Her sporting oasis
Molly McElwee at the Telegraph mourns the fact that a guy who wants to swim with the women isn’t always welcomed.
In women’s sport the phrase “if you can’t see it, you can’t be it” is widely acknowledged, but the reverse has rung true for trans women, according to swimmer Eden Elgeti. The more visible trans women in elite sport have become, the less inclusive the space at grass roots has felt.
Elgeti took up recreational swimming at a local lido when she began her transition in 2017. Within a few years she started wild swimming at local rivers and ponds, and founded an inclusive swimming club, while Swim England appointed her as an ambassador. The sport became her outlet for physical and mental well-being, and a huge part of her social life.
It’s interesting how evasively stated it is already. We’re told Elgeti is a swimmer but not what sex Elgeti is. How are we to understand “when she began her transition”? Transition from what to what? It seems, in light of what we know about how this subject is framed, that Elgeti is a man who now calls himself a woman, but how odd that the reporter doesn’t make that crystal clear from the beginning. How odd that the reporter seems to be carefully avoiding making it clear.
But all that has changed, with the response to high-profile stories of trans women competing in elite sport, such as cyclist Emily Bridges and swimmer Lia Thomas. While the science plays catch up and sports governing bodies grapple with landing on a fair and equitable solution, the fallout has hit grass-roots and community sport. For Elgeti, the increasingly charged conversation has threatened to rip apart her sporting oasis.
What does that mean? How does a conversation rip apart an oasis? The reporter never says – it’s all conditional tense and metaphorical verbs.
“Probably for the last six months, it’s been really difficult to push myself to go and swim with my friends or even with my partner because I don’t feel comfortable,” Elgeti, 27, says. “I’ve been confronted, people who say ‘you shouldn’t be getting changed in here’ or ‘you shouldn’t be at this session’…”
Now it’s Elgeti who’s evasive. He doesn’t mean “people,” does he, he means specifically women, women who don’t want him in their changing room. It’s interesting how mournful he is about not feeling comfortable himself while not pausing to think about the comfort of the women he’s forcing himself on. It’s not new or unusual of course, but still interesting. The manipulation and careful omission of it all is just fascinating, every time. He’s uncomfortable, boo hoo, but what about people who aren’t Elgeti? Is his the only consciousness in the universe? What if the women never wanted him there but didn’t feel able to say so until recently? Why is his discomfort important while theirs isn’t even worth mentioning?
What a crap article. It’s bad enough listening to yet another TIM bemoaning being made to feel uncomfortable forcing himself on women who don’t want him swinging his dong around their locker room. Poor fellow can’t even swim with his mates anymore, because it’s so sad not being allowed to ogle naked women in peace afterwards.
It’s worse suffering the glib editorializing of the writer.
“While the science plays catch up and sports governing bodies grapple with landing on a fair and equitable solution, the fallout has hit grass-roots and community sport.”
The science isn’t playing anything but patty-cake. Men are still men even if they wear woman-face. The reason for female-only spaces is that men rape. TIMs are just as likely to rape women as other men, the woman-face doesn’t change their pattern of offending. Furthermore, forcing themselves on women who don’t want them in the female-only spaces is of a piece with this pattern of offending.
A fair and equitable solution? TIMs and their woke enablers are talking about divvying up women’s rights like colonial powers over a map of Africa. The only solution they want is women having no rights.
It’s getting hard for trans advocates. The concept of “transition” — even the word “trans” itself — contradicts the narrative where Eden is a woman, was a woman, was a girl, and was even born a girl. Gender identity forms in the womb, remember. And the narrative has now claimed “female.” Eden then didn’t actually transition from man to woman. The transition was purely cultural, where the general public changes from ignorance to enlightenment. Eden “came out” as a woman.
I’m seeing the whole coming-out-gay concept & phrasing being applied more and more to transgender.. At some point talking about “transition” will be transphobic. And then “transphobic” will be — well, not transphobic. Maybe identityphobic. We’ll see.
Interview with Elgeti here >> https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=822&v=ksVKb5PEEXw&feature=emb_title Talking about being in the restaurant business, and not wanting to be made to do the “heavy lifting” required by the males was one of the deciding factors for transitioning. Also talking about freezing sperm for possible children in the future, which may indicate plans for either ‘bottom surgery’ or the eventual loss of male fertility due to hormone treatments. It appears as if, in the top photo on the Speedo swimwear blog, that male genitals might still be present >> https://www.speedo.com/blog/swimwear/eden-elgeti-speedo-transgender-swimmer/
I was careful not to use any pronouns in the above, which is easier than risking offense by using them properly or improperly, depending on who you ask. If only there was a singular, neuter, third-person pronoun that wasn’t off limits… :P
If crossings of the biological and social sex-divides can be so readily accomplished as its enthusiasts maintain they can be, then surely other divides will soon follow, like say age; particularl if it enhances the competitor’s chance of winning. Adults should surely be entitled to enter themselves into childrens’ competitions on the basis of some rationale, particularly if they testify that they have never grown up and have always been children mentally. In addition, Biblical quotes could be supplied in support of their case, to ease the minds of any Doubting.Thomases or Thomasettes.