could easily make a case to cut the wilder whataboutery.

This thread is becoming increasingly wild.

The judges will accept that as an unintentional mea culpa.

are you Transgender by any chance?

Wouldn’t want to besmirch transgender people by claiming monkers is representative. However, there are points of confluence with your garden variety Twitter transgender activist which suggest shep's question, whilst improper, is a credit to his basic powers of observation. Herewith my own, very unscientific checklist:

Sense of entitlement - X
Irrationality - X
#NoDebate (unless it agrees with you) - X

I wonder why the New Zealand selectors picked Hubbard?

They thought she was the best prospect for the country to win their first weightlifting medal.

This almost qualifies as a breakthrough.

[Pale Rider]

After 707 posts, we can safely say this thread has had all the opinions it could get, and it is now steering off topic. Thread locked.

Let's back up, I wasn't quite done.



The mainstream media has spoken.

Punkawallah: I wonder why the New Zealand selectors picked Hubbard?

Craig the cyclist: Because they were scared of the backlash if they didn't

roubaixtuesday: Mindreader at great distance! I'm sure you can find better uses for such skillz.

shep: I think you'll find it's called having an opinion, he just forgot to stipulate that for the pedants on the forum. In this Country it's spelt 'skills', by the way.

monkers: In this country, 'country' is not spelt with a capital letter.

Shep: Getting desperate? At least its the correct letter.

I've added the link at the end. You're welcome.

No desperation from me. More a case of delicious irony. By the way, in this country when 'it is' is reduced to 'its', the missing letter is replaced by an apostrophe to become 'it's'. That's the trouble with pedantry, it has a habit of coming back and biting you on the arse.

Connoisseur of irony you may be, it's possible shep wasn't so much engaging in pedantry as he was showing irritation with leetspeak.

we still haven't told @shep that the 'z' was an appropriate letter given the context. Will you explain it or shall I?

You might want to leave the condescension to your betters.

How many posts do you think you may have made in this thread? How many words? How many people have you actually listened to?

Again confusing "listening to" with a need to agree with. Your archenemy takes the time and trouble to rebut point by point, proving she actually listens.

Did you answer me regarding your 'identity'?

Oh dear.

You don't like it when people say they are 'gay' - so why ask me who I happen to be when you don't really want to know? Or is it just handy to have that information to help form a negative opinion of them when it suits you?

[The attachment is hard to read, here's a link.]

Now I have to stand up for you. BAD SHEP.
This is what I meant by owing everyone a fair hearing with every new post. Taking one's own advice can be a hard pill to swallow.

[629 words. I counted. None worth reading over again.]

I knew it couldn't last.

I entered the thread late. I had tried to keep out, but I noticed that another woman that I greatly admire here @theclaud had tried reason but was being steamrollered by the onslaught.

Confession time: I also entered the thread late, and what's more, haven't yet bothered to go back and read it from the beginning. A simple * search on theclaud offers a tantalizing taste of what I've missed. Here's hold music while this situation is remedied.

Situation remedied. That wasn't too bad. I wonder why.

I entered the thread late.

Kudos to mickle, mudsticks & others for their thoughtful contributions. theclaud is formidable as usual, a worthy critic of AuroraSaab. (She's also a member here, on what I'll continue to call extended sabbatical. God help me if she ever logs back in.)

Discussions work better if you address what the people in the discussion are actually saying, rather than invoking another imaginary opponent outside of it.

There's no need to patronise me by regurgitating all the same stock phrases every time the subject arises. It always goes the same way - all nuance battered to death by your steamroller of certainty...

It's difficult posting on a topic like this, where many are still tuning in to what's been going on. A wider view can be helpful. Repetition is inevitable.

Some may keep pointing to their innocent bikes,

I am not an activist - like the majority here I'm a cyclist - only I'm prevented from doing so on occasions because I have to waste time debunking your falsehoods.

I am not an active political campaigner for trans lives, I'm a cyclist. I'd much sooner being talking bikes

but they're on a steamroller, too.

is there even a single person in the thread who has argued that Hubbard being permitted to compete in the women's classification is the right decision?

DARVO much? [Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender]

I knew AS's tag team partner would be straight here.

Likewise Mickle, you have a posting history here with bile and spite towards trans people. Let the record show.

Let the record show DARVO.

I noted too AS's references to people being a bit less afraid to speak out on this issue - the clear implication being that the intimidation is coming from the transgender activist side.

There are entire Twitter and Instagram walls dripping with hateful abuse and violent imagery meted out to gender critical women. (Fortunately, even this dark subject can be mined for humour.) I challenge anyone to provide a link to the equivalent coming from the other direction.

BTW ... re: skillz. It's correct - it's a reference to irony, that the skill in question isn't actually a skill - hence my reference to 'delicious irony'.

Convenient you should revisit this shortly before the thread was locked (mission finally accomplished). People with your rhetorical skillz make reasoned debate very difficult. Moderation as #BeKind.