February 14, 2024 - 5:40pm
The idea of fairness in sport is difficult to oppose. We’ve all seen pictures of strapping blokes towering over women on podiums, grinning as they steal female records. It’s quite a problem, if your purpose is to promote the idea that men should be able to do whatever they like, including invading the women’s category in sports.
The answer, as a national newspaper has just demonstrated, is twofold. First of all, you need to deflect, insisting this isn’t really about sport at all. It’s actually about a much more sinister goal, moving from sport to a “sunlit horizon in which… trans people can be legislated out of existence entirely”, according to sports writer Jonathan Liew in the Guardian.
Who knew? It begins with an innocent-sounding campaign about a 5km fun run and heads inexorably towards — I don’t know, but it sounds incredibly serious. One minute women are demanding that men should be excluded from holding female records in parkrun, the next they’ll be demanding total trans erasure.
If that sounds a bit iffy — never fear. Liew isn’t actually blaming the women who’ve raised the issue politely, week after week. No, apparently, women’s anger is “being whipped up and exploited by malign actors, the media and politicians on the reactionary right, to advance causes that go well beyond the remit of women’s sport”.
He’s so pleased with this smear — sorry, obviously I should have said “argument” — that he doubled down with a post on X: ‘a mysterious right-wing think-tank takes an abrupt interest in Parkrun. useful idiots in the media do their bidding. now, this thing that hardly anyone cared about before has grown into a sinister campaign,’ Liew wrote.
The only evidence for this calumny is a report from a Right-wing think tank, Policy Exchange, criticising Parkrun for allowing trans-identified men to compete with women. The notion that feminists, many of whom are on the Left, take direction from Policy Exchange is laughable.
But then commentators, not least of all JK Rowling, quickly pointed out that Liew has form, previously imagining a world in which all women’s sporting records are taken by trans-identified men. “Why would that be bad?” he asked in the Independent. “Imagine the power of a trans child or teenager seeing a trans athlete on the top step of the Olympic podium. In a way, it would be inspiring”’. Not if you’re a woman, it wouldn’t — and I have a sneaking suspicion about who is being erased here.
Sadly, the Guardian appears to have a limitless appetite for publishing this kind of nonsense. If I was told, 20 years ago, that the Guardian would one day become a cheerleader for a profoundly misogynist ideology, I would not have believed it. I would have said that its pioneering women’s page had been edited by journalists of the calibre of Mary Stott and Jill Tweedie.
Not anymore. Women are transphobic, according to some of the paper’s most prominent writers, merely by existing and insisting that biology matters. How have the mighty have fallen.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She has been Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board since 2013. Her book Homegrown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists was published in 2019.
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SubscribeI have to say, his article is something to behold.
Btw, I like the way he spelt his last name. It took me a while to click 😀
It is quite spectacular, but someone, somewhere, will have read it and now be full of rage and froth at the horrific oppression.
Ya. It’s all clickbait and pandering to your subscriber base. It happens on the right as well, no question, but the left dominates the regime media so there is a profound power imbalance in narrative creation.
You know when you’re dealing with ideologues when there is never room for nuanced discussion.
We still have the case in Canada of a 50 year old university prof repeatedly competing against teenage girls in swimming events and changing in their dressing room. The story is absolutely absurd, but it gets virtually no coverage in the regime media.
Ugh that is disgusting
Why are the adults (regardless of gender) competing against teenagers? And why are they sharing changing rooms? Have there been any instances of untoward behaviour other than being a little weird in your eyes?
Why does anyone other than amateur teenage swimmers care about amateur teenage swimming?
Is it really headline news that the media should be reporting on every day? I know things are slow in Canada but still…
Your weird and important are completely different to mine. This is a canary in the coal mine.
No, you’re right. Nobody’s bothered by paedophilia these days.
If Stammer gets in it will become compulsory
Greetings Jonathan Swift, have an upvote with my compliments.
He identifies as a 13 year old girl (but not when he gets into his car and drives off). This is perfectly acceptable to Swimming Canada & Swim Ontario. His name is Nicholas Cepeda, who goes by the name `Melody Wiseheart’, he is a professor in the psychology department at York University.
And he gets to keep his practicing licence while Peterson loses his.
A Yorkie, natch…kaffiyeh compulsory.
Why does anyone other than amateur teenage swimmers care about amateur teenage swimming?..Howabout the vast majority of parents whose children engage in sport-are you really that removed from reality????
Maybe the prof ‘identifies as’ a teenager.
How a relatively minor cohort in the world’s population holds such power, and is allowed to wield it with such impunity (as the lawmakers cower in the shadows), is staggering! I grew up in an era of ‘across the board inequality’ – it was ‘a man’s world’ ! Now, in this ‘trans world’, we see, time and time again, hard won rights of equality and protection for women being trashed – by biologically enabled men in frocks. It’s a nightmarish version of ‘The emperor has no clothes!’
Perhaps it’s time feminists woke up to the fact that the Left doesn’t want them.
Perhaps it’s time women woke up to the fact that the Left doesn’t want them.
They do want them, but in a way that is unfettered by tradition, social rules or conventions. The consumer-slave state prefers bimbofied women who can be exploited and commodified. Male to female transgenderism is similar in design but aimed at low-status men.
I think we’re talking about slightly different senses of “want”, but take your point.
Perhaps some feminists are hoping it might not be too late to wake up the men on the Left who have forgotten what socialism is, what materialism is, what biology is, and that they were once the political group that ‘got’ how important it was to recognise and counter the disadvantage women face in this society. Those of us who’ve been left-wing all our lives aren’t about to change our work towards a better world for all.
“might not be too late to wake up the men on the Left” A very significant proportion of those who need to be woken up are women!
A lot of the people who are commenting here and elsewhere disgusted by how far gender ideology has been allowed to go in ruining everybody’s lives are men. Sadly it is typical misandrist feminist behaviour to ignore the fact that the majority of men see it as part of their role to protect women and children. When it comes to things like this and violence against women, it is those decent men who should be seen as the feminists strongest allies. By persisting with their misandry, feminists do themselves and the cause no favours whatsoever.
“Those of us who’ve been left-wing all our lives aren’t about to change our work towards a better world for all.”
Dear God! How pious and patronising! Don’t ‘right-wing’ people also aspire towards a better world for all? It is the divisive, judgemental worldview of people of your ilk that has created the uniforming, inequality and exclusion in this horrendous Woke Era.
There’s a satirical t-shirt you can buy on the internet which reads:
The Guardian: Wrong about everything. All the time.
Its pretty much all I could think of as I read Mr Liew’s cavalcade of bad faith arguments and half-truths this morning.
Why do you bother to read it in the first place?
Reason? Known thine enemy!
Mostly because I’m a firm believer that one should read widely and seek out opinions you disagree with. Otherwise how can you test out the resilience of your own views and how do you know why you disagree with others?
I also still enjoy some of the sports coverage and some of the writers, e.g. Jay Raynor’s restaurant reviews.
There’s a reason why the word ‘right’ is used to describe people on the right.
“If I was told, 20 years ago, that the Guardian would one day become a cheerleader for a profoundly misogynist ideology, I would not have believed it.”
And herein lies a big part of how we got here, I suggest.
The misogyny, hypocrisy, intolerance and abandonment of reason by the progressive Left has always been hiding in plain sight. It was inevitable that they would turn on their own at some point.
But too many self-styled progressives didn’t want to see it (and still don’t) because pointing it out meant being seen to be “on the wrong side of history” and aligned with the unspeakables.
It’s the sheer lack of self awareness of the progressive Left I continue to find bewildering
Free speech and all that but isn’t it time to ban the Guardian?
No. Free speech also applies to people I disagree with. That’s the price of it.
At least the Grauniad is free, so you don’t have to pay a price for it.
I understand the pitfalls of the paradox of tolerance, but at the same time there is something rather attractive about the idea of repaying fascists in their own coin.
The reality is there is no such thing a s free speech. Try expressing a verboten opinion in a private chat
That was sarcasm…
If this dork had actually been to parkrun, he’d know that it’s as competitive as you want it to be. For most of us, most of the time, it isn’t. That’s what makes it – dare I say it – so inclusive. And you’re mainly competing against yourself. But sometimes, for some people it can be. More serious runners do tend to be competitive after all.
But no – it’s not allowed to be competitive, because he says so. The Guardian – quite literally leading the race to the bottom – which is where you’ll get if you reject competition and excellence.
Finally, another article that starts with a lie:
“The idea of fairness in sport is difficult to oppose.”
Sport isn’t about fairness ! Fair play sometimes. But fairness – no.
That’s one of the stand out bits of dishonesty in the article. Liew dismisses the competitiveness of Parkrun because it has “minimal apparatus of competition”, but doesn’t say what that actually is.
I’ve done almost 200 Parkruns. At every single one the front of the “grid” was taken up with good competitive runners who were trying to beat each other. Everyone’s times and finishing places are recorded and published relative to each other and to their age grading. Fastest course times are noted.
Park run isn’t competitive if you don’t want it to be. But to say it isn’t competitive for the better runners is horseshit.
Exactly. It works so well because there’s a good balance between the <10% running competitively and the vast majority running for fun/fitness/social reasons. If there were no times, no age categories and no age grading it wouldn’t work. I think the non-competitive runners like the feeling that there’s some more serious running going on.
Someone comes up with a truly inclusive, community activity (which also appeals to all ages) like parkrun and somehow the DEI tribe still find “problems” with it. It’s just a bit of innocent fun really. But the puritans won’t allow that.
Also we can tell its really, really competitive to the <10% because the minute Park Run remove all the records from their website, men lose their absolute shit and start abusing the women who have been arguing that its unfair for men-who-identify-as-women to take their records and places.
“I think the non-competitive runners like the feeling that there’s some more serious running going on.”
Thanks, that’s exactly how I feel. I’m certainly not competitive, but very much enjoy looking at the competitive statistics; or at least I did until I found out about the trannies muscling in on the competitive women.
Very well said. I don’t suppose any runners were consulted by Parkrun as to what they wanted. Another spineless committee decision pandering to the deluded narcists.
Fair comment in the main, but what you a cite as a “lie” isn’t – and the “lie” trope is just a bit too overdone. It’s simply mistaken.
Women who compete against men are volunteering to ruin their sports. Sure, they face social pressure to put up with this madness, but women could put an end to it almost immediately by walking away whenever a man tries to compete against them. It’s up to the women. They must stop volunteering for DEI.
https://erikhildinger.substack.com/p/volunteering-for-dei
You cannot be serious.
I am quite serious. Imagine a man running around a race track all alone in front of a crowd of thousands while the women stand among the starting blocks. This would take the fun out of the event– at least in the conventional sense. When he stands alone on the victory platform with no one to either side in second and third place, how could anyone take his “accomplishment” seriously? This might have to happen a dozen times but, in my view, this would do more for women’s sports than a thousand legal protests or a thousand reasoned essays. Imagine the effect of videos of these single “competitor” travesties flooding the Internet.
Remember Alinsky’s Rule No. 5: ”Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then reacts to your advantage.”
Women shouldn’t have to sacrifice their sports, and locker rooms, and Facebook groups, whenever a man shows up and demands entry.
As a man, if I saw an obvious dude, dressed however they are, try to walk into the women’s bathroom I would try and stop them by informing them, shaming them, even blocking their way if I had to, and would never insist or blame women for not trying to do the same thing (indeed, much of the reason for this situation is both the physical imbalance that men have over women as well as men’s proclivities towards violence when women stand up to them). We should be doing the same thing when we see men trying to compete in women’s sports, and letting actual women who have been training hard crack on with their commitment to sport.
Please see my comment in response to Leslie Van Reenan’s reply to me. I am suggesting a form of non-confrontational sabotage in reply to the trans-sabotage of women’s sports.
‘This might have to happen a dozen times’
So hundreds of women (if we assume eight competitors per heat of every swimming or track race) have to sacrifice their hopes and dreams of competing against each other and in front of their families and friends in the hopes that mediocre trans-identified-men might feel enough shame to finally stop claiming rewards that don’t belong to them? Will (Lia) Thomas was booed at the NCAA championships after claiming a national title, but that shame isn’t stopping him from suing to be allowed into women’s swimming at the Olympics.
Women should not have to sabotage anything when all it would take is for the vast, vast majority of us men who believe in fair sports to actually stand up for that against the members of our own sex who make a mockery of it.
Joan Smith, there is nothing I can add. You’ve captured it perfectly. My favourite line? Hard to choose, you wrote so many great lines here, but I’ll go with the Guardian being a “cheerleader for a profoundly misogynist ideology”. So very true.
My sincere appreciation to the writer for not using the term trans-woman for men who think they are women. “Trans-identified men” is a term much closer to what it describes, I do still have a little problem with the word “identified” which comes from the woke vocabulary (wokabulary?). When you claim to be X (and you are not), you are either lying or are mentally disturbed. When you “identify as” something you are not, you miraculously become it. Or at least we are supposed to accept that, or else the name calling becomes. They will identify you as a bigot and, sadly, as long as they have power over you, you will be treated as one.
I take your point, but quarantining phrases like “transwomen” inside quote marks is simpler and serves the purpose in my opinion.
A better and more accurate word is “transvestite”.
True.
How about “trans-fabulated”.
when I hear the term “identifying as” I always think of all those men in the movie identifying as Spartacus. Spolier alert: they weren’t all Spartacus.
Very simple, folX:. Pretend-woman.
The Guardian newspaper erases transvestites – a category of person deemed no longer to exist – and then declares that it is mysterious right-wing groups who want to erase trans people.
Indeed, and it as bad as those who want to see all trans women / trans identified men as transvestites. Transvestites have a fetish about wearing women’s clothes, they are closely aligned with AGPs but those 2 are not the same thing either.
This men’s rights movement is a battleground for the contemporary Left unrepentant about their post-Marxist cultural turn.
I see this as the Guardian publishing yet another trolling non article and a GC feminist biting on it, which would be what the author hoped for when he wrote it.
The case against men being able to compete as women in professional sport is pretty obvious to most ordinary people. The harm this does to women’s sport both for the participants and public interest in watching it (the reason why women’s sport is nowhere near as lucrative as men’s sport is because far fewer people are interested in watching it) are also obvious to most people and it is a sad indictment of our time that it has taken many sporting bodies so long to recognise it. Some sporting bodies still have not and therefore it is valid to continue raising the issue with them until they do.
The case at amateur level however is about safety. At the individual amateur event level, where there is no safety issue, it should be up to the organisers. They should make whatever the position is very clear in advance so those who object to it enough can decide not to take part, but let those who are not fussed take part without guilt or harassment. Amateur sport is about doing it for the love of it.
School sport is a different case again, as there is an indoctrination element at work beyond simple safety and fairness aspects. The government has finally provided some non statutory guidance, which is going through consultation at the moment. I don’t think it is too far of the mark, but anyone who thinks it might be should read it and take part in the consultation.
Amateur sport has the same ethos as professional sport; financial benefit being the sole difference. Being able to compete fairly is paramount to ALL levels of sport. Men are not welcome in women only events, under any circumstances; including those with DSD’s. Sorry Caster, it may be sad but you are genetically, physiologically, anatomically (except for the lack of external genitalia), hormonally, and psychologically a male and should only be competing in the male category.
‘If I was told, 20 years ago…”
Ms Smith means “If I had been told…”,
The acceptance of the idea that men make the best and most authentic women is the greatest achievement yet in our society’s 60 year struggle against clear thinking. But among the lesser ones is the removal of the subjunctive mood from the English language. We have almost added the removal of the pluperfect tense.
‘
Sadly this ideology has introduced so many linguistic distortions, which at some stage do need need to be rolled back (I see countering the real harm being done to women and children as the top priority), the fight for the general use of proper English will never get back in the front seat. Split infinitives are a pet hate of mine, but I just let them pass more and more often.
the flood of misinformation and poor journalism coming out of the Guardian on issues of sex and sexuality is becoming truly spectacular: just yesterday there was a review that claimed that a man with a wife and children, who also had sex with men, was gay and not bisexual.
A famous quote comes to mind – “There are lies, damned lies and articles in the Guardian.”
An article in The Guardian so awful it demands to be read.
Liew certainly foes ‘have form’ in spades. He is one of the most gratuitously offensive ‘journalists’ in the country, one suspects quite deliberately, for shock value.
Trans is a mental illness and should be treated as such and not indulged in any way as it is counter to every enlightened principle we have.
Parkrun should be closed and a new Biological Parkrun opened.
“sunlit horizon in which… trans people can be legislated out of existence entirely” – Good idea, BTW
It has been muted by the Parkrun organisers that their events are not ‘races’ so individual times are not important. To imply this is to fly in the face of what competitive sport is all about. I used to run marathons and, just like the vast, vast majority of people, I had absolutely zero chance of winning. What spurred me on in my training was the notion that I could hopefully beat my own PB and also compare myself to other competitors in my own category to see where I was placed; a race within a race, in effect.
Parkrun know this all too well but has taken the worst, and cowardly option, by not excluding MEN from the women’s category. Shame on them.
I’m pretty sure that the numbers participating in Parkrun will reduce dramatically unless they listen to what the majority of people want and reverse their stance, instead of taking what is obviously a political decision which kowtows to the trans activists.