NO TROLLS Transgender Discrimination AFL Lawsuit

mouncey2franklin

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There is a fair level of hypocrisy and irony going on here and it's pretty scary if some of what is being said is actually genuinely believed by those who are saying it. Very scary.

Anybody here think it is inevitable that, eventually, transgender people will be allowed to play AFLW?

I can see this thread being bumped in ten to fifteen years, and a lot of people being labeled as 'bigots' and 'transphobes'.

Have you guys seen what is being taught in school (and in childrens television programs) lately?

In a way, there will be some fair schadenfreude when the AFLW is paying 'parity' to women, and those women used to be men.

Shame for the biological women who will have zero hope of competing with their transgender peers, though.

And I mean zero hope. None. Anybody who has ever played sport at even a decent level knows this.

U15 soccer club sides of boys can smesh national womens teams. There's a reason for that.

It shows how far the brainwashing has come, that people even need to have this explained to them.

And it is only going to get worse. Seriously, go and look at what is being taught in schools these days 🤯
 
Aug 15, 2015
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Anybody here think it is inevitable that, eventually, transgender people will be allowed to play AFLW?

I can see this thread being bumped in ten to fifteen years, and a lot of people being labeled as 'bigots' and 'transphobes'.

Have you guys seen what is being taught in school (and in childrens television programs) lately?

In a way, there will be some fair schadenfreude when the AFLW is paying 'parity' to women, and those women used to be men.

Shame for the biological women who will have zero hope of competing with their transgender peers, though.

And I mean zero hope. None. Anybody who has ever played sport at even a decent level knows this.

U15 soccer club sides of boys can smesh national womens teams. There's a reason for that.

It shows how far the brainwashing has come, that people even need to have this explained to them.

And it is only going to get worse. Seriously, go and look at what is being taught in schools these days 🤯

Tell us what is being taught in schools these days that has you so outraged..
 
This thread really goes to show how poorly some people function when they step outside their echo chambers (Twitter, friendship groups based solely on identity politics) to discuss things with people in the real world.

The lack of good faith conversation and reasonable discourse is one of the genuine problems we have in society, where we are seeing more and more that people screech at, attempt to discredit and attack people who simply hold a different viewpoint. This thread is a real microcosm of what's going on out there.

There is a fair level of hypocrisy and irony going on here and it's pretty scary if some of what is being said is actually genuinely believed by those who are saying it. Very scary.

It will only get worse. If you're mad then stand up and say so. We have that right.
 
Jul 22, 2013
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I don't think there is any "progressive groupthink" when it comes to this topic - and it is a fairly split debate even within communities that would consider themselves 'trans advocates'. For me, it is a matter of logic and first principles - namely why these separate competitions exist at all.

Biological males have a vastly different biological makeup and an inherent athletic advantage over biological females - such to the extent that it is not feasible to expect the latter to fairly compete with the former on a level playing field. So we have two separate categories and that works for ~99.9% of the population.

The reason for the difference is not necessarily due to gender - but due to these inherent biological advantages. For the remaining 0.1% of the population, the biological advantage that intersex women and transwomen can have varies dramatically - both based on the unique biological makeup of each individual to the advantage that higher circulating testosterone may provide to each specific sport. As a result, it is difficult to set any hard and fast rules in order to achieve a genuinely fair playing field while also attempting to be inclusive to intersex and trans athletes.

The problem with sports is that a large enough % of the fanbase has no real desire to be inclusive to intersex and trans athletes. Look at any bigfooty thread, Facebook discussion, shitty dinner party and it's full of the same narrow-minded views and ceaseless misgendering. The heteronormative hegemony and societal prejudice that pervades sporting culture only serves to unnecessarily drive many people away from sports - for no net benefit. It's no wonder that a large % of the trans population don't give a sh*t about sports - a domain where they have never felt welcomed. Sports execs. are starting to see this as a growing problem as they are already having difficulties engaging Gen Z - the most socially inclusive generation.

To address this problem, inclusion and respect must be the default mode for how we deal with these 0.1% 'grey-area' cases - whilst also protecting the following for the remaining 49.9% of the population:
  1. The fairness of sports at the elite level
  2. The fairness of sports in the junior levels
  3. The safety of women in contact sports
Outside of those three reasons, participation for transwomen in non-elite/junior and non-contact sports should be open and inclusive regardless of their biological makeup.

The science is still not settled as to whether biological males that transition pre-puberty have a biological advantage over biological females. If it is determined that there is no biological advantage, I cannot see any justifiable reason why these transwomen would not be permitted to compete in women's elite sport. For those that transition after puberty, I think it depends largely on the nature of the sport - which is why each sporting body should make an evolving assessment based on the best scientific research available at the time.

Language is important in how these discussions are contextualised. For example:

"Mouncey should not be able to compete in the elite level of the women's competition - not because she isn't a woman - but because she has a natural biological advantage over her biological female competitors."

This language removes gender discrimination from the discussion and focuses on first principles. If you want to be REAL specific about language, you could rename the AFLW to the AFL46XX competition - but even I think that's overkill.

Imagine how much simpler it would be to find consistent and workable answers if the world abandoned the millennial fantasy that if you want something, then the world has to give it to you, unconditionally.

We muddled along for millennia without the exceedingly odd concept that identifying = absolute reality. Life is full of conditional scenarios. How weird is it that the chattering class howls with outrage that the trans issue, one filled with unresolvable contradictions between gender (in the millennial sense) and biology, could ever be conditional in even the smallest way? Like sport, for example.

The pretense that gender, biology (and sexuality for that matter) are not deeply intertwined creates a conflict which has no satisfactory remedy. No matter how much we aspire to ignore it.
 
Imagine how much simpler it would be to find consistent and workable answers if the world abandoned the millennial fantasy that if you want something, then the world has to give it to you, unconditionally.

We muddled along for millennia without the exceedingly odd concept that identifying = absolute reality. Life is full of conditional scenarios. How weird is it that the chattering class howls with outrage that the trans issue, one filled with unresolvable contradictions between gender (in the millennial sense) and biology, could ever be conditional in even the smallest way? Like sport, for example.

The pretense that gender, biology (and sexuality for that matter) are not deeply intertwined creates a conflict which has no satisfactory remedy. No matter how much we aspire to ignore it.

Not identifying is rejecting reality. The villainous medical industry that encourages this horseshit deserves blame and animosity. They exploit the mentally ill for profit and pump them full of hormones and then encourage them to undertake life altering surgery.

How did we reach a point where it was so socially acceptable to exploit and mutilate the mentally ill for profit?
 

Timewillcome

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I imagine the current AFLW players would not be supportive due to assumed advantage a biological male would have over a biological female. Not that they can come out and say or they would be howled down for having such a concern, in some ways for their safety.

There are now a number of cases where men have transitioned to women, and can dominate the sport at a pro level as well as the weight lifting comparison. I can not see anyway this is fair for womens sport.

A lot of the issues are summed up by this quote.
Problem is, they'll likely go from elite level as a woman to middling as a male, even with the additional increase in performance that should occur due to the hormone treatment.
Is part of this argument because the sportsperson wants to compete as a professional in their chosen sport? In the case of Mouncey, I have read that she is not considered to be an particularly good footballer. I'm not suggesting she has transitioned for the benefit of playing elite sports as a women, but she certainly wasn't going to play as a male at elite level and would end up like most of us as just a park footballer. Just because you transition, does that give you a right to become a pro sportsperson?

Not sure what the solution is but I cant see why Hannah cant play in the mens comp at whatever level she is capable. There may never be enough trans players to form an individual league, and I also dont think this would appease the more vocal campaigners.

Fairness and safety for the majority needs to be the main concern and this seems to be where men transition and play against birth females. I would have a hard and fast rule of gender at birth, but thats not going to fly these days.
 
Jul 22, 2013
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Not identifying is rejecting reality. The villainous medical industry that encourages this horseshit deserves blame and animosity. They exploit the mentally ill for profit and pump them full of hormones and then encourage them to undertake life altering surgery.

How did we reach a point where it was so socially acceptable to exploit and mutilate the mentally ill for profit?

I'm not sure that any of that has the slightest connection to what I was attempting to communicate.
 

Rusty Brookes

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Cant say I have been following Mouncey's career too much ........ is she actually good enough to play AFLW? Would any team draft her based on ability?

My understanding is that she's wanting to play in the top tier of the Canberra league. I'll probably be howled down by both sides but what the heck, here's my view. I was taught at Uni all the way back in the early 90s that gender and sex are two separate things. So these ideas are hardly new.

Hannah has every right to identify as a woman and not to be discriminated for her choice - that's the gender side of it.

However, sport is split along biological lines, not gender. Up until puberty hits - there's very little difference between males and females in their football ability. My experience as an Auskick coach supports this view - there were girls I coached that smoked some of the boys. As puberty hits, differences in body type that give the advantage to males start to hit. This is essentially why a separate women's competition exists.

The AFL is obliged to provide Hannah with a place to play free of discrimination. That's fair enough. It doesn't follow that has to be in a top tier women's competition. To me if Hannah (who is biologically male as I understand it) had been rejected by a men's side then there would be a case for legal action.
 
Apr 23, 2016
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could be wrong but I'm not sure why for example Talya Harris would feel not empowered to say anything either way.

Because she would be castigated by the Social Justice types of the world. For athletes who rely so heavily on their public profile and public goodwill to make a living, it simply isn't worth it.

Is part of this argument because the sportsperson wants to compete as a professional in their chosen sport? In the case of Mouncey, I have read that she is not considered to be an particularly good footballer. I'm not suggesting she has transitioned for the benefit of playing elite sports as a women, but she certainly wasn't going to play as a male at elite level and would end up like most of us as just a park footballer. Just because you transition, does that give you a right to become a pro sportsperson?

That comment was about someone who had a friend that was an elite standard weight lifter as a female, that wanted to transition but remain competing as a female.

More analogous was when Mouncey (who has played handball at the elite level on the mens team) wanted to join the Women's Handball team and was left off because her teammates were uncomfortable.

If Mouncey was 5'6" and 60kg it wouldn't be such a big deal, but the fact that they are already in the top 5% or so for height and weight as a male means that it's a fairly absurd scenario.

For me, community sport and elite sport are different, one is based on participation alone, whilst the other is inherently discriminatory. There's no right to compete in the Olympics, or play in AFL (or AFLW). We segregate the women's competition out simply because biologically men have such monumental physical advantages: and whilst post-transition someone who has gone through puberty as a male will see a decrease in performance from their previous level, they have significant advantages over and above what any biological female could ever have.

Particularly in team / contact sports, where it's not as simple as how fast someone can run down a lane, there's an impact on the other athletes in the league. Mouncey may not be as quick or as strong as they once were, but ultimately they're still 6'2" with a male skeleton, and has effectively spent most of their life on PEDs compared to the other women in the competition.
 

mouncey2franklin

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the idea that gender and sex are different is not new despite some posts to the contrary
Let's say it has been taught in academia for thirty years.

For how many years before then have humans known / understood that boys have a penis and girls have a vagina?

Yes, this is a relatively new belief system, and it doesn't matter how many academics push it, a lot of people know it's bullshit.

Capisce?
 

Rusty Brookes

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Let's say it has been taught in academia for thirty years.

For how many years before then have humans known / understood that boys have a penis and girls have a vagina?

Yes, this is a relatively new belief system, and it doesn't matter how many academics push it, a lot of people know it's bullshit.

Capisce?

Again, biological boys have a penis, biological girls have a vagina. We are in furious agreement there. There are the genetic disorders such as Klinefelter's syndrome where someone is born with XXY chromosomes. Sex becomes a little trickier with these disorders and there's where the idea of intersex comes from.

But history is littered with examples of societies where there were multiple genders - so these ideas have existed for much longer than western academics have studied it.


And since people asked, I was taught this in genetics class.
 
Dec 18, 2007
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My understanding is that she's wanting to play in the top tier of the Canberra league. I'll probably be howled down by both sides but what the heck, here's my view. I was taught at Uni all the way back in the early 90s that gender and sex are two separate things. So these ideas are hardly new.

Hannah has every right to identify as a woman and not to be discriminated for her choice - that's the gender side of it.

However, sport is split along biological lines, not gender. Up until puberty hits - there's very little difference between males and females in their football ability. My experience as an Auskick coach supports this view - there were girls I coached that smoked some of the boys. As puberty hits, differences in body type that give the advantage to males start to hit. This is essentially why a separate women's competition exists.

The AFL is obliged to provide Hannah with a place to play free of discrimination. That's fair enough. It doesn't follow that has to be in a top tier women's competition. To me if Hannah (who is biologically male as I understand it) had been rejected by a men's side then there would be a case for legal action.

The WHO - Australian Human Rights Commission and leading women's sports like the WTA say there is a difference between biological sex and gender.

Your comment about junior girls reminds me of a girl that i played junior footy with, she was a Geelong supporter always turning up to training in a cats jumper and because she was quite tall and solid she would run through some the boys and would take pack marks over the boys but in those days girls had to stop playing in under 13s.
 

Fryman

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There are the genetic disorders such as Klinefelter's syndrome where someone is born with XXY chromosomes.
These people are not trans and also a infinitesimally small % of the population but are brought up to justify trans rights. Seems extremely disingenuous.


And since people asked, I was taught this in genetics class.
What part of this nonsense is hard science?
Other ancient cultures have had many beliefs which are now shown to be flat out wrong thanks to scientific investigation.
Should we take all their beliefs as gospel?
 

TheKITC

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I think this conversation is really interesting and is now being discussed in a mostly appropriate manner, which is how it should be. Some very interesting takes of varying viewpoints being put forward.

Back to the question posed as to what the AFLW themselves players think, I find it very interesting that really none of them (to my knowledge?) have come out publicly and advocated strongly for Hannah (and other trans-women for that matter) to be allowed to join the league. I think this is very curious and a potential indicator for judging the sentiment of the athletes for a couple of reasons.

The AFLW has a vast amount of LBGTQI+ (excuse me if that isn't the current or proper initialism) members and supporters that make up it's ranks, I think that goes without saying. To my knowledge, none of them have come out and advocated strongly for Hannah to join, there certainly isn't a united front regardless, which kind of goes against what normally happens in these situations... Usually people now cannot wait to "virtue signal" in these circumstances and show how progressive and accepting they are, particularly in a community that has been marginalised and is very vocal in making changes to the status quo and supporting those under their umbrella.

I think it is a fair indicator of the temperature and thought amongst the players that they haven't publicly taken a stand. It's one thing to not want to come out and go against it firmly, because we all know that they would be shouted down and labelled into oblivion. But I think the silence on this is pretty deafening and almost certainly shows what the overwhelming consensus is of the players.
 
Jul 22, 2013
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But history is littered with examples of societies where there were multiple genders - so these ideas have existed for much longer than western academics have studied it.

A rather strange argument. You might struggle to demonstrate the logic behind "somebody else once believed something like the proposition I am advancing, therefore the proposition I advance is proven correct."

Falls a bit short, doesn't it?

I would also suggest that the view of more than two genders, even if indisputably established and defined, helps the Trans athlete not one little bit.
 

The Tilt

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There are the genetic disorders such as Klinefelter's syndrome where someone is born with XXY chromosomes. Sex becomes a little trickier with these disorders and there's where the idea of intersex comes from.

As noted above, those conditions have really nothing whatsoever to do with transgenderism, but are often raised in trans advocacy in effort to argue that biological sex isn't real, or that there are actually more than two sexes, or what have you. In reality, intersex conditions don't help the cause of Mouncey one bit: even if there are individuals who are neither male or female, trans women aren't among them (they're biologically male).

Also, there's no ambiguity as to the sex of someone with Klinefelter syndome (XXY): anyone with Klinefelter syndrome is male. The presence of the additional X chromosome doesn't bring the individual's sex into question.

p.s. I basically with your views on trans women competing in female sports, just thought i'd respond to the specific point above.
 
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