Tag: sports

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Academics and researchers

An unethical, dangerous absurdity

Widening the legal definition of ‘woman’ to include men, particularly intact males, is an unethical, dangerous absurdity.

Voluntary social inclusion of transwomen by women is fine and good; coerced imposition by male people, regardless of presentation, on female people in situations where they are or expect to be able to be vulnerable (prisons, shelters, health care, changing rooms) is totalitarian and abhorrent.

Destroying fairness in women’s sport and wider representation makes a mockery out of women and our achievements.

I campaign on social media (Twitter) anonymously, I discuss the matter one-to-one with friends and colleagues.

I have not received any negative reactions in my private life, or from individual colleagues I have spoken with. I am careful, of course, but there is broad agreement among the people I have spoken with. I have received abuse on Twitter (like anyone does who speaks up) and I went to one WPUK (Woman’s Place UK) meeting that was mobbed by an angry, kicking, shouting crowd of trans activists.

‘Blob’, Academic anonymous

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Academics and researchers

As a young child, I was told that I could not participate in the sports that I loved because they were ‘not for girls’

I can’t begin to do justice to the importance of feminism and womanhood in my life. As a young child, I was told that I could not participate in the sports that I loved because they were ‘not for girls’. I have been overjoyed to see the strides made by women’s sport in the past 25 years, and that – on the whole – there are far more opportunities for girls to participate in sport than when I was growing up.

It breaks my heart to see these strides undermined simply to appease a small group of biological males who seek to ‘affirm their self-appointed gender’ by taking the hard-earned place of women in sport. I am devastated that women’s sporting history is being rewritten by people like Lauren Hubbard and Rachel McKinnon.

Girls and women are subject to all manner of abuse – mostly at the hands of men – and they fully deserve (and need) single-sex spaces in which to thrive and feel safe. Every woman knows what it is to feel unsafe and vulnerable, and no-one has the right to dismiss our concerns.

The idea that biological males can simply announce themselves female and enter women’s safe spaces is obscene. I have never felt more strongly about anything in my life.

It is a topic that I discuss with my partner and trusted friends on a daily basis. While I have engaged with some of the public debates on Twitter, I don’t feel that what I do is enough. I am in the difficult position of knowing that if I speak up, I will most likely lose my job – a prospect that I cannot afford to risk at the minute.

My work colleagues have extremely strong views on the ‘transgender’ issue, and regularly use offensive terms such as ‘TERF’ to publicly bully those with genuine concerns into silence. While I have never directly received such abuse, I know that if I were to be more vocal, I would be their next target.

K

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Academics and researchers

I am a competitive rower and I am concerned about possible future changes that would remove the level playing field for women in sport

This matters to me because I am a competitive rower and I am concerned about possible future changes that would remove the level playing field for women in sport. I have seen the physiological advantages of males over females in my sport and want to make sure women retain the right to compete against women.

I have begun speaking to friends about the issues surrounding transgender rights and activism, and the implications for women’s sport and women’s spaces in society.

However due to my field of work (academia) I am too scared of the professional implications to speak out more publicly.

R, Researcher

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Academics and researchers

Everyone I have spoken to about it in person finds the whole thing bonkers

I’m a female athlete so I first became aware of the issue of transwomen in sport when it was brought up in news articles reporting the Caster Semenya case. It was completely obvious to me that males shouldn’t be allowed to self ID into female sports from personal experience.

For example, I frequently finish in or near the top 3 women in competition but male friends who would be nowhere near the same level in the men’s category can beat me easily, or come very close even with relatively little training.

From following a few people who spoke about that issue, I read articles about the impact self ID could have in other areas of life and found myself getting more and more frustrated with the lack of consideration for women’s rights.

I have talked to numerous friends and family about the issue. I follow many GC people on twitter and like tweets but find myself too scared to retweet or comment publicly.

I’m nearly finished a PhD and I’m worried about how publicly holding these views would affect my career prospects.

Everyone I have spoken to about it in person finds the whole thing bonkers. Often other people bring up the males in women’s sports issue with me because they find the whole thing so crazy.

HG, PhD candidate and athlete

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Others

I believe women are being bullied and silenced

I care about the physical safety and dignity of women and girls and I think this is jeopardised by self ID and I think it is wrong that we are  being asked to take this risk to appease trans women.  Single sex spaces should be preserved. 

I care about fairness for women in all fields and consider that women and girls face a loss of opportunity in sports and perhaps at work and in education if their places are being taken by males who identify as women.

I am worried that health issues arising from biological sex ie pregnancy and birth, ante and post natal depression, menopause etc may be impacted when male bodied people identifying as women access services designed for females. I believe women are being bullied and silenced, and asked to “be kind” at best. This is unfair. It is important that we are allowed to defend our sex-based rights. Without a recognition of our biology we may lose these rights which is what concerns me most of all.

At the moment not a great deal but I have talked to family and friends and I have started to make my views known on social media. It feels dangerous.

I have been criticized in twitter. A follower of mine whose son is a trans man said something very unpleasant about how I should worry that my husband was raping my daughters if I was so concerned about sharing bathrooms with men.

LAK, For women and  girls

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Academics and researchers

It feels as if all of my struggles for equality have been thrown in the bin

I have been a feminist for forty years. I have had to share a work bathroom with a trans person who is a stereotype of femininity and gets lauded by colleagues for their stiletto shoes and fishnet tights and mini skirt. It feels as if all of my struggles for equality have been thrown in the bin. I care about the safety of women and girls in sport, prison, school, the toilets . . .

I have engaged lightly on social media, I have spoken fully with friends and have attended women’s meetings behind closed doors.

I know one of my colleagues (a ‘trans-ally’) is aware of my views and I’m sure has been responsible for tearing down flyers I have put up outside my office (from Women’s groups such as WPUK) and replacing them with trans flag flyers.

TREA, Lecturer

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Academics and researchers

Women can never fully escape the consequences of their reproductive role

This matters to me because after embracing feminist beliefs for my entire adult life I have now accepted that women can never fully escape the consequences of their reproductive role. This does not make women inherently weak or vulnerable (far from it), but in patriarchal societies it does create periods of economic dependency (on individual men or women or on the state, in which patriarchal concepts of citizenship are deeply embedded) and has longer-term consequences for how women are positioned in the labour market and treated in society.

It is not possible to fully escape biological reality. However, what feminism can do-and has done-is to ameliorate as far as possible the social, economic, political and legal consequences of this through legislation (women’s rights/women’s human rights) and by working to change socially and culturally embedded ideas about gender and gender roles. 

Transgender ideology, and self-ID specifically, puts all these gain in jeopardy. On an intellectual level, I understand Butler’s (et al) purpose -and intent-in arguing that sex is a social construct.

However, a wishful idealism that denies material reality is doomed to fail. The political project is thus naive, yet jeopardises all the concrete gains made by feminists over decades of struggle.

In so far as it challenges all boundaries, it can also enable bad actors that pose a risk to vulnerable groups.

I work in a university, most closely with feminist colleagues sympathetic to Queer Theory. I am generally supportive of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion agenda. However, I have spoken out publicly (email, meetings) about the dangers of this agenda being  hijacked and I have publicly spoken out against no platforming.

Interestingly, some Queer Theory/feminist colleagues have told me privately that they agree with me, so too a Non Binary colleague who now believes that no platforming is not the way to resolve this conflict. That’s good enough for me.

If we can have public debate, free from intimidation, I believe gender critical feminists will prevail and we can then move on to a constructive discussion on how to tackle the discrimination faced by trans people, without sacrificing women’s sex-based rights.

I have outed myself twice on Twitter (were I am not anonymous), with no serious consequences for me,  but I generally do not engage on Twitter on this or any other matter. Anonymity removes accountability for comments posted and the growing factionalism and polarisation squeezes out moderate voices.

I accept that engagement on social media was necessary when MSM (Mainstream Media) and politicians wouldn’t touch the issue and I admire the courage of those who have spoken out at great cost to themselves during this time. However, I fear the debate on Twitter is now so toxic that it is better to utilize other spaces and possibilities for discussion, more of which are opening up as the tide turns in the favour of gender criticals (in the UK at least).

I resigned from the Labour Party over the Woman’s Place debacle. I have written to the Labour Party about the issue. I have supported numerous crowd funders.

Any backlash was likely to come from trans and non binary colleagues and students, but it hasn’t happened (yet) and, as above, some colleagues have told me privately they agree with me. One non binary student approached me after a lecture and complained about my “cis language.” I invited them to talk to me later when we had more time to discuss their concerns. I feared an official complaint was in the offing, but I never heard from them again.

That said, I do not feel that I can be completely honest about my views. To the extent that I actively self-police, I acknowledge that there is still a problem and we have some way to go. We all need to engage with our colleagues respectfully and with civility, but it is necessary to air important matters in ways that do not obfuscate the issues. This is not happening in my institution or indeed across my wider feminist network. Instead, both sides are dealing with the conflict by not confronting it.

I am also experiencing this on a personal level. I know my daughter agrees with me on certain issues-e.g. that trans participation with decimate women’s sport and that bad actors will exploit self-ID in ways that put women at risk. However, she lives in one of the Wokiest cities in the UK where most of her friends and much of her social support comes from her LGBT network. We have discussed in the past, but recently she has asked me not to talk to her about this (a way of not confronting her own feelings, I think) and so we don’t, even as we are very close and can talk openly about just about any other subject.

Annys, Academic

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Academics and researchers

I am being asked to deny my life experience

I am an Adult Human Female. Sex-based oppression is real; my experience as a human being of the Female Sex IS my life.

When a Man insists that he is a Woman because he says so, I am being lied to. I am being asked to lie. I am being asked to lie about what I can see in front of me. I am being asked to deny my life experience.

This GREAT UNTRUTH harms Women and Girls.

Sex (Male/Female) is our biological, material reality: it’s why an estimated (ref UN) 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone some form of genital mutilation.

Gender is a set of constructs and stereotypes: it’s why little boys are dressed in blue.

When we conflate the meaning of Feminine Gender with the Female Sex, decades of Women’s suffrage is eroded.

In my opinion as a Lecturer in the Arts and Humanities, this ‘great untruth’ is located most conspicuously in the general conflation of the words ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’. The ‘great untruth’ and its advocates have quietly confused and manipulated our foremost legal, cultural and educational UK institutions. Squeamishness against using the word ‘Sex’ to denote sex is an innocuous reason for this conflation.

A deeper analysis and understanding of Gender Ideology and its philosophical beginnings, in particular, can offer a genuine insight into its hold (for anyone who actually cares to unpick its message). So educators like me have to be careful at the moment – I could be reprimanded or ‘no platformed’ for questioning the practical need for same-Sex toilets or pointing out my unease . I have been warned several times of ‘stirring up trouble’….

There are practical reasons why Women have Sex-based protections; the most obvious is Safeguarding and there is overwhelming, uncomfortable and compelling evidence that Women clearly need protection from Men. The uncomfortable truth is that Women need Sex-based protections and the Equalities Act went some way to provide it.

In practical terms, if a Man can self-identify into Womanhood, the protections in the Equalities Act become meaningless. Our Sex-based Sports, Sex-based toilets, Sex-based changing rooms, Scholarships, Bursaries, Women of the Year Awards, Women & Girls’ Health and the actual word for Women are being blindly co-opted.

Philosophically,  I believe Women are being ‘deconstructed’. As any good Academic will tell you, when you deconstruct an image, a word, an idea, it becomes meaningless.

The thing is, Women are not an image, a Word or an idea. Women are Human Beings and our reality is located in practicalities.

The ‘great untruth’ does not require the default Adult Human Male to do anything. Adult Human Males are not required to accept or safeguard other Adult Human Males who wear Feminine Gendered clothing or make-up, or who undergo life-changing surgery to appear as a Feminine construct. It means that Adult Human Males do not have to confront their part in why Women need practical Sex-based protections.

I have (and probably) will continue to receive death threats for exposing the ‘great untruth’ – Men cannot ‘change’ into Women.

Louisa Jones, Film Lecturer

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Education

Management was in a panic

I have always  been gender non conforming  tomboy STEM moterbike guitars /female band  and back in the 70 womens lib but it wasnt until I accidentally stumbled on Dr Jane Clare Jones that I realised  in a deeper way  that it wasn’t that I liked “boy”things but that labelling those things  male was part of a patriarchal system. It made me realise how important language is and that removing language that enables us to express our oppression manacle us more firmly “in our place” in a way that many won’t even notice or if they do will be unable to articulate

My experience at work was of a young autistic teen  X who was accused of Transphobia by a class mate Y (who sometimes came in as male sometimes presented as female ). Because X stared at them.

X said he didnt feel he was Transphobic it just made him feel funny that Y kept changing (name as well as clothes) his autism was ignored. There were a lot of demands being made by Y re toilets etc also at odds with our large female Muslim students rights.

Management was in a panic . Transphobia is apparently the worst of crimes

I have taken part in twitter/ discussion with friends/some work mates to raise awareness

I haven’t had any consequences because most people I’ve spoken to think the idea that a man can really be a woman/access women’s spaces /sports is completely mad or were unaware of it and recognise the consequences immediately. I haven’t  spoken out on one FB account  though because that account is a  partially music account to promote bands. I have on the other. 

Sophia, Musician, Maths lecturer

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Academics and researchers

I’ve submitted evidence to official inquiries, lobbied politicians, talked to journalists

I care about this because the policies being pushed will have a damaging effect on the dignity, privacy and safety of my daughter, my elderly mother, me and all other women, including our ability to refuse without penalty to be seen undressed or intimately touched by a male, and will displace women from activities (eg sport, shortlists) designed specifically to overcome disadvantages based on sex, and also involve the forced denial of reality and the forced expression of  beliefs I don’t hold.

I’ve submitted evidence to official inquiries, lobbied politicians,  talked to journalists, written and appeared in the media, met officials, written academic articles.  Mostly national level inervention – some cautious local representation to school and guides.

I (as part of a group of writers or speakers related to particular events or publications, not as an individual) have been written about in extremely derogatory ways as hateful/unsafe/anti-trans, on university-hosted websites, blogs and social media, and in communications to the Scottish parliament, and subject to appalling treatment by one organisation I won’t describe here because we are still thinking how best to make it better known.

Lucy Hunter Blackburn, Researcher and policy analyst