Charity stream hosted to spite transphobic tosser Graham Linehan [split topic]

[Ferris]

Imagine if Glinner did get banned from Twitter.

What on earth would he do with his time? Being transphobic on Twitter is his entire life now.

He could sign up for CaB.

Actually no, Graham, don't do that.

[DrGreggles]

He could sign up for CaB.

Actually no, Graham, don't do that.

He already has, as Paulie Walnuts.

[Mango Chimes]

It's an odd world where Graham Linehan is pushing himself into arguments about the lesbian dating scene, but an even odder one where radical feminists are pushing Graham Linehan to the forefront of their feminism.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I would have thought that his conduct alone would have disqualified him from being the face of any activist movement hoping to be taken seriously, but no, apparently the 'BEARD' button, pointedly and needlessly calling people the wrong pronouns and repeatedly insisting that a Muslim trans woman must be some kind of predatory sexual fetishist is just the kind of strategy they want?

[Paulie Walnuts]

Incredible scenes

Birmingham school stops LGBT lessons after parents protest

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/04/birmingham-school-stops-lgbt-lessons-after-parent-protests

[Cuellar]

Wrong thread? Get a white van man to deliver it to the right one.

[Tony Yeboah]

Frasier did this exact joke, when their old school bully - now a plumber - comes to fix their bathroom. Niles tells Frasier to say that he's overseas.

"Niles is abroad now."
"Huh. I mean, I guess I always suspected, but..."

Nick Helm's version years later: Have you ever been abroad? No, I've always had a cock and balls.

[madhair60]

Nick Helm's version years later: Have you ever been abroad? No, I've always had a cock and balls.

Cancelled

[he]

No. The line is "I used to be a man" and it's repeated. It's just poor writing in what is a very broad comedy. This is the same episode that has Jen convinced she has custody of the Internet in a box and that Employee of the Month is some kind of Nobel prize.

Yeah you're right it is a bad line. Wtf was he thinking??

How does everyone feel about the sports and trans debate?

[jamiefairlie]

Yeah you're right it is a bad line. Wtf was he thinking??

How does everyone feel about the sports and trans debate?

It's getting rather heated and public now isn't it. Mainstream and hugely admired figures like Navratilova, kelly Holmes, Sharon Davies and Tessa Sanderson are raising concerns and are being met with a backlash from trans activists. It's getting ugly but it's been brewing for a while now and has been swept under the carpet until erupting now

[Jake Thingray]

The Archive Hour, on Radio 4 just now and for some reason presented by Davina McCall's chum Ed Byrne, was a trot through the usuals regarding offence in comedy, Lenny Bruce, Life of Brian, Sachsgate, Louis CK etc. Guess who was interviewed, saying he asked to have his name taken off the Brass Eye Special and making the admittedly true observation that the horrible Hill definitely had rape as a source of gags, despite those who claim "oh it was all harmless fun, the girls in lingerie were actually chasing him"; if he's heading for the fall this thread has been predicting, he may feature in future similar documentaries from quite a different angle.

[rimbaud]

It's getting rather heated and public now isn't it. Mainstream and hugely admired figures like Navratilova, kelly Holmes, Sharon Davies and Tessa Sanderson are raising concerns and are being met with a backlash from trans activists. It's getting ugly but it's been brewing for a while now and has been swept under the carpet until erupting now

I'd love to see some sensible debate, as called for by Paula Radcliffe, but all I see is bullying of cis female athletes.  A current athlete would be very brave to stick their head over the parapet, even when there is clearly a challenge in their particular sport.

Size matters and I don't care many hormones Tyson Fury might take, he's still going to be 6 foot 9 with as massive rib cage.  The immediate response is always there are some 6 foot 9 women. ☹️

[phantom_power]

The immediate response is that muscle mass is usually what determines strength and that is determined in large part by testosterone. Transgender women on hormones usually have the same muscle mass as cis women as far as I can tell with a small amount of googling. I am fairly sure that the governing bodies of each sport has looked into that sort of thing.

I think the thing to remember is that in emotive issues like this arseholes on Twitter are always going to jump down the throats of people who they disagree with. The thing is to filter them out and see what the "real" opinions of trans activists are. Also, people like Linehan amplify and distort the opinions of cis athletes to further their agendas, which just leads to big targets being painted on their backs for the Twitter twats

[Mango Chimes]

The great thing about Twitter is that it's both the ideal platform to have a complex discussion, and it allows the voices of sports, queer and gender studies experts like Graham Linehan to really be heard.

[Fisher Goes Berserk]

Brynn Tannehill has written a rational, evidence-based and nuanced response to concerns about trans women competing in women's sports:

https://twitter.com/brynntannehill/status/1102568984556249090?lang=en-gb

This sums it up for me:

"12. If, at some point we start to see a disproportionate number of transgender women winning high level athletic events, then it would be appropriate to reevaluate the rules for participation. But for now, there is no data-based evidence that the system is broken."

With self-ID - which is what has catalysed this debate - just around the corner, the situation might change. But even then, I find it difficult to believe that competitive sports can be organised in such a way that accommodates infinite variations of ability/disability, but can't do the same for people who don't fit neatly into binaries of sex or gender.

[Cuellar]

Good thread there

[phantom_power]

Very good. Has someone retweeted it to Glinner?

[Blumf]

...I find it difficult to believe that competitive sports can be organised in such a way that accommodates infinite variations of ability/disability, but can't do the same for people who don't fit neatly into binaries of sex or gender.

Would it be worth dumping the male/female split all together and have groupings, like they do for disabled athletes, based on some ability criteria (e.g. muscle mass & height?)

[canadagoose]

Very good. Has someone retweeted it to Glinner?

I like the thought that Glinner can be reasoned with. Glinner is a vortex of unstoppable chaos and cat piss, and any attempt to interact with him from an opposing viewpoint will only result in him spewing his "beard" memes at you or calling you a misogynist. It's a truly pointless endeavour.

[phantom_power]

It would just be interesting to see the mental gymnastics he comes up with to refute her evidence

[Jerzy Bondov]

They should not allow transwomen to compete in mental gymnastics. It's just about integrity in sport.

[gilbertharding]

Would it be worth dumping the male/female split all together and have groupings, like they do for disabled athletes, based on some ability criteria (e.g. muscle mass & height?)

ON the face of it that would work - but reckons without the decades of effort which has been made to make women's sport on a par with men's.

If the best female athlete in the world - who at the moment will get roughly equal coverage to the male equivalent in her sport - is now left to compete for a win in the equivalent of the Isthmian League, possibly by beating a lot of very obviously third-class men... I don't know what the draw would be.

Depends on what you want sport to be. Is it to watch elite professionals perform at the peak of human whatsername, or to see ordinary people like you do their very best and have a great time.

[Crabwalk]

Just #cancel all sports. It's the obvious solution.

[marquis_de_sad]

It's Match of the Day not Match of the Adam and Steve.

[Zetetic]

They should not allow transwomen to compete in mental gymnastics.

As a slightly more serious aside, I think it's interesting that FIDE still maintain "Top Players" and "Top Women" lists.

(I believe they apply self-ID already, broadly, although some national federations might have more stringent rules).

(FIDE are also not very good at actually consistently calling the "Top Players" list that. Internally their website is clearly referring to it as "men" and I'm sure a few months ago some of the links were as well - although there was at least one woman in the top 100 players at that time.)

(Edit: Probably Yifan Hou that I was thinking of. Currently top Woman and 87th Player.)

[idunnosomename]

It would just be interesting to see the mental gymnastics he comes up with to refute her evidence

Yes it might be but that never happens. He just retweets people who represent his conservative mumsnet mindset, and highlights fringe lunatics and opens them up for targeted abuse. Refutation or debate never fills even but a minute of his busy day sitting in his underpants furiously tweeting

[idunnosomename]

Just #cancel all sports. It's the obvious solution.

been saying this for years. it'd sort out all this hooliganism malarkey too

[erdnase52]

I have no problems saying that trans acceptance wasn't completely easy for me in the beginning - a mixture of ignorance and cultural transphobia will do this to most people. But after following the content of people like Contrapoints and actually knowing trans people in real life makes it impossible to take a red herring such as the sports thing in a serious manner. The implication of not allowing transwomen in female sports is denying their freedom, as opposed to the outcome of a sporting competition - slightly less important.

Out of curiosity, I've been following the trend of some feminists hating trans people for a while now. Graham Linehan did an interview with Megan Murphy, their advocate for "females only" feminism. It's on Youtube, and I think it's curious how they associate themselves with Trump voters and the alt-right, saying how bad they felt for not giving those people the benefit of the doubt, freedom of speech on twitter for hate speech, and other common topics of far right trolls. I'm not saying they're as bad as those people, but it's just a curious fact.

(I'm doing the Jordan Peterson thing of not really saying one thing, but rather putting the idea out there as if I didn't believe it.)

[he]

Just #cancel all sports. It's the obvious solution.

Would make things interesting alright.

And fair.

[bgmnts]

I don't get why it would be hard to accept anything that doesn't harm anyone.