Passionate about including trans women

Pink News is eager to see men taking over women’s sports.

A women’s rugby union team has explained why it is passionate about including trans women as the RFU votes on banning them from the sport.

No the RFU doesn’t vote on banning them from the sport. As usual.

The York RI Ladies team took to Twitter ahead of a Rugby Football Union (RFU) vote on an outright ban on trans women and girls, taking place on Friday (29 July).

No it’s not an outright ban on women and girls. That’s the usual lie. It’s a ban on men in women’s rugby.

The RFU, which governs rugby union in England, will vote on a recommendation for a “policy change for contact rugby to only permit plays in the female category whose sex recorded at birth was female”.

See? That’s not a ban. Men can still play in the male category.

The measure will allow trans men to continue to play the sport “if they provide their written consent and a risk assessment is carried out”. 

In the men’s category, I’m guessing, because it wouldn’t be fair to let testosterone-laced women play in the women’s category.

The governing body says it has considered “peer reviewed research” which claimed there are “physical differences between those people whose sex was assigned as male and those as female at birth, and advantages in strength, stamina and physique brought about by male puberty are significant and retained even after testosterone suppression”. 

Gee, how silly, right? When we all know there are no such advantages whatsoever at all?

Meanwhile it’s just totally up in the air whether or not men have any physical advantages over women when playing rugby.

But they’re York RI LADIES so presumably they’re not also York RI Gentlemen, or they would call themselves York RI Ladies and Gentlemen. So even though they’re grassroots sports they still have a women’s team, which can’t be both a women’s team and “for everyone.” So…what’s their point? Other than a mindless invocation of warm fuzzies about including EVERYONE? If sports include everyone there’s no room left for the sports part – there would just be a big crowd of people milling around.

But the way to get more British women doing physical activity isn’t to include more men in women’s sports. I think the problem is clear enough? Men aren’t women, so adding men to your women’s sport will be a dead loss in terms of upping the numbers of women doing physical activity.

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