reclaim the night perth deplatformed from march 4 justice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-2U3QQyYCU

women sustaining injuries playing sport against men

As a 14 year old (circa 1987) I was playing representative netball when a transgender team were permitted to play in our competition, they were large Maori men. Looking back, it was totally inappropriate in many ways... large strong large men, playing a semi-contact sport against young women, zero consultation with parents. I still remember the physicality and the force with which they defended. Thankfully they moved on to another association where we played them infrequently at senior rep carnivals.

Fast forward to circa 2008, I was playing AFL in Sydney. Two transgender players were permitted to play, to my knowledge with no checks and zero records kep of injuries sustained by their opponents.

Approx 30% of my team were employed by Army/Navy/Airforce, they would often play against the transgender players (I think to protect smaller team-mates… much smaller team mates, most players would have been under 60kg). Generally, my team avoided attempting to tackle or run near the transgender players out of fear of injury. I recall one player in my team sustained multiple broken bones in her foot when one transgender player decided to deliberately stomp on her foot (affecting her work in the Army), and another player was punched in the face after she addressed the rough play (in a different game). Through my eyes… I was watching a man punch a woman in the face... it was very confronting.

It seems that there is an unconstrained vision of inclusion at the expense of biological women, the focus needs to be on the rights of girls and women. Women are being erased, it’s a very sad situation.

#australia #sport #transgender #strength #injuries #safety #womeninsport

women's book club apologises for reading 'invisible women'

@WITSIreland / WITS (Women in Technology & Science) is an all-women organisation established to promote women in technology and science. In June 2020 it issued an apology for choosing Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez as its Book Club’s book for discussion. In its statement, it described the book as “deeply problematic” because of its binary approach to gender to the detriment of trans and non-binary identified people. WITS decided to discuss the book as planned. However, rather than discuss the subject of the book, it would instead centre the discussion “in the context of inclusion of our trans and non-binary peers, including the irony of discussing ‘invisible women’ while ignoring trans and non-binary people.”

The remainder of the apology was a classic pick-me-apology and stern warning against exclusionary-feminism.

Ireland is a hub for tech and at one point it was making strides towards meaningful engagement with women in the tech sector but quickly every public or company-specific Women in Tech type group is being rebranded as an LGBTQ+ group.

Irish feminists have imported capitalist, hyperconsumer, liberal feminism from the US and as a result there is a very poor understanding of feminism in an Irish context. Any attempt to speak against the orthodoxy is described as British astroturfing. It’s embarrassing to watch unfold.

Thankfully primary and secondary education, health and politics are largely unaffected compared to the US, UK and Aus but cracks are showing. Irish equality law is finely balanced apart from self-ID which was introduced covertly. Our equivalent of the Equality Act has broad exemptions while “gender” is defined as man, woman or transsexual which ensures a distinction despite being used in lieu of “sex” although we have little by way of case law in this area. It’s just a matter of time before a growing group of activists emboldened by queer theory start demanding more.

#ireland #bookclub #womenintech #invisiblewomen #sexmatters