Who you callin’ faux?
Liberal senator Claire Chandler has been attacked as “transphobic” after she raised concerns about transgender-inclusive policy exposing women and girls in sport to injury and unfair competition.
Senator Chandler spoke on trans-inclusive sport in the Senate last week, and cited new research for World Rugby which concludes that female players would face a 20-30 per cent higher risk of injury if biological males who identify as women were allowed to compete.
On Monday Senator Nita Green, a leader of the LGBTQ ginger group Rainbow Labor, rose to denounce Senator Chandler’s campaign to defend female sport as an attempt “to veil her transphobic views as faux feminist values”.
What’s faux about them? What’s faux about thinking women should not be run over by men in their own sports? What’s faux about thinking women’s sports should continue to be for women?
“We know where (Senator Chandler) is getting her speeches from because she said (in the Senate) ‘I stand with JK Rowling and millions of women around the world who are determined to ensure our rights as women are not traded off in the name of diversity’,” said Senator Green, who claimed gender debate was “incredibly hurtful” for LGBT youth.
What about female youth? What about how “incredibly hurtful” it is for girls to have to play against male youth on female teams? And it really isn’t just Rowling who opposes this terrible plan. Lots of us do, and did before Rowling spoke up.
On Monday Senator Chandler fired back at Senator Green’s suggestion she too was a “transphobe”, and called on Labor leader Anthony Albanese to say whether he agreed with this slur.
“Does he know that unfounded accusations of ‘transphobia’ against women like JK Rowling have been used to justify appalling abuse and threats of violence against women on social media?,” Senator Chandler asked in a media statement.
In the UK and US, women speaking up for their sex-based rights against trans activist demands have lost jobs, been sent death threats and abused and harassed online.
Last week in the Senate, Senator Chandler said: “So many women have contacted me with concerns about this issue (of trans activist claims on female sport) but they are worried that if they speak publicly, or even internally, they might face consequences at their club or at their work.
…
On Wednesday in the chamber, Senator Chandler returned to the 2019 trans-inclusion document from Sport Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission, which urges more than 16,000 sporting clubs covering nine million players to reorganise on the basis of self-identified “gender identity”, and not biological sex, as much as possible.
She said the chief executives of major sports had “completely taken leave of their senses” in going along with this.
“Full-contact sports (such as Rugby Australia, the AFL and ARL) have taken the position that women in their competitions had better brace themselves for a 30 per cent increase in their risk of injury so that administrators can pat themselves on the back for being inclusive.”
Being “inclusive” isn’t invariably the goal. It’s a stupid word and everyone should stop using it, because it depends. Democrats don’t have to be “inclusive” of Republicans, and vice versa. Tennis players don’t have to be “inclusive” of golfers. Bird watchers don’t have to be “inclusive” of hunters. We’re allowed to have our own interests and our own reality, and we don’t have to deny or suppress either one for the sake of being more “inclusive.” There are illegitimate reasons for excluding people from public spaces – women are well aware of this fact, believe me – but that doesn’t mean everything has to be inclusive of everyone regardless of particulars.
I love (as in, don’t love) the part where the labor senator assumes that the fact the Senator Chandler stands with JK Rowling means she is “getting her speeches from” JK Rowling. I support BLM; does that mean I “get my speeches” from BLM? Or is it possible I (and the Senator) are capable of thinking for ourselves, but in so doing come to the same conclusion as the individual/group we support?
This actually brings up something similar, where every environmental group is expected to include anti-environmentalists (hunters sometimes, but especially polluting businesses) in all their deliberations, considerations, and actions. The reverse is not true – the antis are not being told to be “inclusive” of what they are opposed to. This is a buzz word that frequently works as a one-way street.
Re #1, that’s a really good point about “get your speeches”. It sounds to me like projection from the “recite the woke mantras” crowd.
Years ago while arguing about global warming with someone they kept yammering about the problems with Al Gore’s movie and I kept trying to tell them I had never saw it and I didn’t care about its content. Proper research is yet another dead discipline these days.
This is bad: Albanese is going to take this chance to make Labor look progressive and different from the Liberals (when in fact they are not: they vote with the Liberals on everything, and are trying to capture the vote of the same right wing people).
I’ve been very concerned about how this erosion of women’s rights is quietly going ahead here and everyone congratulates themselves on how forward thinking they are. Good on Chandler for speaking up.
OT: Ophelia posted a bingo card by a transactivist on Twitter. All of the bingo points were from discussions on the Mumsnet Feminist Board. It’s both funny and scary – every concern raised is dismissed as transphobic.
I don’t get it. Why does mention of another person mean one is taking their cues from that person? Is it too much of a stretch to grant that two people arrived at the same thought independently? I see this all the time from the FTB crowd: those of us that comment at B&W also take our orders from here. And yet if you try the same logic with them – they comment on Pharyngula, therefore they are merely his lackeys – they will show that they know perfectly well that people can arrive at a blog out of independent thought.