MALE athletes
I am so tired of the dishonest way journalism frames the issue of men ruining women’s sports. For instance Reuters/The Guardian:
Transgender athletes will be able to participate in community sport in New Zealand in the gender they identify with and not need to prove or justify their identity, according to new guiding principles released by Sport New Zealand.
The guidelines do not apply to elite sport and it will be up to individual sports to define where and how transgender athletes participate, the governing body said.
“An inclusive transgender policy allows individuals to take part as their self-determined gender and not as the sex they were assigned at birth,” Sport New Zealand (SNZ) said. “It does not ask people to prove or otherwise justify their gender, sex or gender identity.”
The issue isn’t “transgender athletes,” the issue is male athletes. The issue isn’t “gender identity,” the issue is male bodies. The issue isn’t “self-determined gender” versus “sex assigned at birth,” it’s male bodies versus women’s bodies. They all know that perfectly well, the journalists and editors, and they choose to obfuscate it and lie about it for the sake of this idiotic narcissistic ideology. I am so tired of it.
Transgender participation has proved controversial at amateur and elite levels, with women’s groups and some athletes saying transgender athletes should be banned from female categories to ensure fair competition.
The fourth paragraph: that’s how long it took them to hint at the real issue, but only hint at it without spelling out the part about men being bigger and stronger and faster than women are.
Journalism really needs to stop lying about this subject.
So basically it’s the end of women’s community sports in NZ. They could just say that. Too obvious? If they allow anyone of any sex on any team, there are no sexed divisions. Score a win for the cheaters.
twiliter,
It doesn’t bode well for co-ed sports, either. Every co-ed recreational league I’ve ever heard of has some rule that a team must have a minimum number of women on the playing field at all times, because otherwise most teams would be put to a constant choice between competitiveness and female participation.
If those rules are either eliminated or become practically unenforceable (because it’s rude to point out that your shortstop sure looks like a man), then that’s going to hurt women’s participation in co-ed sports.
I live in NZ and the release of this policy passed me by completely. I went looking for it today on STUFF, the largest newspaper chain in New Zealand. In the online aggregator it was in the sports section, 43rd story down. No comments section open. There’s a couple of lines near the bottom that vaguely allude to some people having some sort of disquiet about some unnamed issue. No positive media bias towards the trans movement of course, no…
I think it’s a real disincentive, but I’m surprised that there’s not more general outrage. If my daughter was still in school and had to put up with male bodied people in her (female only) competitions or locker rooms I’d be there raising all kinds of hell. It’s as if these people can’t say no.
This particular bit about an individual not needing “to prove or justify” themselves to other people comes right out of a schoolyard — or, possibly, therapy. It jumps right over any substantive issue and reduces it to someone whining about others not thinking they’re special. I really hate it.