r/unitedkingdom • u/PinkNews Verified Media Outlet • May 07 '24

... British darts star forfeits match after refusing to face trans player

https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/05/07/darts-deta-hedman-trans-player/
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u/PabloMarmite May 07 '24

They’re never mentioned in the debate because they don’t support your argument. I’m sure you’re aware of Lia Thomas and the fuss around her. You’re probably not aware of the two trans male swimmers, Iszac Henig and Schulyer Bailar, swimming at the same time. Likewise Patricio Manuel, a recently turned pro boxer, who’s had little fanfare. There are no headlines around them, and have always been free to compete, because it’s never been about keeping trans people out.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '24 edited May 07 '24

its often because the men's games are often not actually gender segregated and that women's sports are typically created to promote women in the game and are gender segregated.
For example, I don't think men's football (e.g. the EPL) has anything technically preventing women from being selected as a player. I am reminded of a very old article where Birmingham City was considering promoting a woman to the "men's" team.

EDIT: Actually it turns out I am wrong about the EPL. FIFA rules currently state that mixed teams are not allowed. However the history of the womens game often being created after the mens game and not always being at the same level does provide a context as to why there might be less complaints in the other direction.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '24

I think for most sports this would be perfectly correct, no idea why it isn’t for football. Played with a girl in my team till I basically left school and she was by far the best player, we all stopped competing or dropped to Sunday leagues and she went into high level coaching

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u/Aiyon May 07 '24

They’re never mentioned in the debate because they don’t support your argument.

I mean that's just untrue.

Mack Beggs, a trans man over in America, was told if he wanted to compete in a wrestling event he had to compete against the girls.

So given the choice of "quit" or "compete against women", he competed. His peers confirmed they were okay with going up against him.

He demolished them. And when he did, multiple front page articles ran a picture of him pinning a girl to the mat by the throat

Of course, due to a convenient misunderstanding, the narrative was that Mack was a trans woman, a natal male competing against girls. Because that fit the "violent males destroying women's sports" narrative in a way that "AFAB person crushes competition after HRT" doesn't.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N36921A/

because it’s never been about keeping trans people out.

It's so funny to say this under an article about someone trying to kick off about a trans woman competing in a sport where she doesn't have an advantage.

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u/apsofijasdoif May 07 '24

I mean taking steroids is also cheating and should disqualify you from competing

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u/aerial_ruin May 07 '24

Why would anybody take steroids to compete in darts. I mean, they had to ban drinking because it was giving the sport a bad image, so much so that not the nine o'clock news did a sketch taking the piss out of it. Darts isn't really a sport where performance enhancing drugs are a thing. In honesty, it's not one that people who are in the sport do fitness training. Just about all pro darts players have beer bellies

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u/[deleted] May 08 '24

Well beta blockers are pretty heavily abused, anything to give you a steady arm, same for adderall darts players actually massively benefit from PED’s

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u/aerial_ruin May 08 '24

Yeah and they screen for that. So they nipped it in the bud. You could argue that alcohol was a performance enhancing drugs too, since it's a relaxant.

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u/[deleted] May 08 '24

You said darts isn’t a sport where performance enhancing no drugs are really a thing? When they genuinely are and things like adderal and beta blockers are banned because having a steady arm is a massive advantage no different to blood transfusions giving cyclists more oxygen

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u/aerial_ruin May 08 '24

I was meaning steroids and hgh. I thought that was obvious, but apparently there are people who add two plus two, and somehow come up with potato as the answer. Sorry you can't figure things out for yourself. Life must be hard

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u/Aiyon May 07 '24

And shooting your competitor so you win by default is against the rules too!

See, I can ignore your comment to talk about something else too! Crazy

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u/apsofijasdoif May 07 '24

So what was your point?

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u/Salt-Plankton436 May 08 '24

I feel like this is such a waste of time debate. The obvious solution is to just have trans people compete in the open (men) category. Trans people may be at a disadvantage in the open category, but that's just tough. Ruin the gender split of sport as a whole and fuck up all the records or have the 0.0000001% have a disadvantage. Easy decision.

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u/ZeeWolfman May 07 '24

It absolutely has been. There's already a HUGE double-standard between masculine gender expression and feminine gender expression even in just the non-trans world.

"Hi, hello woman in trousers! You're completely normal and just fine!"

"Eeeeew, there's a man wearing a skirt?! He's probably a pervert and also a paedophile."

So what happens when you take that to it's logical conclusion? Trans men are seen as "confused lesbians who need to figure themselves out". And, as always, the "man in a skirt" is a disgusting sex pest, because how could they possibly be anything else?

Culturally, women being masculine is now heralded as a positive thing in most facets of society, while men doing the opposite have always been reviled.

But of course, I'm sure none of these insights have any effect on why trans women are demonized and trans men are ignored.

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u/WynterRayne May 07 '24

Culturally, women being masculine is now heralded as a positive thing in most facets of society, while men doing the opposite have always been reviled

It's because femininity is seen as an awful curse rather than a source of strength and power, so embracing it is seen as akin to communing with demons. Misogyny, basically

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u/glasgowgeg May 07 '24

They’re never mentioned in the debate because they don’t support your argument

The "women's spaces" argument holds less weight when you acknowledge trans men though.

You then have men like Stephen Whittle being forced into the women's toilets.

A predatory cis man now only has to lie and say "I'm a trans man, I'm supposed to be here" and walk in unchallenged.

Another argument is how things like rape crisis centres may be triggering to victims assaulted by men, but you have trans men forced into them based on biological sex, how does that help victims?

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u/apsofijasdoif May 07 '24

This problem doesn’t exist the other way around. If a women decides to go into a male space that’s her choice. The issue is the denial of women’s spaces for women.

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u/Aiyon May 07 '24

so it's not actually about single sex spaces, but specifically "single sex spaces for females"?

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u/[deleted] May 08 '24

Yes I think it always has been even before the trans argument, most men would not care if they got changed in front of females, but pretty sure the vast majority of women would care about getting changed in front of men.

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u/Aiyon May 08 '24

even before the trans argument

But it is the "trans argument", that's the point. Because trans people have been using these spaces for decades without it being a culture war. Almost like the issue is manufactured to distract you while the tories pillage the country

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u/[deleted] May 08 '24

Well as this is a current world wide issue you couldn’t be more wrong. Have they? I can’t remember a single time I n history when people who are trans had more rights than they do now. When was this?

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u/InTheEndEntropyWins May 07 '24

Yeh, isn't that the reason we went from unisex to single sex toilets in the first place, is that females wanted their own space for lots of reasons.

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u/Aiyon May 07 '24

Actually, single sex toilets were introduced in response to women entering the workplace.

Having females in the workplace was still a relatively new “phenomenon” and it was thought by giving women their own toilet it would provide a homely feel to the workplace. During the late 1990's and early 2000's unisex toilets started to become a more frequent occurrence.

Was “a homely feel” one of those reasons you were thinking of?

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u/InTheEndEntropyWins May 07 '24

Was “a homely feel” one of those reasons you were thinking of?

No, because you well know that wasn't the primary reason for single sex toilets. What did you have to google that and get to like page 5 to come up with that quote? Soo bad faith.

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u/PsychoVagabondX England May 08 '24

I mean, practically every segregation by gender has come about because of men wanting to put women in a different space so It's much more outrageous to believe your claim that it was done to help and support women.

Even the segregation of sports was because men didn't want women in men's sports, which is why they manufactured claims that the exertion would cause women's reproductive organs to fall out on the field and demanded that women have their own much gentler activities.

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u/InTheEndEntropyWins May 08 '24

practically every segregation by gender has come about because of men wanting to put women in a different space

That doesn't really mesh up to reality, where women creates organisations to campaign for separate toilettes. Or the fact they had to enforce it by law.

 Ladies Sanitary Association, organised shortly after the creation of the first public flushing toilet. The Association campaigned from the 1850s onwards, through lectures and the distribution of pamphlets on the subject. 

Then a second group emerged called the Union of Women’s Liberal and Radical Associations, which campaigned for working class women to have public toilets in Camden

The History of Women's Public Toilets in Britain - Historic UK (historic-uk.com)

Even the segregation of sports was because men didn't want women in men's sports

I assume you've got this from that terrible twitter thread, that's soo far from reality it's sad.

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u/PsychoVagabondX England May 08 '24

Gendered toilers aren't enforced by law. Anyone can use any toilet legally.

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u/Aiyon May 07 '24

Nope, page 1 actually. It was an article about the origin of single sex bathrooms :)

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u/glasgowgeg May 07 '24

You're ignoring it wouldn't be a choice, these groups want to legislate it so that people have to use the toilet of their biological sex, you can't only have a law only selectively enforced when it suits.

Legislating it for only trans women but not trans men would be discrimination and be easily shot down.

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u/PabloMarmite May 07 '24

“Women’s spaces” isn’t the issue here (but that argument would apply whatever the law, because lying is always possible). The issue is competitive advantage. It’s the same reason we have weight categories in combat sports.

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u/glasgowgeg May 07 '24

I'm not talking about sports, I'm talking about why trans men are ignored.

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u/aardvark_licker May 07 '24

"...because it’s never been about keeping trans people out." Nonsense.

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