To fight for the right
Transgender footballer Hannah Mouncey has slammed the AFL’s gender diversity policy and is preparing to take the league to court to fight for the right to play in Canberra’s first-grade women’s competition.
Above that lede is the familiar photo of Mouncey in action, twice the size of the woman next to him.
Mouncey, who was prevented from entering the AFLW draft in 2017 based on her “strength, stamina or physique”, is now unable to play in the ACT’s top female comp unless she meets certain criteria outlined in a new AFL policy released in October last year.
The 31-year-old said she had met with the AFL’s legal department since the release of the policy but has been left unsatisfied, prompting her to consider legal action.
“This is not a step I take lightly and not one which I have had any desire to take if it could be avoided, however I believe at this point I have no other option if I want to play football in the AFL Canberra First Grade Competition in 2021,” Mouncey wrote in a lengthy statement she posted to social media.
But he does have another option: he could seek to play on a men’s team instead of a women’s. He might not be good enough but that applies to a lot of people, and it’s not something a lawsuit can change. Trying to play against people who are significantly smaller than he is, with smaller bones that break more easily, is not really a justifiable way to guarantee he’ll be good enough to be chosen for the team.
That doesn’t get enough attention in these reports that focus on purported rights and their denial: men who are determined to compete against women are trying to give themselves a massive physical advantage, and it’s not at all certain that that’s not why they’re doing it. It’s framed as a matter of trans rights but it may be just a straight up cheat. My view is that that’s more likely than not, because if it were just a matter of “rights” or validation, they would surely be put off by the obvious unfairness, and decide to defend their rights in other ways.
From a community football standpoint, the new policy states that “transgender women may play in women‘s competitions, transgender men can play in men’s competitions and non-binary people can choose which competition to play in.”
Also at community level, the statement notes that “Gender diverse players may not be excluded for reasons of relevant competitive advantage over cisgender players in the competition.”
In other words “tough shit women, you lose.” Thanks a lot.
H/t Roj Blake
I wonder how much of this is a desire to get an advantage in competition and “win” a position, medal, etc. that they would not be able to if competing with men, versus a desire to claim affirmation in their declared gender, i.e. “look, see, I AM a woman, otherwise I wouldn’t be on a WOMAN’S team!” Presumably it varies from case to case.
Deaths are rare in our game, the last one I know of was in 2018. A footballer accidentally clashed heads with a team mate, was able to leave the ground, but later slipped into a coma and died. This player was good enough to play in the State’s premier competition, but sustained the fatal injury in a lower level match.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-30/sanfl-womens-player-dies-after-on-field-accident/10185118
Varcoe was a strong, mature player. The injury was caused by a collision with a nineteen year old team mate.
I cannot bear to think of the devastation Mouncy would cause by being let loose against women.
@Screechy
If Mouncy is good enough to play women’s A Grade he is good enough to play Men’s B, or at the least, C Grade. I also doubt what is under the jumper is flesh and blood, more like a couple of footy socks poked in a bra.
I though that I was good enough to play Shakespearean roles along side Alec Guinness, Vanessa Redgrave, Laurence Olivier, et al. Reality led me into Stage Management instead. Such is life.
Screechy @ 1 that’s what I’m saying. I think it is that. I find it very hard to believe it’s about affirmation or validation at all, given how obvious and revolting the unfairness is.
That’s funny, I look at it the other way around — that the unfairness is so obvious that the motive is less likely to be competitive desire for victory, because the victories are so tainted.
Roj@2:
I recently (about 11 days ago) experienced a minor concussion. The MRI showed a “tiny” brain bleed (neurologist’s wording). Still, I don’t remember the 3-4 days that followed at all, and I was in the hospital being cared-for 24 hours a day. They told me that even though it looked minor on the MRI, that it could have rapidly gotten worse. They woke me up every hour to ask me cognitive questions (“Where are you? What day is it? What’s your birthday?”). The force with which my head was hit was nowhere near what two footballers clashing at full speed would experience, and certainly nowhere near what Mouncy could inflict upon the much smaller women.
This stuff is NO FUCKING JOKE. Mouncy is going to get women killed if he’s allowed to play. I am not exaggerating at all.
Mouncey is worth a much more extensive look.
Mouncey first was knocked back by the women’s AFL (as you note), but after that, went to Australia’s representative handball team, where they put him on the women’s team. He was later offered a spot on the next tour if he showered and changed separately from his female team mates. Mouncey screamed transphobia, refused and flounced. Later he got on a Handball Australia committee, which later publicly apologised to Mouncey for being so transphobic, affirmed it wouldn’t happen again, and now he’s in charge of Inclusion or some shit.
@ Arcadia #6
Yes, that bit tells the real story. I think these guys don’t care that their victories are tainted; they want the victories, tainted or not. They want to stick it to women. Look at that last bit, about offering Mouncey a place on the team, if he showered separately. If it was really all about the love of sport, about being included in playing the sport they love, he would have accepted that. But no, he wants to control the women players. He wants to MAKE them have to look at his penis, and make them have to get undressed in front of him. Pervy and threatening from a very threatening guy. The weight lifter guy — Laurel Hubbard? — bragged about winning 9 gold medals. He could make records that women lifters won’t be able to break for generations, if ever. I don’t think it’s about “validation.” It’s about sticking it to the women. Same misogyny, different dress.
Someone on Facebook just called Shon Faye a ‘larping cockfrocker’. I think that title suits Mr. Mouncey perfectly.
So it may be that trans idenniny isn’t the real issue at all, it’s just a tool – the real issue is the psychological/moral state of these men – Mouncey, McKinnon, Hubbard et al. It may be that they just are all trumpish types, who have found a brilliant new way to dominate and punish women. (I think the two Connecticut runners are doing it for the wins, because they’re of an age to be able to use wins as a ticket to university…which I think just underlines how stupid it is that sport is a ticket to university.)
Ophelia, that is exactly what it is, from what I can see. Whatever ‘rights’ transsexuals might have been asking for have already been granted; what the MRA take-over has become is a movement for removing the rights from women and girls.
tigger, surely that goes too far? Even in jurisdictions where trans people have the legal right on paper to be protected from discrimination in employment, housing, etc., that doesn’t mean those rights are being respected.
And I don’t know how helpful the “granting rights to one group vs. taking away rights from others” formulation is, because that’s very much a matter of how you frame it. Religious conservatives insist that requiring them to provide contraceptive health coverage to their employees, or to prescribe morning-after pills, or to sell flowers or a cake for a gay wedding, are all “taking away their rights.”
Back in the seventies, transsexual people had no legal redress if denied rights such as not being sacked or evicted; now they do. So, sometime between then and now, they got all the rights they asked for.
Asking to be allowed to invade sex-segregated spaces isn’t a request for rights, but a demand for privileges.
If women are to have a right to things to themselves (sports, bathrooms etc), then it can only ever be enacted at the cost of denying men the right to access those women’s things. In this case, granting the “right” to trans women is quite simply a removal of women’s sex based rights.