I wonder what would happen if he did? There was a movie that grossed almost a quarter of a billion dollars because Will Ferrell pretended to be a six foot, three inch tall elf; Julia Roberts portrayed a six-inch-tall flying fairy; and one of Sir Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld" characters is Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, a two-meter (six foot two inches) tall dwarf.
In fact, after viewing today's headlines and then looking back at Captain Carrot's "dwarfness" (a human orphan, he was adopted and raised by dwarfs, so of course he believes himself to be a dwarf too), perhaps Sir Pterry was ahead of his time and this was his way of taking a pin to the balloon of self-determined identity, satirizing it and turning it into a point of humor. -"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
A six-foot trans woman who used to play men's football has been signed up as a goalkeeper for the England Universities' female side.
In the latest example of a growing trend in elite sport, Blair Hamilton, 32 – who is also lead investigator of the Tavistock Transgender Athlete Study – will take one of the coveted spots in the national squad within weeks.
The player, who was born male but identifies as female, was selected after impressive displays for Hastings United Football Club women's team in East Sussex, known as the 'Us'.
Last Wednesday, the team tweeted: 'The 'Us' are delighted to announced that [Blair Hamilton] has been selected for the England Universities Sport Women's Squad!'
Demonstrating her excitement, Hamilton – a PhD student at Brighton University – responded that she was 'buzzing for this'.
But last night, the controversial appointment was already causing ructions.
Maya Forstater, of Sex Matters, which campaigns for 'clarity' on women-only services and spaces, said: 'Women will lose out from being on the squad and will also potentially be put under pressure not to speak up about it.'
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
I'll just quote the concluding paragraphs. It's not a long piece and worth the visit. I underlined one sentence which I think gets to the heart of the matter.
Cyd Zeigler is co-founder of Outsports, a website about LGBTQ athletes. He supports “inclusion for [trans] athletes in their gender category”. Disagreeing with that, though, he points out, is not necessarily transphobic. Many “who think that trans women should be treated as women in employment, in housing, in education, on their driver’s license” nevertheless also question their place “in women’s sports”.
To discriminate against trans people in the workplace, to refuse to serve them in a shop, to object to trans adoptions, to deliberately misgender as a means of humiliating someone – that is bigotry. To argue for sex-based categories in sport – that is not. To deem both “transphobic” is to diminish the meaning of the word.
We can only work our way through these conundrums with open discussion rather than dismissing disagreement as “hatred”. Such rhetoric only stokes fear and resentment and makes it more difficult to come to an equitable solution.
Trans people face considerable prejudice and discrimination. We cannot challenge that, though, by undermining women’s rights. The problem does not lie with Lia Thomas or Emily Bridges. It lies with sports authorities who have ducked the issue and those who would shut down the debate rather than work through the difficulties. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to debate this as grownups.
