He’d like that
Wow. The placid, determined, immovable entitlement of this massive guy is breathtaking. (Being tackled by him would be breathtaking too, and bonebreaking and possibly life-ending, if he snaps your neck.)
“They” offered him coaching or reffing and he said no because if he does those things it means that he is “accepting that trans women can’t play this sport.” No it doesn’t. It means accepting that men can’t play women’s rugby, including men who call themselves trans.
“You just can’t play contact,” he says they told him. “They just seem to have been blissfully ignorant of the impact they’ve had.” Impact? It’s “Julie” Curtiss who seems to be blissfully ignorant of the impact he would have if he played contact rugby against women.
He did say the thing about needing to be dragged kicking and screaming. Not into doing something, as is usual with that metaphor, but just dragged kicking and screaming. He’d like that.
When reported honestly, like this, in plain language which doesn’t hide the issue, it’s perfectly clear what’s at stake. It’s also perfectly clear that the men are in the wrong. “Identification” may have no power to change material reality, but it sure plays havoc with journalistic integrity.
“Transness” has nothing to do with it. It’s men in women’s sport. Let them keep their socially consructed gendered soul. Let them keep it to themselves. They can be whoever or whatever they want to be between their ears and behind their eyes. Nobody give a fuck. And that’s the problem. They demand an audience, they require enthusiastic validation and participation in their little fantasy. It doesn’t count if nobody knows, if nobody applauds, if nobody bows down to the specialness inside of them, paraded ostentatiously on the outside for all to see. This makes it real, it confirms the impact of their personal belief upon the world.
But they want to be more than just a static, brute fact, a roadblock or obstacle that everyone is forced to notice and make allowances for; they want to do shit. They want use this power they’ve taken (and been given) to force their will on the world, to go places they normally wouldn’t be allowed to go, and do things they normally wouldn’t be allowed to do. Schoolboys might fantasize about having a ring or cloak of invisibility that would let them do naughty things, unseen, and get away with it. Well these men want a cloak or ring of obviousness. They don’t want to “just go pee.” They want to mark their newly conquered territory, to run their flag up the pole and make everyone salute. They want to revel in the public enactment and enforcement of their fetish. This is boner material. They don’t want to blend in and go unnoticed; they want to broadcast the fact that they have been given social licence to violate women’s boundaries, that they have permission to do what they’re doing, and that women can’t do a goddamn thing about it. They need to be seen getting away with their transgression. They want licence to gloat, to cause women to be dragged away, kicking and screaming when, in a sane world, it would be these men who would be subject to forcible ejection from female only spaces and facilities.
Implicit: therefore do what they want or their self-harm is on you. Blatant emotional blackmail.
Nope, like all contact sports, rugby favours the male body over the female.
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