"People [from left liberal America] who hate or devalue sports culture will be far more likely to approve of erasing women to make room for Lia Thomas." Yeah, this has been my experience with people I know. It's nothing burger to them because they see the sports world as corrupt and unfair and capitalistic and unhealthy for kids. From their perspective, it all should be burned to the ground anyway--which (huh!) is also their response to putting male rapists in women's prison. Because "the entire system" is so horrible, they don't have to be accountable for making it so much worse...for who? For WOMEN. It's easy for them to keep their view of the "trans woman" as the most marginalized and therefore deserving of any advantage or accommodation. Conveniently, they cannot see it as cheating. They shed no tears for Riley, who in their eyes is just a privileged cis white chick, worthy of being taken down. It's horrible and makes me feel crazy sometimes.
Yeah, me too. It's an amazing "snapshot" of the issue--the man towering with a complacent smile holding the first place trophy. The woman in 2nd place with her hands together in gratitude, smiling with her head tilted, the picture of submission. I wonder how she really felt, how she feels now, when she should have won the race. The woman in 3rd place with the cowboy hat who (as I recall from the news back then) believes she is a man or nonbinary, when she is simply a cowboy hat wearing kinda WOMAN. So much is wrong with this picture.
"She's a Boy," the first single off Whistle's new gender-critical EP, addresses this issue. "Lia Thomas was a girl who swam a race, she had the biggest feet, the hair shaved off her face. But if you saw her leaping from the block that day, you'd swear she's something that you're not allowed to say."
Another well-researched and insightful article. Thanks, Matt.
It's hard for me to agree, though, with the notion that people who don't value sports would necessarily feel less strongly about fairness. I think even people who don't appreciate (or know, firsthand) the outsized value of sports to girls and women (in particular), usually resonate with fairness as a value, and oppose the unfair advantage males have in competing against females.
My problem remains understanding why any woman with any smarts would support gender ideology, when it so obviously values males (though dressed up as victims, a strategy that seems particularly effective with women) over females. Internalized misogyny is the answer at which I keep arriving; to think it exists to such a degree is chilling.
I am not the only one who has observed that "sports suck" cohabits with "let men cheat at sports" very well. It is not absolute, however. You are correct that many women "see" a poor, woebegotten angel of a transwoman rather than a man cheating at sports. They are still following a fairness heuristic, though a twisted and false one.
It might be true in "left liberal America" that people who "hate or devalue" sports culture "will be far more likely to approve of erasing women to make room for Lia Thomas".
Well I'm from the UK, am a Green for nearly 40 years and a lifetime Lefty, and have zero interest in sport. But as a female, and as a feminist, I'm outraged by the inclusion of Lia Thomas in the Penn U swimming team: and by the trophies he has effectively stolen from female athletes like Riley Gaines.
His "wins" are essentially meaningless: female athletic records cannot be "broken" by males.
By following Coach Blade I have two favourite graphs from Zippy International, showing the range of times of male and female performances in two competitive swimming events. These demonstrate neatly how screamingly unfair it is that an average male athlete is allowed to compete in and win female events.
And these graphs are particularly useful for scotching feeble pro-trans arguments for "diversity and inclusion" in battles on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
And this genitally intact, 6'4" trans-identified male's abuse of female privacy in the locker room and showers, is something else again.
"People [from left liberal America] who hate or devalue sports culture will be far more likely to approve of erasing women to make room for Lia Thomas." Yeah, this has been my experience with people I know. It's nothing burger to them because they see the sports world as corrupt and unfair and capitalistic and unhealthy for kids. From their perspective, it all should be burned to the ground anyway--which (huh!) is also their response to putting male rapists in women's prison. Because "the entire system" is so horrible, they don't have to be accountable for making it so much worse...for who? For WOMEN. It's easy for them to keep their view of the "trans woman" as the most marginalized and therefore deserving of any advantage or accommodation. Conveniently, they cannot see it as cheating. They shed no tears for Riley, who in their eyes is just a privileged cis white chick, worthy of being taken down. It's horrible and makes me feel crazy sometimes.
“Your daughters will lose to transgender athletes and you will like it” was not the flex they thought it would be.
“Bow to the man in the dress, bitch.”
It’s not annoying fucktard coworkers, it’s not castrating little boys, it’s sssssssssssports
But we’ll have to take it.
That photo burns me up.
Yeah, me too. It's an amazing "snapshot" of the issue--the man towering with a complacent smile holding the first place trophy. The woman in 2nd place with her hands together in gratitude, smiling with her head tilted, the picture of submission. I wonder how she really felt, how she feels now, when she should have won the race. The woman in 3rd place with the cowboy hat who (as I recall from the news back then) believes she is a man or nonbinary, when she is simply a cowboy hat wearing kinda WOMAN. So much is wrong with this picture.
IIRC Riley Gaines talked about both that person and her friend in the photo, they are not the same swimmer. It is still very wrong.
"She's a Boy," the first single off Whistle's new gender-critical EP, addresses this issue. "Lia Thomas was a girl who swam a race, she had the biggest feet, the hair shaved off her face. But if you saw her leaping from the block that day, you'd swear she's something that you're not allowed to say."
whistle.bandzoogle.com
Like most academics who spend all their time with their colleagues and children (aka students), Z Nicolazzo needs to get out more.
Another well-researched and insightful article. Thanks, Matt.
It's hard for me to agree, though, with the notion that people who don't value sports would necessarily feel less strongly about fairness. I think even people who don't appreciate (or know, firsthand) the outsized value of sports to girls and women (in particular), usually resonate with fairness as a value, and oppose the unfair advantage males have in competing against females.
My problem remains understanding why any woman with any smarts would support gender ideology, when it so obviously values males (though dressed up as victims, a strategy that seems particularly effective with women) over females. Internalized misogyny is the answer at which I keep arriving; to think it exists to such a degree is chilling.
I am not the only one who has observed that "sports suck" cohabits with "let men cheat at sports" very well. It is not absolute, however. You are correct that many women "see" a poor, woebegotten angel of a transwoman rather than a man cheating at sports. They are still following a fairness heuristic, though a twisted and false one.
It might be true in "left liberal America" that people who "hate or devalue" sports culture "will be far more likely to approve of erasing women to make room for Lia Thomas".
Well I'm from the UK, am a Green for nearly 40 years and a lifetime Lefty, and have zero interest in sport. But as a female, and as a feminist, I'm outraged by the inclusion of Lia Thomas in the Penn U swimming team: and by the trophies he has effectively stolen from female athletes like Riley Gaines.
His "wins" are essentially meaningless: female athletic records cannot be "broken" by males.
By following Coach Blade I have two favourite graphs from Zippy International, showing the range of times of male and female performances in two competitive swimming events. These demonstrate neatly how screamingly unfair it is that an average male athlete is allowed to compete in and win female events.
And these graphs are particularly useful for scotching feeble pro-trans arguments for "diversity and inclusion" in battles on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
And this genitally intact, 6'4" trans-identified male's abuse of female privacy in the locker room and showers, is something else again.