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.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I heard a similar story about a transwoman in esports…

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

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          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 #haloisforeveryone. 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.

  • Cap@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • madthumbs@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Grammaton Cleric@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        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@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

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

      • Throwaway@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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.

          • Throwaway@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            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.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

      • LdyMeow@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        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@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          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@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            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

  • MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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?

  • DarkSurferZA@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    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.

    • kase@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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

  • Tillyrblue@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

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

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

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

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

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

      • Tillyrblue@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • Throwaway@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

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