September 1, 2023 - 11:30am
For a while, I thought: “why aren’t they more embarrassed? When male sportspeople barge into female categories, stealing places on teams and prizes reserved for women, why don’t they feel a bit, well, ashamed?”
It was one of the reasons I — along, I suspect, with many others — considered male intrusion on female sports unlikely to be a consequence of gender self-ID. However else it might be misused, surely no one would wish to stand on a podium looking so petty, so selfish and so deluded. If sports is about pride, wouldn’t that just be too degrading?
It has just been announced that Danielle McGahey, a biological male, will represent Canada as the first trans cricketer in an official international women’s match. What’s more, McGahey isn’t remotely ashamed to be stealing the place of an elite female cricketer. All the rules have been followed: blood tests, declarations of gender identity, and all the rest. As long as a series of arbitrary hoops — none of which turn males into females — can be jumped through, McGahey assumes the right to pose as the injured party should anyone object.
The cricketer follows Lia Thomas, Veronica Ivy, Laurel Hubbard, Lindsay Hecox, Hannah Mouncey and CeCé Telfer. Objection to any exclusion of male people from female categories has been recast as trans people not being allowed to play at all. In tandem, it has transpired that women themselves are to be considered petty and selfish for complaining. Turns out we sceptics had a lot to learn.
The inclusion of male people in female sporting categories may not be the most important feminist battle, but it could be the most instructive. It exposes the degree to which people will bend, twist and outright deny everything we know about human biology to ensure that the same half of the human race gets whatever it wants.
We all know that women are not just men with lower testosterone. We all know that having a female gender identity (whatever that means) has no influence on one’s ability to run a race or kick a ball. Nonetheless, we have been obliged to pretend otherwise, lest one look — God forbid! — like a bigot who just doesn’t want to play on a team with someone whose haircut doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth.
Over the past few years, women have fought hard to defend and reclaim their own sports. All the while, they have been vilified by those who are nominally in favour of smashing the gender binary, but consider “winning” an inappropriate priority for anyone lacking a penis.
Recently, World Athletics, International Rugby League, Fina and British Cycling have been among those finally making moves to protect female categories. Given the historical exclusion of women from top-level sports, it’s a disgrace that these battles had to be fought at all, let alone that any wins for women continue to be framed as “bans” on trans people.
McGahey’s selection is grossly unfair. Then again, it’s an unfairness that is in keeping with the boorish side of male sporting culture, not least its desire to keep women in their place. If McGahey can be proud of anything, it is not challenging gender norms, but reinforcing them. There’s nothing binary-smashing about misrepresenting sex differences in order to take things which don’t belong to you.
McGahey claims not to have had any backlash “for just expressing who I am”. But what’s meant by that? Having long hair and calling yourself Danielle? Or behaving in a way that is completely in line with your sex’s disregard for female boundaries? Either way, why should anyone be surprised?
When you have a male body and compete against women, any prizes you win are for shamelessness, not sporting prowess. You show who you really are. The trouble — for women, at least — is how many people don’t care, just so long as the same sex gets to win.
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SubscribeI am in my 50’s, the latter end. I work with many women in their 20’s and 30’s, and they are fully supportive of all this nonsense, whilst considering themselves feminists. Somedays, I fear my head might explode at the irrationality of it all. Many of them also have toddler daughters. I am a teacher, so I dare not speak my mind, for I could well get fired for it.
I blame the media in large part because stories about what is actually happening to women in single sex spaces – a rape in an Ontario homeless shelter by a man identifying as a woman – are never reported. You have to search for the truth. Trans people, especially the males, are always painted as these wilting flowers – M Butterfly in the opera. The truth is there are plenty of predators.
Only 10 percent of trans identifying males have gender reassignment surgery, despite the fact that in the US, the military covers it, Medicaid covers it, the prison system covers it, and most private insurance companies cover it. Are these people truly gender dysphoric when they want to keep the organ that is supposedly the cause of such misery? No, they are not.
There must be tons of money behind this to control the media and squash any negative press about trans issues. I recommend reading Reduxx online. Genevieve Gluck is doing some of the most important work of our time on these issues, tracking the crimes being committed.
I don’t know how you wake people up to the truth when they are hammered every day with a false narrative and linguistic brainwashing. Do you think it can ever be reversed?
I fear for my daughters and my students.
“…so I dare not speak my mind, for I could well get fired for it.”
The essence of Democracy!
The current conflict between (as they see it) trans rights and women’s rights is the logical conclusion of the growing philosophical school of the past 50 years. Call it postmodernism, critical theory, social justice, identity politics or whatever, they amount to the same thing: an explanation of why oppression is always an -ism which exists as (a) systemic, (b) overwhelmingly the fault of and of benefit to white western heterosexual males, and (c) something which can – indeed must – be fixed by increasing the rights of the oppressed relative to white western heterosexual males.
There isn’t space here to go into the Marxist antecedents of this philosophical strand or how it came to exert such an iron grip on the commanding heights of academia, culture etc. Nor indeed which bits of it hold water and which are a complete crock of shite.
What’s important for this discussion is that trans-rights represents the first major tributary -ism of this movement where the claimed rights of the oppressed conflict with a group other than white western heterosexual males.
Trans-rights make very little practical difference to men’s lives because women who identify as men aren’t going to take our sport prizes, we don’t care if they want to ogle us naked, and importantly are little physical threat. In fact given that most male violence is against other males, we’re overall much safer amongst women who identify as males than amongst other males. Trans rights in practice means its overwhelmingly women who have to give up rights to males who identify as women.
The problem is that progressives having thoroughly trained a couple of generations of kids to see every -ism as oppression, the solution to which is to extend rights to the oppressed group relatove to the oppressors, its very hard to now convince them that actually this time it’s not so simple and in fact extending those rights to the oppressed group won’t be at the expense of white western heterosexual males (boo hiss), but in fact at the expense of women and lesbians who in many respects have only recently and tenuously achieved those rights themselves.
It’s simplistic to say that feminism spawned trans rights. But it did help create and refine the ways of thinking which the trans movement leverages.
So true. And the grand irony is that “transwomen” are overwhelming white, heterosexual men, so what a clever trick they have pulled off there! Somehow the “oppressor” has become the most oppressed of us all! And has the other oppressed groups stomping for their cause. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
The Roman Emperor Nero had the right idea over Trans.
When he lusted after the ‘peach like buttocks’ of an attractive youth, he had the lucky young man ‘completely’ castrated and turned into a woman!
Bingo! As usual, the Romans did it best and got there first!
Clever!!
No I don’t think it’s simplistic. It’s the fact. Feminism is undermined the family and motherhood and now womanhood.
Two things: yes it can be reversed, just as the hammerings of the Medieval church were overturned.
Also, are you using a pseudonym? If not, take care.
Pseudonym, sadly yes. A pitiful sign of the times.
I trust you are using a nom de plume 😉
It is extraordinary. I understand the initial ignorance of, say, not knowing the crime stats. But the irrationality of IGNORING the crime stats when it is explained that saying words out loud doesn’t change behavioral patterns? ♀️
“…a rape in an Ontario homeless shelter by a man identifying as a woman…”
Are you speaking of Christopher “Jessica” Hambrook, who raped a woman in a domestic violence shelter a few years ago, or has it happened more than once?
(I’m sure it’s the latter, but I don’t want to come out and say that without checking first.)
And yes, these crimes (i.e. rapes/assaults/peeping/etc. in women’s spaces, not shelters specifically) happen regularly, and are never reported. Partly because of money, and partly because our media have ceased to be journalists and have instead become mouthpieces for the left. The media have successfully hidden and/or denied the link between autogynephilia and “transwomen,” even though most transwomen are autogynephiles, and autogynephilia is a paraphilia claimed by roughly 90% of convicted sex offenders. Not all autogynephiles are sex offenders (unless you view their forcing us to participate in their fetish by calling them “she/her,” allowing them into our spaces, and pretending we can’t see that they are men–which *is* what they are doing, btw; they are forcing us to participate in their fetish–as a sex offense), but almost all sex offenders are autogynephiles.
And of course if any men do intervene – for instance to remove an obnoxious transwoman from a changing room at the request of other women – we would be charged by the police with a hate crime. In Vancouver Billboard Chris was attacked by tranny brutes and the female Vancouver police officer does nothing but grin with pleasure. When called out by a bystander she then lies and claimed was yelling at them and attacked them. Way to go VPD!
I blame the media. I blame the medical establishment. I blame our university system. But mainly I blame feminism for this and for so many other ills that are causing our social system to collapse.
Again, we are talking about fetishist men in a society run overwhelmingly by men, and you are placing the majority of the blame on women?
Nothing new here, but well written.
However I want to make a different point: this is a comment a left under the article, by the same author, on “Emily” Bridges:
“I would like to point out that the author manages to go through her article without ever using a pronoun to refer to Bridges.
Although she does state that Bridges is male, i could not find a “him” in the text.
Coincidence?”
The same happens here. The article has been crafted in such a way as to avoid the use of any forbidden pronoun.
Stylists choice, editorial command or what?
Her previous article, about Gina Miller, contains plenty of pronouns; this shows this is not just a dislike, but a choice to avoid them.
I was about to say the same thing, but you got there first. Thanks for saving me the bother.
I would *really* like to hear from the author about this. She clearly made a choice about pronouns.
Couldn’t agree more. Why do these people do this?!?
“The inclusion of male people in female sporting categories”
I’m sure there used to be a word for male people. Someone help me out. Min? Mon? Mun?
“McGahey’s selection is grossly unfair. Then again, it’s an unfairness that is in keeping with the boorish side of male sporting culture, not least its desire to keep women in their place.”
Uh uh, Victoria. You can’t dump this on us. This is on you guys – the Feminists. Yes, ‘trans women’ are awful for not taking stock of what they are doing when competing directly with women, but this was all enabled by feminists and their various ideologies. Quite often, it is women (feminist women) screaming the loudest for the rights of trans women. For some, it now seems they want to say, “Wait! We didn’t mean that!!!”
This is not the ‘boorish side of male sporting culture’ you’re witnessing, trying to ‘keep women in their place.’
Leave ‘Men’ out of it.
In pretending that men and women had similar talents, capacities and abilities and that with just a little encouragement women could do what men do was a terrible blind alley for 20thC feminism.
A far better approach would have been to say: women are far better than men at certain things – socialising the young, teaching, home-making, caring for the sick, forming and maintaining relationships with other people, expressing emotions etc – and then fight to make their value higher within society. This was already happening in the late 19thC with Mother’s Unions and protections for widows and campaigns for better family allowances, minimum wages for men that could support a family and so on. Some ideas had flaws like the focus on temperance but still this was the right approach.
Now we are in a situation where 50% of women reach the age of 30 without having children with many of them destined for a life of involuntary childlessness. More than 50% are unmarried or divorced. And even with these sacrifices it turns out that they rarely outperform men in “men’s spheres”.
And now to cap it all – men are pretending to be women and stealing women’s things from them.
What a disaster!
I enjoy my regular Friday evening minor inebriation as much as the next chap, but is temperance such a bad thing? A minor point, which in any case augments your excellent comment.
I agree with you. I grew up in the ’70s with no brothers and four sisters. A well worn sentiment of the day was, ‘anything boys can do, girls can do better.’ It wasn’t meant literally, I don’t think. Rather, it was trying to shift the perspective of everyone and I think it worked up until a few years ago. Of course, as a kid I knew nothing of ‘Feminism’. As much as I deplore the actions of these ‘trans women’ who compete against women, I’m not going to give Feminists a pass. Particularly when they want to drag men and male culture into it. No. This is all on them.
Quite right, Robert. The author would seem to have a peculiar axe to grind. Her assertion that men in general support this is just wrong.
What she clearly doesn’t understand, also, is that ‘male sporting culture’ is quite hierarchical and for good reasons. Here in the states, male sports are broken up into age groups for young people and intramural adult leagues for hockey and basketball and baseball tend to be broken up also. It’s called fairness and some of that desire to be fair recognizes that there are physical differences between individuals that can get men, young or old, injured if competing against others if care is not taken. There’s your horrible male sports culture, Victoria.
Indeed, no sane father of daughters would support this insanity.
Ms Smith’s assertions are contrary to the evidence. YouGov’s comprehensive polling, conducted 19-20th May 2022 found much greater tolerance among women for trans nonsense than men
68% of men compared to only 55% of women were opposed to transwoMEN participating in female sporting activities. 50% of men compared to 37% of women were opposed to allowing transwoMEN in female changing rooms. 48% of men compared to 34% of women opposed the use of female lavatories by transwoMEN. Most strikingly, perhaps, is that only 30% of women opposed biological males being admitted to women’s refuges compared to 43% of men.
Despite the author’s obvious prejudices, the evidence is that men are consistently much more opposed to the invasion of women’s spaces and activities by other men than women are themselves.
Your numbers are for female Democrats only. If you include Republican women and Independent women the percentage of women who strongly oppose trans women in sports, in bathrooms, etc. goes up to 78 percent. Far left women are more likely to approve of trans inclusion. Older women who are liberal, not as “inclusive.” I’m in my sixties and a liberal, but I’m gender critical so trans women are not women no matter how many death and rape threats we get ( see: JK Rowling) There are more women and men who are gender critical than it appears, as many are afraid to say anything.
The polling is of UK citizens not Americans.
Richard, I hope you are being facetious, but I’m afraid you aren’t so I’ll respond as it you are serious.
To blame all this on “feminism” and that it has nothing to do with males is nothing but blaming the victim. Women have been, and are, being discriminated against, and you are denying that. These “trans women” is just another continuation of that boorish male attitude. And in case you didn’t notice, “trans women” are men.
The author is very articulate in describing how the trans lobby is just one more form of some men continuing that discrimination. Yes, it is unfortunate that every woman hasn’t raised holy-hell over this latest discrimination, and all women should refuse to play any women athletics where men are allowed to claim to be women. And yes, it is unfortunate that every man hasn’t told these “trans women/men” to cease and desist and shame them back to nursery school.
But it is the men who are doing this shameful activity, as the author accurately verbalizes.
Polling shows that men are consistently far more opposed to trans ideology and allowing males claiming to be trans in to women’s spaces and activities than women.
As I said above YouGov polling shows that 68% of men compared to only 55% of women were opposed to transwoMEN participating in female sporting activities.
To assert that, because a tiny number of individual men exploit trans stupidity to participate in women’s sports, men in general are to blame for trans nonsense is absurd. The “trans lobby” is overwhelmingly female.
The trans movement has its origins in the dogmatic assertion by feminists that differences between males and females are social constructs of an oppressive patriarchy. The trans movement just extended the dogma by adding in some post modernist philosophy to assert that male and female themselves are social constructs. Third and fourth wave feminists view supporting trans rights as an integral part of intersectional feminism.
I don’t think you understood what I was trying to say. For example, you wrote:
“But it is the men who are doing this shameful activity, as the author accurately verbalizes.”
At the risk of being censored here, I don’t consider these people ‘men’. I think they are male, yes. But they share none of the traits that I consider important to make male humans be seen as men.
I think Robert Hochbaum has a point: i.e. that aggressive feminism, especially its 21st Century Marxist orientations, has helped facilitate ‘trans’ ideology. Their war against men has, ironically, had some unintended consequences. I don’t think he blamed women exclusively, nor did I believe he wholly excluded men from blame. The problem is by describing women universally as being victims (classic Marxist dialectic focusing on ‘the oppressed’ and portraying men as their oppressors (“that boorish male attitude”) the scope for intelligent and penetrating discussion is effectively removed. Stereotyping hobbles the dynamics of debate and forces participants into rigid, blinkered corners.
As a male I am a bit miffed at getting the blame for this person muscling in on the women’s game. However every cloud has a silver lining so I have just nipped down to the bookies and put £20 on this bloke smashing all kinds of records in the near future. Boundaries, wickets, runs etc.
Seriously though couldnt this be nipped in the bud if the real females in the game showed some character and moral strength and just refused to play either with or against him? This would surely force the powers that be to change their mind. Or is that solution, like me, a bit too simple?
Women have seen what has happened to those who stood up for gender rights.
However, “qui tacet consentire videtur.”
Or, if you choose not to fight for your rights, don’t be surprised if you lose them.
There’s a couple of problems with your suggestion.
Firstly, women then suffer twice. They lose the opportunities they have worked and trained for and they still have to watch as their medlas, prizes, and places are stolen from them.
Second, in many jurisdictions the men identifying as women have the law and rules on their side. College teams and players in the USA who have refused to play against men identifying as women have been banned from participation and their college thrown out of leagues.
Third, when you’re being gaslighted on this scale it can take extraordinary courage and mutual support to find the strength to take a public stand. The pendulum does seem to have shifted a bit recently, with vocal sportswomen like Sharron Davies and Martina Navratilova forcing a space in which more women can put their heads above the parapet. But the reaction of the “be kind” brigade remains unrelentingly savage.
I totally agree that it would not be easy by any stretch of the imagination, which is why I said it would need moral strength. I am sure that any boycott would have the backing of most reasonable fair minded people. What would this man do – play on his own against nobody? It wouldnt take long for a boycott to work. I realise that people have been treated terribly for standing up for their rights to compete on a even playing field but yes with more effort the pendelum could be pushed ever further especially with the backing of such elite sportswomen as you mentioned. Women have fought successfully before against seeming insurmountable odds and powerful institutions ie Suffragettes. I believe they can do it again.
I think a better way to reverse the rot would be for women in general, and men who support them of course, to vote with their feet, their wallets and indeed their votes.
The only reason Keir Starmer has backed away from the “Trans women are women” nonsense is because he’s terrified of it blowing up in his face electorally.
“Or behaving in a way that is completely in line with your sex’s disregard for female boundaries?”
I know they exist but I don’t personally know any men who think males self-identifying into women’s sports or other protected spaces is OK. That is undoubtedly influenced by the fact I’m in my 50s, as are most of my friends, and we’re largely unmoved by gender woo-woo.
But even most younger men I know who have grown up indoctrinated with this nonsense don’t actually think it’s right. They just instinctively avoid saying so publicly of course, because for them there is no quicker route to being ostracised than failing to appear “kind” to minorities.
The revolting irony of the whole thing is that separate sports categories for women is one of the most significant inclusion measures of the last century. Yet its being trampled into dust in the name of faux inclusion.
Just in case there is any doubt, I am male and fully support women’s sex-based rights to separate, protected spaces for legitimate purposes such as fairness, safety, dignity, sexual preference etc.
“… no quicker route to being ostracised than failing to appear “kind” to minorities.”
‘Cancelled‘, more like. Both my children are in their mid-thirties and moving into senior professional posotions. They are both terrified of being cancelled (i.e. rendered unemployed and probably unemployable) for either saying the wrong thing or not saying the right thing enthusiastically. It is for this reason that I have resorted to using a pseudonym as they fear being cancelled by association with any comments I publish in any social media. They are both highly intelligent, decent people. It grieves me to see them cemented into compliance by this vile poison that has seeped into every nook and cranny of our so-called ‘democratic’ existence.
By the way, I fully respect your post and concur with all you said.
McGahey hasn’t got any pushback because no one has heard of him. Canadian media is pathetic. First I heard of this is now and I live in Canada.
We were all much better off when we didn’t know every last minor infraction that occurred in the world. Thank you internet and social media for destroying civil society.
The trans chaps are the tip of the spear, but the rest of the blade and the shaft itself is 100% female. How about feminists address that?
You’re not wrong and it’s incredibly embarrassing. There isn’t much I can say to defend adult women who support this, except that it’s changed my perspective on the kinds of strengths/weaknesses women (in general) have vs the kinds of strengths/weaknesses men (in general) have, and a new appreciation of what men bring to the table.
One of the qualities that men have is a drive towards pushing the limits of what is possible. Often that’s a great thing that benefits us all, but often it’s a terrible thing with no checks and balances. For that reason I wouldn’t let women take the blame entirely if we look back on the origins of this mess. A lot of men – scientists, doctors, plastic surgeons, journalists, politicians and theorists played a grim part in this many decades ago. Would recommend books like Bob Ostertag’s ‘Sex, Science, Self’ for a history of scientific experimentation re: hormones, body modification and masculinity/femininity
Even among leftwing men support for trans stuff is vanishingly small (a genuine surprise to me). For every John Money there’s legions of women enthusiastically supporting the most extreme trans demands (e.g. men beating the living daylights out of women in contact sports). Until feminists examine the pathologies of their own sex UnHerd will be the repository of endless tilting at patriarchal windmills.
It is peculiar isn’t it? The article reads as though this is the latest ruse to emerge from the golf clubs.
I really don’t think the patriarchy can be blamed for this one.
Excellent. Literally nothing to disagree with in this article.
Except the blatant cowardice about using the correct male pronouns to refer to Mr Bridges.
And for blaming men for this mess! It’s like blaming the tennis players for your sore neck muscles.
It is a man (and many men) who are claiming (falsely) to be women. So of course men are to blame. And the men who refuse to acknowledge that are also part of the problem.
There I was agreeing with the author until right near the end. But Ms Smith can’t seem to help herself. Every piece eventually concludes up with a pathetically simplistic characterisation of men and the implication that men are to blame for this trans nonsense,
In her earlier piece: The Body of a Weak and Feeble Woman, she wrote:
“I am conscious of the risk of conceding that there are any innate differences between male and female people. All too often, this descends into an endorsement of socially constructed, implicitly hierarchical “natural roles”.
Feminists such as Ms Smith cannot seem to comprehend or admit that that it was their feminist dogma that male and female psychology, behaviour and mental capacities were not derived from biological processes, but were: “socially constructed, implicitly hierarchical “natural roles”“, that is the foundation of the trans movement.
Feminists gleefully seized on scientific studies that concluded that there was little or no difference between male and female brains. If feminists could wilfully deny that millions of years of evolution had produced observable, fundamentally different mental as well as physical characteristics between males and females (despite the fact that we see it everywhere in nature in other animals), it wasn’t much of a step for the trans ideologues to assert that male and female were social constructs, and likewise ignore all the evidence to the contrary.
In her earlier piece, Ms smith had her obligatory dig at men when she wrote:
We’re meant to pretend women have no specific physical vulnerabilities when it comes to making sexual choices, or taking part in sports, or living in enclosed spaces. Should we fail to do so, there are always men on hand, usually calling themselves feminist allies, who will swoop in to tell us that we are in fact “the patriarchy” because we see women as “weak and inferior…””
Of course, to the dogmatic blinkered feminist who sees everything through the prism of male domination and female victimhood, her mind naturally went to fake feminist men jumping in to attack her for suggesting that men have average greater physical capacities. It couldn’t be the far more likely scenario that it would be other female feminists and female trans ideologues who would make up the bulk of the mob that would come for her.
If the likes of Ms Smith cannot put aside her divisive radical feminist man hating, which serves only to alienate men (the vast majority of which are opposed to this dangerous trans ideology), then it would be better if she butted out of fight against the trans ideologues, and left it to ordinary men and women to join together to fight. We don’t need divisive figures among the resistance.
I think the vast majority of men think this whole ‘men playing womens’ sport’ thing disgraceful, disgusting even. What I find puzzling is the women who support and encourage it while disparaging their sisters who oppose as bigots. I’m also wondering when the first average male professional tennis player, tired of earning relative peanuts on the circuit, decides to ‘transition’ and go for the big and lucrative womens’ professional tennis competitions. Serena Williams might find her records, set over a long hard career, broken in just a handful of seasons… and think of the cash and with 6-1, 6-0 (more or less) every ‘match’, so very easy work to boot… but who would pay to watch it?
This is in the category of: — confused liberal feminists who continue to interpret every problem thrown up by progressivism through their simplistic universalist framing of ‘Patriarchy, intrinsic male toxicity, and privilege.’
The idea that transwomen are simply expressing a new variation of time-old male dominance strategies over woman seems a bit stupid and unconsidered. Aren’t male dominance strategies usually motivated by sex and reproduction? How is a ‘transwoman’ going to do that?
I don’t necessarily disagree with you but regarding your question, you should look up the concept of ‘transmaxxing’ to understand why some young men feel that female mimicry is a strong strategy.
Also, consider that reproductive drives can be hijacked and derailed, often by technology. An autogynephilic man who exerts force over women to validate his ‘womanness’ is undoubtedly sexually motivated, yet if he compulsively pursues his desires to the point of destroying his virility and his dating pool he will never actually reproduce. It’s maybe comparable to young men whose sexual energy is diverted entirely into p*rn and girls online instead of making real-life connections with real potential.
Very good points.
You haven’t really refuted the central charge though: that it’s a bit ridiculous to ascribe a tiny number of males usurping womens spaces as a manifestation of patriarchy.
Men in general don’t support this. We aren’t a big club who all voted on what we were going to do next to oppress women and decided to send a crack trans team to steal your sport from you.
I didn’t refute the central charge because I didn’t disagree with it. My comment was mostly to do with the question at the end 🙂
Fair play.
We live in an age of shamelessness – a natural blooming of decades of hyper-individualism, education increasingly built on confidence building, rights before obligations etc. Wokery, feminism and patriarchy, the self-righteousness of communism and the cold certainty of fascism all have played their part….and then there Prince Trump, aided by Tucker C, Master of the Dark Art of spinning- successfully selling and advocating the psychology, politics and philosophy of the most shallow interpretation of ‘Do What Thou Wilt’, or ‘How to buy friends and manipulate people’. Let the downticks flow.
“the self-righteousness of communism and the cold certainty of fascism all have played their part”
Communism is fascism.
“the self-righteousness of communism and the cold certainty of fashism all have played their part”
Communism is fashism.
Then Fascism is Communism.
Pretty much, yes.
The horseshoe principle.
Ainsi, oui.
Ah yes! Blame all the world’s problems on the sum total of 4 years of the bad orange man in office.
Is that what I did Warren?
Trump on the brain lol. You’ll never meet a conservative whose mind is haunted by Blair et al in the way that Trump haunts you. Do you hear his strange little voice in your dreams?
P.S. Is Tucker now part of the leftist phantasmagoria?
Sorry it hurt your feelings fanboy. I should have prefaced it with a trigger warning.
Let me count the mistakes –
You’ll never meet a conservative whose mind is haunted by Blair
You know this? No. In any case, Blair is not a haunting figure. Trump is. Corbyn is. Blair is not running for office. Trump is the leading candidate for the GOP nomination and polling well despite the multiple court cases and convictions (btw – how come Hilary has not been locked up yet, nor Obama disqualified?). Blair was and is mostly hated-on by the left, who felt betrayed by him. The right in the US have gone on and on and on and on about both Clintons, long after they stopped being in, or running for office. Trump is mostly supported by the right of his party/the media for political, careerist expediency. As TC said of DT, “What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that…I hate him passionately.” – before carrying on carrying water for him. Shameless.
Why do normal female cricket players tolerate perverted males who are deluded in stealing their spots?
Well, first of all, he’s UGLY! Secondly, Canada has become a woke haven of sheer idiocy. ( Look at their pathetic, joke-of-a-prime minister, sycophant-in-chief for every bizarre and queer movement that comes along. ) The combination would be risible, if it weren’t taken so seriously by a lot of non-serious people. The coming generations will rightly mock those adults currently in positions of power that condone and promote this insanity.
Lacan would call figures such as he and Lia Thomas the point de capiton, the quilting point of the new symbolic order expressed through the enormous levels of narcissism embodied in these iconic figures. They are a new people overcoming the ‘natural’ flaws of men and women – particularly the old type of woman.
Luckily, if Elon gets his way it won’t be too long before we are all improved with microchips and all this debate can go the way of the Dodo.
While I agree with the basic premise of the headline I really wish the author would leave men out of it. We’re not interested, it doesn’t affect us, why should we care ?
Women helped dig the hole they presently find themselves in. Just because some of the fellow diggers have decided to start burrowing in a different direction , even if they are men, does not mean all the other men are responsible or have to help women climb back out of the hole the’ve dug.
If women feel at the cutting edge of certain hostility, then it is only because Hell hath no fury like a trans-woman scorned, especially if that ‘woman’ in question looks like Dolly Parton, on steroids.
Even by your reasoning it’s only some women (neo-Marxist Feminists) and some men (the cricketer for example) that are the problem. This man, for one, does care about the issue, and I agree with the framing of much of the trans problem as being an example of male type aggression/ domineering. I’ve yet to hear of a transman for example screeching, ‘eat out my man-p***y!’.
Yes, there is a difference between men and women no matter how much they desire to be the opposite sex.
The fountainhead of all Western society is Ancient Greece.
We should immediately adopt their pragmatic policy that all competitive sport, such as the Olympic Games, be performed GYMNOS or stark naked.
This would instantly stop most of this ridiculous Trans nonsense, stone dead.
In spite of the article’s bigotry on the subject of men, the author does raise one astonishing puzzle—how could a Lia Thomas not be thoroughly humiliated by standing on that podium with all those girls accepting a woman’s award? The answer is that he lives in a cast-iron bubble of delusion. And if you want to know who is pushing this idiocy, I doubt there are many straight men in his support group.
“Or behaving in a way that is completely in line with your sex’s disregard for female boundaries?” Really? I don’t hang out in women’s washrooms. Boys weren’t insisting on joining the Girl
Scouts – it was the other way around. Women brought this on themselves. Feminist professors in the 70’s started the modern manifestation of cancel culture attacking and shaming their opponents, and forcing people to pretend believe in things that are clearly BS. Now most women still go along with nonsense because they would rather crawl over broken glass then to be seen to be out of synch with herd. It is the feminization of the public sector, universities and other public institutions that has rendered them incapable of pushing back on this. Reap what you sow.
“Then again, it’s an unfairness that is in keeping with the boorish side of male sporting culture, not least its desire to keep women in their place.”
Ironically cricket is one of the sports that, a non-professional level at least, allows women to compete with men. In many of the lower league teams on a Saturday the participation of female cricketers is taken for granted.
Why? He’s an Aussie; hide like a rhino.
No longer sadly, as proved by “their” completely ridiculous reaction to the COVID Scamdemic.
The Trans who then compete in women’s sport and appear to have no qualms about the unfair biological advantage they have is of course a v small number of individuals. Let’s be careful here we don’t equate the utter narcissism of a few with every Trans person finding their identity – most quietly and privately.
The narcissism seems v similar to the performance enhancing drug taker standing on the podium knowing they cheated. Even more those who’ve been caught and then return after a ban to win again and stand on podiums without one iota of apparent shame. This form of unaware narcissism is prevalent everywhere in a small number of folks. We shouldn’t make out it’s only a characteristic of Trans. That’s just clickbait silliness.
I agree. Not every German who was behind Hitler was necessarily a Nazi. Therefore not every person person supporting men usurping women in sport is a narcissist.
Autism?
Doesn’t take much to get the old timers at Unherd all riled up. I don’t suppose you usually give Canadian women’s cricket much attention but throw in some trans clickbait and you’re all up in arms. Absolutely Pavlovian in your responses.
Doesn’t take much to get Shampoo Faschist all riled up. I don’t suppose you usually give Canadian women’s cricket much attention but throw in some trans clickbait and you’re all up in arms. Absolutely Pavlovian in your responses.
You can do better than this, Dickie! Please try harder!
Odds that he just repeats this? Pretty good I’d say. Come on, old boy, prove me wrong!