All he wanted was to shower with the women
Hannah Mouncey explains how cruel and unfair it is to exclude him from women’s anything:
I cannot lie—it would have been terrific to have been able to provide the trans community with a visible symbol of the fact that progress is being made towards greater acceptance, but if society is not at that stage then so be it. That time will come, and it is only because we shine a light on these situations and use our own negative experiences to give others strength, that we will eventually make the progress we as a community wish would happen today.
I am not myself actively involved in the trans community, short of attending the Transcend Christmas party each year and speaking at events and functions that I might be invited to. But that does not mean I am any more immune to the same experiences we have all encountered across our individual journeys. I can confirm that yes, I was left out of the team for the World Championships because there was a group of players within the team, supported by the team manager, who did not want me showering or using the change rooms before or after the game. This was in turn the sole reason given to me by our coach for my non selection.
They didn’t mention the bonus? The fact that they would not be perceived as cheating? Which they would be by anyone who hasn’t surrendered to the transwomenarewomen army if Hannah were on the team?
I later had it confirmed by someone else within Handball Australia who had done some digging that: “From everything I’ve been told, you’ve basically not been picked because you’re not liked.” And the reason I’m not liked is because I told our manager, and by extension those players, exactly where he and they could go in trying to tell me where I could change and shower.
How shocking that people fail to like a huge burly man who snarls at people who prevent him from showering with the women.
Mouncey then gives a pompous sermon on right and wrong, and people who do what’s easy as opposed to what’s right, by which he means allowing a huge burly man to play on a women’s team.
You will learn who truly cares about you, as they will never take the easy option over what is right, and this allows you to focus much more time and energy on those who are a positive influence in your life. To know not to waste your energy on certain people, organisations or teams is a true blessing.
But it also gives you a greater perspective on what is right or wrong, a better sense of empathy and a much better perspective on the world. Use this to help those around you, to create and foster positive relationships and experiences.
Empathy. Huge burly “Hannah” Mouncey who wants to play on the women’s team preaching at us about empathy of all things.
Then he congratulates himself for how many people dislike him, and for writing this piece just before the tournament which will make people dislike him even more.
It is incredibly liberating to not care one bit who likes you, what people think of you and who you upset in being true to yourself. And while I’m sure I should have learned this a lot earlier, the second lesson is to know that regardless of what you do, you will never please everyone. Some of the very same people who were saying it was bullshit that I couldn’t play AFL Women’s league were some of the same voices within the team who were trying to dictate where I could shower and change. While those people then were supposedly in my corner as I fought the AFL, they were more than able to justify their own position about me to themselves because in their minds “they aren’t like those people, this is a reasonable thing to expect”.
This is going to happen over and over, and eventually you become very comfortable in saying no to people, regardless of how forceful you need to be. So many people spend their whole lives trying to please others and giving in to everything that is asked of them, and being able to develop the skills and confidence to say no is truly wonderful.
But this of course is only for the Hannah Mounceys. It’s not at all for the women who don’t want to compete against him or break their legs in a tangle with him or shower with him. They don’t get to say no, and their skills and confidence to say no are nothing but evil transphobia.
Yes, and the group which is routinely socialized to do that is ‘little girls,’ and then women. Little boys and men, on the other hand, are generally encouraged to assert themselves from the get go. So what the hell is this nascent feminism crap about “I’m at long last learning to say no” from somebody who only transitioned to female in their late 20’s?
Pure theater. That, or someone’s delusional.
Aw, leave the poor “lady” alone. He just wants to shower with a bunch of women and then go play some handball.
Sastra, exactly. It’s appropriation, is what it is, and it’s one of the things I hate most about this whole “movement.” It’s theft of the actual literal subordination of women, stolen and repurposed such that a man becomes the subordinated fighting back and women become the oppressor.
Selecting a group of players who have good chemistry together, form a good team spirit and really care about each other so that they play for each other is the normal way to select a team. Leaving out people that are not liked, even if individually good players, is a very normal thing to do in team sports when selecting a national team. Contributing to the team spirit is a big part of being in a successful team. It’s not like being disliked is a minor side issue that shouldn’t matter, and only individual skills should count.
Seems it didn’t take with him. Or is this another of those one way street thingies?
I sound like a broken record, but doesn’t this mindset seem reminiscent of the Christian masochistic fetish for and glorying in persecution?
Not to me all that much, really. I think it’s much more to do with oppression-envy – envy of civil rights heroes and the like. I think that’s the umbrella fetish and Christians complaining of persecution are a subset of that.
Take the easy way out? It’s clear that the easy way is to allow the Hannah Mouncey’s and Rachel McKinnon’s of the world to do what they want so they don’t no-platform you, break your legs, or get you fired or embroiled with “cancel culture”.
To stand up for women? That is now, and always has been, the hard road. Many (though not all) men have chosen the easy road and simply shouted over ‘uppity’ women. Many women have taken the easy road and acquiesced to male domination, while chanting about the empowerment of their sex work, or burka, or making the coffee, or make up, or high heels.
The easy way, indeed.
One of the reasons it’s so important for the concept of autogynephilia to go mainstream is that it helps to reframe situations like Mouncey’s on rational grounds instead of abstract, vaguely Social Justicey ones. Hannah Mouncey is a clear-cut case of autogynephilia — he doesn’t want to play sports with the women unless they let him get naked with them* — and he’s using lefty Social Justice language to bully people into complying. If we can reframe this in clinical language to the mainstream — this is a man with a sexual paraphilia, not a woman with a tragically mismatched body — I think it would go very far in helping put a stop to this.
*and you just know he imagines the shower room like a scene in a bad porno: soft filter, slow motion shots of a group of women giggling naked together amid a dazzle of glittering soap suds, smooth jazz in the background…
Or, more pointedly, competing (and winning) against women, with all or most of the advantages conferred by the posession of a male body that went through puberty, as opposed to competing with, and more than likely losing against, other men. So who exactly is taking the “easy option”?
Artymorty–
This, a thousand times this.
Would you look how much backstory is hidden behind that paragraph. Mouncey, a male, demanded to shower with the team, who are female, and got abusive when they said “no, you’re male”. But sure, present that as “because they dislike me [pout]”.
Reminds me of the classic excuse that has been trotted out enough that it has become a cliche: “I only lost because it’s all down to politics.” Anything to avoid looking in the mirror.