A new star
Sigh.
There is a new star in the Kent women’s cricket team — its first transgender player is opening after one season.
Maxine Blythin, who is more than 6ft tall and under England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rules can self-identify as a woman, has a batting average of 124 this season and has hit four centuries already.
Behold “Maxine”:
Fair Play for Women has said the policy is unfair, especially at a time when the game is improving opportunities for female players. A £20m semi-professional competition for women starts next year.
“Letting males who self-ID as women play in women’s competitions is demonstrably unfair,” the campaign group tweeted last week. “The ECB *knows* males have a performance advantage over females. This is [why] it lets women use lighter & smaller cricket balls & why boundaries are set closer.”
So Maxine not only gets to compete against women but also gets to do so using lighter and smaller cricket balls and with boundaries set closer. Win-win.
The ECB is understood to be worried about a backlash against transgender players. “Our position on transgender participation will be reviewed as part of our commitment to regularly review all governance policies,” it said.
But as far as the policy of self-identification with no medical requirement went, it was “unlikely to make any unilateral changes”, the board added.
“We are proud that this model promotes an inclusive environment for all participants in domestic and recreational cricket.”
Except for women.
In short, male in every way that matters in sport. Not even trying to pretend to erase the advantage. That sort of makes all the arguments of the TRAs irrelevant. Just like Martina said – cheating.
I am reminded of a comment *checks* marinerachel made on a recent post:
“Why are transwomen always illustrated as though they pass for women? One of the major reasons lots of lesbians aren’t attracted to transwomen is because most of them look like men.”
No idea why…
Summer 2020 is where it all comes crashing down or where women’s sports dies completely; I strongly suspect any team not running a transwoman in the top spot isn’t going to be bringing home any golds in almost any event.
Not only identifying as a woman has also come out as a lesbian. There’s just some things you can’t give up. Who is Safeguarding the young girls if sharing the changing room. Somebody is going to get hurt due to her obvious power etc.
Its strange that a women’s cricket league would tinker with the gear. Perhaps its intended to obscure the performance gap between men and women. Weight lifters, to cite a recent instance, use the same gear across the board.
Let’s get a bunch of hairy arsed geezers with female wigs and rock up at Canterbury asking Kent for a trial for the County Women’s Team. How could they refuse they’ve set a precedent. I’m sure in some of the pictures she is definitely wearing a box although might be a Lady Box. What happened to Little Britain
[…] in August I did a couple of posts about cricket player Maxine Blythin. I missed the news a month […]