Members of a women’s fishing team refuse to compete alongside trans teammate

They think trans women have an unfair advantage in… fishing?

Three members of an English women’s fishing team in England are refusing to compete at the world championships due to the fact that one of their own teammates is trans.

The Shore Angling World Championships will take place in Italy in November, and the board of the sport’s governing body, the Angling Trust, has said it will not prevent trans angler Becky Lee Birtwhistle Hodges from applying to compete.

HawlSera,

I heard a similar story about a transwoman in esports…

You know that thing that is already not gender segregated to begin with

TinyPizza,
TinyPizza avatar

Magic Moonshot?

HawlSera,

I don’t know any specific names, I don’t really follow that scene it was something my brother told me about, because I’m trans people and he wanted my opinion as a trans woman.

I told him that, yeah it was just as stupid as he thought, and that technically the Karens complaining were right…

In that, a transgender individual likely had an upbringing that is the opposite of the way they present now. Meaning that any transgender woman was likely a young boy who played Star Fox for Pokemon or whatever, at one point. So a transgender woman on average probably has an advantage over a cisgender woman when it comes to playing video games, but this Advantage is not biological in any way, and merely boils down to the average transgender woman being more likely to have prior experience than the average cisgender woman.

Which has the slight possibility of being a minor factor in a woman’s only Esports League.

But only a minor one, and not one worth disqualifying anyone over, because there it isn’t like there was this period of time where it was illegal for young girls to play video games just not very common. But there were also plenty of boys who didn’t grow up playing video games, as the hobby has been a niche for most of its existence.

And even then the point is moot because Esports leagues are not segregated by gender in the first place, meaning any social gender-based advantage wouldn’t even be a factor in how the game is judged or viewed.

Tl;dr

Transphobes do not give a shit about transgender women having some kind of magical advantage that comes with growing breasts later in life than the transgender woman in question would have wanted to. What transphobes are mad about is the fact that one of “them” is somewhere where the public the can see her, instead of at the back of the bus.

TinyPizza,
TinyPizza avatar

I'm not on twitter, so I don't know all the details of the Magic Moonshot incident, but a friend explained the highlights to me the other day.

Halo Infinite has a deal set up with a independent community channel of casters called LVT. Halo/Microsoft/343 (however you choose it) doesn't care enough to cover the full spectrum of matches and play at their tournaments, so LVT is given access to cover that live feed and cast from the events. The only woman that was part of their team of casters goes by the name Magic Moonshot. Recently she set up a women's tournament (non-sanctioned and no prize pool) and went to the mats to exclude a transgender woman from the event. She would not budge and it comes out that instead of any skill gap or game knowledge issue, she just won't allow it for religious reasons. I had heard she spelled it out like a true frothing transphobic zealot, and it sparked a whole message from everyone in the community that . She has refused to apologize or walk any of it back and as far as I know is now exiled from the channel and community.

So the only woman actually casting play by play halo matches during tournaments is now gone due to her own prejudice. Not everyone liked her commentary or personality but it was so important that she was there just to keep pushing toward greater inclusivity in the FPS game casting world. A real cutting off your nose to spite your own face moment.

The main stage desk host for Halo (Lottie) is a woman though. So while thankfully there's still some representation, it's not really the same thing. Hopefully Halo reads the room and gives a transgender person the opportunity to fill one of these roles in the near future. While the game is largely a toxic cesspool, it's important that everyone feels represented in the community and that people can see things through a unique perspective. I have little hope for that at the moment though with the abhorrent rise in anti-trans rhetoric and corporations trying to stay neutral enough to avoid criticism of having an opinion on it.

Fucking stupid country.

Drivebyhaiku,

When we are talking about esports we are not talking about “the average” person. I know a lot of women who played video games religiously and two people in the hobby of video-games have no real advantage over the other based on experience.

What stops a lot of the participation of women who play in esports and things like competition trading card games is the culture that places them under a microscope because of their sex or that constantly treats their participation as a novelty. Growing up with a male socialization doesn’t help on that front because the application of misogyny is often not something that trans women were raised in to find the various forms of resistance or coping as normal. Trans women facing misogyny often are paralysed at first by just not knowing what to do. A lot of them lean on trans masculine people a bit to trade the tricks and tips normally passed woman to woman to deal with a whole different set of social expectations and form strategies to deal with threatening men knowing your muscle mass is below par enough to never be trusted to keep you generally safe ever again. If a space is hostile towards women trans women are usually equally vulnerable or worse because they’re still figuring everything out without the benefit of a period being a young girl where the support system recognizes their vulnerability and lack of experience and is prepped to correct, advise, help and hone survival instincts. Trans women also can’t naturally assume the cis women in the room will watch their backs the same way they would a cis woman.

What a lot of transphobes seem to latch onto is this idea that the dangers and roadblocks they are used to encountering can’t also apply to trans women. Cis women must be the most in danger and the most worthy of protection and their spaces cloistered because to accept that trans women need the same social support is to have sympathy for someone they see as privileged… However trans women often actively surrender their male privileges good and bad without gaining the security net of solidarity with other people lacking that privilege. Banning them from women centric communities and spaces denies them those secure bonds and makes them overall more vulnerable.

HawlSera,

I agree with everything you just said

Cap,
Cap avatar

Women are at an unfair advantage when competing against men in fishing. History has shown that men almost always report larger than actual fish size. The discrepency is more pronounced the smaller the fish is. This bias in measurement has drifted over to penis size as well.

OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe,

Both accurately described as ‘a wriggler’

ThrowawayPermanente,

It would be funnier to leave the last part implied.

thefluffiest,

I never knew organized animal torture was a gendered pastime

DLSchichtl,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    such_lettuce7970,
    such_lettuce7970 avatar

    If you think we're annoying, try getting dragged out of your house by a hook through your mouth!

    DLSchichtl,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    dragonflyteaparty,

    Ah yes, because it’s a “shitty vegan” idea to not want creatures to be stabbed through the mouth with a fishing hook and thrown back into the water for funsies. Seriously, if we caught and injured any other creature and threw it back just for the fun of it, people would be outraged.

    DLSchichtl,

    Case in point. You guys like to like to fantasize about all this shit like it’s a fetish.

    such_lettuce7970,
    such_lettuce7970 avatar

    "Fantasize", "like it's a fetish".....I see empathy is a foreign concept to you.

    DLSchichtl,

    Nah, I just save mine for humans.

    oldGregg,

    When you put it that way it sounds significantly cooler

    DarkSurferZA,

    OK, I may be wrong on this one, and I may have my inbox murdered for this, but I am on the fence here. No, not because I feel the trans woman has any advantages over the other women, but in a sport like fishing, or even esports, there are women’s leagues because the men dominate the current participation rosters, have better sponsors and training and equipment and therefore make it exclusionary to women. Having a women’s league promotes being more inclusive in the sport and creating a level (not fair, level) playing field for those who would typically not get the opportunity to compete.

    I know this is further complicated by the fact that trans people are even more marginalized than women, and should therefore have more encouragement to participate in these competitions.

    My view is that I would let the trans woman participate, I just also get the fact that some people may have reasonable feelings relating to why they feel this kind of thing does a disservice to them. But then there are other people who are just discriminatory assholes. I get that too.

    whaleross, (edited )
    @whaleross@lemmy.world avatar

    TERFs are the feminist equivalent of “fuck you, I’ve got mine”. People that didn’t have to go through the struggles of inclusion now excluding others.

    Tillyrblue,

    This isn’t a facepalm. If they want to compete in a woman’s only tournament they should be allowed to want that.

    surewhynotlem,

    Trans women are women, they were just born with imperfect bodies.

    Next shall we ban small tits? Large labia? Bald girls?

    Tillyrblue,

    No that would be silly. People can want to enjoy and play a sport with only their (cis) gender, especially when its a professional tournament. Making it sound like thats an issue is an issue.

    surewhynotlem,

    So your stance is that you want to check people’s genitals before they can play a sport, and that intersex people can’t play? Don’t either of those things feel a little off to you?

    Just because people want to segregate doesn’t make it okay. As a society, we’ve created loads of laws to make this exact point. It’s why (e.g.) the country club restaurant has to serve black people. You can’t segregate based on things a person can’t change. Sometimes you can’t even segregate based on things a person can change, like their religion.

    Trans and intersex people need to be allowed to participate in sports. If we, as a society, are going to choose to differentiate sports teams based on gender, then we must allow these people to play based on the gender that they are.

    If that’s such a problem, we could also ban segregating sports teams based on gender. That’s cool too.

    Tillyrblue,

    Again no, checking people’s genitalia is taking it to the extreme. If there are leagues or organizations that allow inclusion like that and everyone is ok with it then thats good, but for the vast majority of people that want separate gendered sports that is ok too.

    Calling this a facepalm means you don’t care about how these women feel, which is sad since all they want is a safe womens only space in a WOMEN’S championship.

    EsheLynn,

    Quick, easy question: are trans women, women? Yes? Then they can be in the WOMENS ONLY space, because they are women.

    No? You’re a transphobe.

    Or are you suggesting we should segregate white women and black women too?

    surewhynotlem,

    I don’t care how women feel when their feelings are being bigoted against OTHER WOMEN

    Aux,

    “Trans women” are men.

    surewhynotlem,

    And there it is. You think you can determine by some metric what a woman is.

    True story, I can actually do the same for men. Bad news though, you’re not one. Sorry lady.

    Blamemeta,

    Except when the whole point is getting women into the sport, and transwomen just dilute that message.

    DillyDaily,

    Huh? How does a woman participating in women’s sport dilute the message that more women should get into sport?

    such_lettuce7970,
    such_lettuce7970 avatar

    Before even opening the article I knew it would be England. Fucking TERF Island.

    SendMePhotos,

    What’s terf

    Th3D3k0y,

    Trans exclusionary radical feminist

    SendMePhotos,

    What the fuck is that

    jpreston2005,

    they don’t consider Trans women to be women. basically

    Hackerman_uwu,

    Lacks nuance.

    They believe that allowing trans women to identify as women reduces womanhood to meaninglessness.

    IOW: they found a way to be the victim in a situation where a tiny subset of the population faces massive challenges merely trying to exist.

    aBundleOfFerrets,

    You know trans, and you know feminism, the other two words are common adjectives. I think the acronym is rather self explanitory.

    echodot,

    The Tories are the problem.

    oo1,

    Fish are extremely sensitive to pheromones, so very possible that differnt levels of hormones impact a fisherperson's ability to attract giant prehistoric fish

    source: (youtbue documentarty on catching the worlds largest fish

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Pr2OvSVwE

    Donjuanme,

    Fucking lol #1 Marine biology source. Approved of by a trained and former marine biologist.

    Kase,

    Even if so, it wouldn’t be an issue if the person is on hrt, right? Speaking as a trans man on hrt, my hormones levels are the same as is normal for a cis man. I have no idea if it works the same for someone taking estrogen, though. Also I dunno anything about fish or fishing. So don’t take my contribution too seriously lmao

    MindSkipperBro12,

    I’ve been noticing a lot of female teams have been complaining about trans people competing with them, does anyone know what their problem is?

    muse,
    muse avatar

    Trans exclusive radical feminism

    Blamemeta,

    That transwomen grow up as boys, and that comes with a lot of helpful stuff. Transmen literally take steriods, so thats right out.

    Furthermore, mens leagues are usually open to everyone. Trans people have that option.

    DLSchichtl,

    How does that help with fishing

    Blamemeta,

    Which part? All of it?

    Drivebyhaiku,

    A lot of it comes down to the perception of privilege. A lot of people believe that trans women basically have all of the privileges inherent to being an able-bodied cis man so their assumption of participation in a female centric space is to weild their privilege to unfair advantage…

    However women’s sport leagues fall into different reasons for existing. For some it is because of a perceived difference of physiology… In which case the issue is what original puberty the athlete went through. Technically if an athlete transitions early and never goes through male puberty at all you basically remove that issue… But then people start being incensed that someone transitioned at 16 with the a-okay of an entire team of doctors, social workers, therapists and the blessings of the legal guardians. It is easier for them to just assume that there is no solution that allows fair inclusion on this front.

    Or

    The second type of league exists to combat a systematic rejection of women through treating them as novelties or inferiors. Nobody generally wants to do something for fulfillment, bragging rights or fun if it requires them to wade through being treated like a second class citizen. The exclusion of trans women from these communities assume that trans women do not experience the same forces of misogyny that drive cis women from sport and assumes trans women can just re-don all of their male privileges whenever they feel like… Something that doesn’t really happen. From personal experience within the community trans women are often REALLY vulnerable to misogyny. They just freeze up and have no idea how to deal with it. They didn’t get a training period where elder women assumed they were inexperienced and helped them learn how to deal or strategies how to stay safe or safe places to retreat to where they could find solidarity. A lot of them just stumble into danger with a lot of cis women just leaving them out to dry thinking they are innately strong enough to deal. The exclusion of trans women from these spaces takes a rather callous vein of every one removing all forms of solidarity from all sides of sport. The trans woman looking for a place to do something they are extremely passionate and talented in basically is told that she can either put up with being thrown into the misogyny heavy lions den and treated by all sides as novelty, a reason others can point to to discredit the rest of the needs of the trans community or just as a man (something that for a trans person causes a cascade of negative mental health effects) or she can disappear from the sport entirely…ignoring that similar situations are what caused a segregated woman’s league to be established in the first place.

    The first assumes male privilege of body fat and muscle distribution. The second assumes an intrinsic male social privilege remains relevant. A lot of people want to assert that a loss of male privilege isn’t possible. It’s just someone with it trying to angle for an unfair advantage rather than someone who just needs the solidarity of other people who lack privilege in a similar way they do.

    madthumbs,

    Why is there an issue with ‘trans’ but not ‘women’s’? If they’re going to divide up (exclude) sexes, perhaps make a ‘trans’ competition too.

    givesomefucks,

    In chess it made sense.

    You only get better by playing higher quality opponents. And even today a lot of the male grandmasters won’t play women unless forced to.

    For fishing tho?

    It makes no sense, there’s not even skill involved with fishing, just luck on what bites.

    So really, you should be asking why is anyone holding fishing tournaments

    Mr_Blott,

    there’s not even skill involved

    I’m not even a fisherman but I know that comment would get you hung up by your nether regions from the nearest tree 😂

    FlickOfTheBean,

    I am very much failing to see how the chess thing makes any sense…

    It seems that the chess association that did that is operating from a sexist stance of “men are inherently more logical than women” which led to their transphobic stance of “trans women are not to play ciswomen”

    Am I missing something? How does it make sense?

    givesomefucks,

    In chess the highest ranked men refused to play any women. Really, any man refused to play any woman in a ranked match.

    To get good at chess, you need to play better opponents.

    By not playing women, it meant women would never get as good as the best men.

    That’s why a women’s chess league made sense, and why after it women have ranked in the top 10 globally. Because they were able to find each other and have matches.

    My point was, in a solo activity like fishing, there’s no need for a women’s league. It’s not like fishing in a tournament against other people somehow makes you catch bigger fish.

    OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe,

    I feel like, at a certain ranking, refusing to play (unless previously beaten said opponent in X amount of time) should be an automatic forfeit. And fuck anyone who says that would reduce overall skill, Magnus Carlsen can eat my left, anal-vibrating, nut.

    CubbyTustard,

    come on I am no master angler or anything but pretending skill can’t affect your fishing outcome is nonsense.

    LdyMeow,

    What are you even on about? ‘In chess it made sense’ like you think women are too dumb for chess??? And no skill in fishing? I guess it’s pretty obvious you’ve never been fishing.

    Big yikes

    NoneOfUrBusiness,

    While the comment about fish is probably bullshit the guy explained his reasoning pretty well. Chess grandmasters refuse to play against women, so women don't get the chance to improve to that level as much. Women competitions solve that problem.

    LdyMeow,

    Yeah they explained it in a different message, and that makes sense. Didn’t see that one so it came across as you can only get better by playing someone better, so none of the men would play women. With no context sounds like it ‘made sense’ because women can’t play chess. With context it becomes more clear

    givesomefucks,

    What are you even on about? ‘In chess it made sense’ like you think women are too dumb for chess

    No, I’m saying the only way to get abnormally good at chess is to play people that are already that good at it…

    So women were set back decades in competitive chess and only got where they are today by organizing a high level women’s league.

    This isn’t something I pulled out of my ass, just because you didn’t know about

    moistclump,

    Why did it make sense for chess?

    givesomefucks,

    You could have scrolled down and not had to wait…

    lemmy.world/comment/4006828

    nodsocket,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    qaz,

    As u/madthumb has proven, that /s was in fact necessary.

    madthumbs,

    Lol, nice troll. Casting is more about finesse.

    GrammatonCleric,
    @GrammatonCleric@lemmy.world avatar

    Seriously. Do they think men have an advantage over women because it’s normal for a dad to take his son fishing growing up? I really can’t think of any other reason.

    Knusper,

    Women’s sport is not necessarily about having a physical advantage. It can be the case that the sport is simply male dominated and then, especially when there’s no physical reason, women may feel like it should be advertised to girls more. And that’s what then leads them to organize women-only championships.

    Dagnet,

    Exactly, which is why e-sports sometimes have women’s tournaments. Genders play no role here but it’s a male dominated sport

    Blamemeta,

    Well yeah, thats pretty much it. The womens team is there to get more women in fishing. Sure, a dad might take his daughter to the lake to fish and the deer lease to hunt a few times, but its not as common as a dad taking his son.

    LemmyPlay,

    Also safety and enjoyment. imagine being the only woman competing for the first time and then beating all the men at this very male-dominated sport. Her life would actually be in danger.

    Blamemeta,

    Thats not really a concern. Not saying crazy assholes don’t exist, but thats not why womens league exist. Besides, it would be easy to see she caught a bigger fish.

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