Let’s have another casual insult, shall we?
Sutton United appoint transgender former referee Lucy Clark as manager
Of a women’s team, that is.
While of great personal significance to Clark, the appointment is also noteworthy as it makes her the first transgender woman to be appointed as a manager in the top five divisions of English women’s football.
But we hope there will be many many more? Is that the idea?
Clark returns to management at a time when the place of transgender women in women’s football has come under intense scrutiny.
Gee, why might that be, do you think? Possibly because it’s dangerous as well as unfair?
A group of 48 MPs and 27 peers recently signed a letter urging the Football Association to change its rules on transgender inclusion to “protect women and girls”.
However that is focused more on players. In the dugout, greater diversity of gender is common across women’s football.
But not, of course, men’s football. Men get to go everywhere; women get to go a littlewhere but men get to follow them.
Comments
5 responses to “Also noteworthy”
Having men coach women’s sports is hardly new.
So then it’s not noteworthy and doesn’t get into the news, right?
Diversity of gender – that means male and female, right? Of course it does; what else could it mean?
Sort of related. I was working with a bank loan officer yesterday, and was told they needed to know information about gender, race, and ethnicity. Then they played a recording for me to explain that; the recording said race, sex, and ethnicity. Why do I suspect that’s an old recording?
On the other hand, having women coach a men’s team is still extremely rare.
A cursory search indicated to me that around half, maybe more, of the managers of women’s football teams in the UK are men. So this one should not have been noteworthy. Except it’s a “special” man. It looks like only one woman has ever been appointed manager of a men’s football team in the UK.