The part of Beth Rigby’s interview of Iain Anderson that deals with the gross insult of “Lia” Thomas stealing women’s wins is absolutely disgusting. He blathers and huffs and bloviates and completely ignores the obvious, gruesome, painful injustice to the women, the mere tedious boring nobody cares women.
“Do you think that’s fair Iain?”
“So, em, sport by sport, people are looking at this, they absolutely are – we’re about to celebrate, this year, ten years of Rainbow Laces” – big beaming smile. Grassroots sports, he says, he’s ab-so-lutely delighted that more and more “LGBTQ” people are getting involved.
That’s not the question.
He thinks there’s still a problem with the Premier League, and men’s sport.
That’s not the question.
Sporting body by sporting body is looking at this, he says smugly. Oh well that’s fine then – how many years will it take them to see the problem?
Rigby asks him how he would feel if he were number two or number three in that scenario, would he think that’s fair.
“We’re working our way through on this,” he says, “this is how trans folk take part in elite sport”
But it’s a problem, Rigby interrupts him to insist. “Do you think it’s a problem.”
“I think it’s a problem in terms of perception.”
No, you absolute fuck, it’s a problem in reality.
“You can see it’s a problem, no?” Rigby says, gesturing at the image of giant hulking Thomas looming over the two much much much smaller women. “I want everybody to take part in sport,” he replies idiotically.
Rigby pushes the question again and he says “I understand the question you’re asking” – and I’m going to go right on refusing to answer it. “Are we going to say that trans people shouldn’t take part in sport?” he asks indignantly. Yet again, that’s not the question.
It’s fascinating to see how easily men brush off injustice to women.
Comments
5 responses to “Rainbow laces”
Every day, every paper, it’s the same category error.
Quite right that this is not the question at all. It’s the same fallacy in each headline:
https://www.kvoa.com/news/arizona/az-judge-rules-in-favor-of-transgender-girls-playing-sports-in-high-school/article_5c353d26-2753-11ee-ada1-3b583887e0e8.html
Nobody ever tried to prevent “transgender girls,” or transgender anybody, from playing sports, in high school or anywhere. Those “girls” were always permitted to play sports in high school, and no law every tried to stop them. It’s just that boys were only allowed to play sports with other boys. And why? Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne says:
That’s because there is no science supporting the idea that big fellows suddenly become girls because they say so; there’s only bullying and lies. Like those from TRA Mikey Shock:
If they absolutely loved sports, then they would play in their own division. If they are refusing to play sports in their own division, it’s because they only love sports relatively, and less than they love their trans identification.
All of the judge’s recitation of medical quackery from the bench won’t stop this from being appealed to the Supreme Court. I hope they can show they’re good for something.
Depends on who we are talking about as doing the perceiving. .
I hope if only for his own sake that the quack concerned has an understanding insurance company and a team of smart lawyers for the day when these underage kids change their minds and decide it was all a terrible mistake.
‘Rigby asks him how he would feel if he were number two or number three in that scenario, would he think that’s fair.’
He’s simply not capable of imagining what it would be like to be a woman, and it would never occur to him that this might be something he should or would want to do.
Papito, #1
That, of course, is relative to their chances of winning. If one truly loves a sport for sport’s sake then winning is nice but ultimately irrelevant. One plays for the pleasure of playing, so if the enjoyment is predicated on winning then it isn’t the sport one loves but the perceived glory that comes with victory.
I very rarely make predictions but I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that as more women’s sports close their doors to men, those men are going to start abandoning the sports they love so much and take up those which are still open for them to compete against women.
Acolyte,
They want to be winners, that is to win at something. So what are their alternatives.?
As I see them they are: (1) compete against children; (2) compete against each other in special trans competitions; (3) compete against women; (4) compete against elderly people, either by birth sex or according to the sex they identify as.
(2) and (4) are unlikely to attract a wider public audience, and anyway would afford each of them a diminished chance of ‘winning. (1) would be seen for what is is: a grossly unfair farce, and as suss as all hell. (3) simultaneously allows them to argue that their femininity is real, credible, genuine etc, AND gives them all an enhanced chance of winning. So they will keep plugging away at it and stealing prizes from women.
Women could do worse than form a union of born-female competitors, insist on that category being included in all competitions, and boycott everything else. As loudly as they like. As well, it might generate a bit of public controversy, and I don’t see how that could disadvantage women.