Someone’s right & freedom to participate
People allow themselves to say the most bizarre nonsense on this subject.
The thing is Samantha Lewis isn’t just a random bystander (like me for example). She’s a women’s football writer. This makes her questions extremely odd – like a doctor asking “What is the point of medicine? Why do we interfere with people’s right to be sick?”
Why should success in sport trump someone’s right & freedom to participate? Because that’s how competitive sport works. You can definitely have games and matches that are just for fun, and open to everyone who wants to play, but a huge number of people who love sports love to watch and/or participate in the kind where there are winners, which entails that there are also losers. That kind of sport necessarily trumps most people’s “right” to participate, because of the win/lose dichotomy. Sports writers, surely, are aware of this, because if they weren’t, how would they have become sports writers?
Second question: Why should a medal or a record take priority over someone’s life? Er – it doesn’t. The losers aren’t executed. Players who don’t make the team aren’t executed.
But that’s silly, it can’t be what she meant. So what did she mean? I guess she meant why should a medal or a record take priority over someone’s happiness or plans or career as a star athlete. But then the answer is, again, embarrassingly obvious. Because that’s how it works. Again: you can have sports that aren’t organized that way, that are everyone playing for the fun and exercise, that don’t choose the best players and exclude the worst – but you also have the other kind, which by the way is the kind that sports writers write about.
So what is the point of all these idiotic questions? What is the point of pretending it’s unfair to exclude men from women’s sports while not pretending it’s unfair to exclude professional athletes from children’s sports? What is the point of all this elaborate dummery?
All they’ve got is bullying and emotional blackmail. The bullying is being noted and called out. Not a good look for “the most oppressed group ever.” Roll out the blackmail and suicidal ideation.
And of course, in some sports, such as MMA. the presence of men in women’s arenas actually can lead to ruining or even extinguishing someone’s life. (See Fallon Fox’s boasts about breaking women’s skulls.)
Why should women’s preference to not be murdered trump fetishistic men’s right to be validated as what they are not?
My guess is that this is a reference to trans people killing themselves if society doesn’t accept them as the “gender” they identify as. Lewis probably (?) doesn’t mean that the TIM athletes themselves will kill themselves if they don’t get on the women’s team, but that in a more vague, general way the resulting zeitgeist will lead to unnamed trans people killing themselves.
Or, perhaps, it’s just her way of pointing out that trans people’s entire life is wrapped up in being validated.
Yes, and that makes the thing even more ridiculous and manipulative.
Transperson: Aaaaah! You called me “he”! I’m a “she”. How dare you do that?
Other person: You’re an adult. You can handle it.
Transperson: Yes, I can handle it fine, but if you do that to me, and a trans child sees you do that, xe will commit suicide! Do it for the children!!!!! It’s not for me; it’s for morality!!!!!
That’s my guess, too. Of course, it’s emotional blackmail. It’s not anyone’s duty to give up their real rights in society for some stranger’s ostensible mental health.
Also, what GW@4 said:
(Or, at least, adults are SUPPOSED to be able to handle being disappointed, especially when they’re making unusual and dishonest demands. Kids too, for that matter. A huge part of growing up is coming to realize that you just can’t get everything you want, and that other people with valid claims exist.)
Cue Mick Jagger “you can’t always get what you wa-ant.”
I’m still worried I might have done literal violence to my puppy at obedience school last night. I told the instructor he was “he”. What if he identifies as “she”? Can I live with myself?
What kind of puppy?!
He’s a Welsh terrier. I hope we survive through his training. He’s energetic, much more than we are. He gets the zoomies a lot.