Banning trans women from all women's sport and building a jigsaw of hate.

World swimming body Fina has just overturned its previous guidelines and effectively banned all trans women from elite swimming.

Each time a new piece of anti-trans discrimination arrives, its authors try to justify it as specific to just one context. But, behind them, the people pressing for each of these actions are celebrating as they build their bigger jigsaw of hate. They have a much larger goal in mind...

So here we go again. After drawing breath from being told I am a potential rapist and ought to be banned from all women's toilets or changing rooms and after sitting through noxious comments from government ministers about how I can't be let into a women's ward if I go to hospital, my dreams of an Olympic Gold are now in tatters.  That moment when I cheat my way into the women's kierin final through my concealed yet secretly superior strength and power on my racing bike down the back straight to take the title is to be denied me. No matter, perhaps I can line up for the 100m breaststroke (obviously, I'd like it to be renamed 'cheststroke' to erase my female competitors), adjust my latex hat to conceal my giveaway male pattern baldness ("you can always tell") and then plunge with my big hands into the water, looking for a podium finish? Well, apparently not, according to a sudden ruling by world swimming regulator, Fina, which has effectively just banned all trans women from elite swimming. According to Sebastian Coe, I shouldn't buy a new pair of spikes any time soon either, because World Athletics is about to say it doesn't want me in women's events and rumours are also circulating that FIFA is shaping up to do something similar in soccer. Thus ends my late bid to be named in the women's national squad, I guess. Perhaps I could go to Qatar later this year to see the guys play at least? Wait, I'd possibly be imprisoned or even executed there because my actual existence is illegal. 

US swimmer Lia Thomas will
no longer be able to compete

Sounds absurd? Welcome to my world. Frankly, I struggle to make it up the hill to my house from town, never mind to the Olympic trials. But suddenly I have to take an interest in women's sport and not in a good way. And you do too. Not in the issues that might really matter though, like why women get less prize money still in many events. Not why abuse of young women in sport by male coaches is a real problem. Not why disadvantaged women, or those who can't afford childcare, are often unable to pursue their sporting goals. No, you need to be Scared About The Main Issue. The main issue about women's sports right now is the mass invasion of men who want to cheat their way in - to win. In yet another attempt to erase women.  

Sport is a competitive world obviously, so it seems that various international regulatory bodies are in a race to see who can banish all trans women fastest (we hear less about trans men...but hey, who really cares about them, they're never going to win anything, goes this logic). In the lead, rugby league which did it a while ago, with swimming and cycling pushing for the silver. Track, as mentioned above, is coming through from the back fast now. We await Lord Coe's legendary sprint finish from the final bend.

Does this stuff matter? Well, fairness matters, obviously. And for years sport has been wrestling with how to achieve that in the face of the different back story of trans women have to tell about their bodies, and for some, in some settings, the implications of that. Various sports have come to different conclusions and research has been ongoing about how to achieve a suitable, sensitive way forward. Much seems to depend on the type of sport, the level, the event and the skills required. Broadly, there's a system in place that seems to at least operate - at least for the multitude of cisgender athletes and officials who really matter of course. Meanwhile, trans athletes have been allowed to compete at the Olympics since 2004. Since then, at 5 games, almost 5000 medals of all types have been awarded and trans people have won...one. That was a non-binary soccer player who helped Canada win gold in Tokyo. Some mass invasion. You'd think that sports bodies might be having a look at that to make sport more accessible to trans people, mightn't you?

Not exactly.

The Women's Canadian Olympic soccer team 2021

So what's going on? The era is changing, that's what. The Blanket Ban is the future. In other words, removing trans people from society in countries where some progress has been made, by bringing to an end the brief moment when a philosophy promoting sensible, negotiated and compassionate solutions to new questions emerging in society around sex and gender seemed possible. Now, in our binary world where everyone is on one side of an 'issue' against another side, and where there can be no common ground, no understanding,  often only bitterness and lies in the public discourse, a sniff at real power by one side means that they will go hell-for-leather to destroy the cultural or political 'enemy' (just ask refugees and asylum seekers trying to reach the UK right now).

And thus with trans people, certainly in Britain, and in parts of the United States. A couple of days ago, the UK Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, a simple-minded glove-puppet of the hard-right with the articulacy of a fridge magnet and a national reputation for being possibly the Stupidest Minister of Them All (and it's a very strong field), commented that she wanted to see trans women banned from all women's sport and that trans women's participation in women's sport was "unacceptable". This followed several weeks of anti-trans dogwhistles from various government ministers as they doubtless followed up on the focus group findings from their hardcore right-wing voters suggesting a need for more prejudiced or nationalistic comments (see also: Refugees, Northern Ireland Protocol etc) to demonstrate the Greatness in post-Brexit Great Britain (see also also: Boris Johnson's job). 

Of equal interest perhaps is the frenzy of excitement that has broken out - as ever - amongst the usual suspects here in the UK; the 'Gender Criticals', the full-blown TERFs, and the poisonous clown car of toxic commentators from The Guardian to The Telegraph.

Strangely, barely any of these people seemed to take much interest in women's sports before. But there again, nor did they take the slightest interest in women's prisons or the welfare of the women held in them...until it emerged that a small number of convicted trans women had been held in them for some years (with the full support of Prison Governors and largely without incident). Then there was outrage, campaigning, petitions, vile and rubbish-filled speeches in the House of Lords from fossilised Tory peers whose involvement with penal issues previously had never got further than voting for prisoners to not be able to access books in jail lest they think they are in a holiday camp.

Nor were they very engaged in the medical care of women in hospital, the specific facilities available for women, the shortage of beds, staff cuts, the disasters in various maternity units...until it emerged that hospitals were interpreting the Equality Act 2010 correctly and housing trans women on women's wards sometimes. Then unsourced stories were spread about apparent rapes on wards by trans women and about the imminent danger posed by these predators, with breathless column inches filled in all the usual places, despite Freedom of Information requests revealing not one complaint about the issue to an NHS Trust.

Nor did they take an interest in girls' education, its quality or provision, or the seemingly endemic problem of misogyny and even sexual abuse by boys...until a campaign to smear the small number of trans kids took hold and a narrative of fear and distrust was engineered, with some trans children being characterised as monsters, beaten up and almost driven to suicide. Then groups were formed, leaflets and trans-hostile 'guides' printed and sent to schools, with the support of national newspapers. (Then also the founder of one group with no medical background in the area was awarded the Order of the British Empire by the Queen for her work).

Nor, for the most part, did they raise their voices to fight the cuts to women's refuges and crisis centres, decimated as they have been in the last ten years whilst funding has collapsed, domestic violence has gone up and rape cases remained unsolved... until the question of their inclusivity of trans women came up. Now some of them, led by two highly trans-hostile lawyers - are as you read this leading an attempt to force women's refuges to not admit trans women at all, in a court case that could see a facility in Sussex bankrupted and closed down for all women.  

And on it goes. If you are a trans woman in the UK, now, you certainly know where it goes, because it's been going there since at least 2015. Though the people who hate trans women are careful, strategic even, to often frame their hatred around the specifics of a particular issue to obscure its wider implications, the architects of all this, the hate groups that spend every waking hour on it coopting followers with their endless 'reasonable concerns', know well what they are doing. They are building a climate and every success moves that Overton window (the attitudinal space in society that is considered by public opinion to be reasonable or moderate) a little nearer to the trans-free future they seek. That future is one of social consensus that trans women are not women and should never be treated as such, with laws to back it up. Hence the lack of interest in any accommodation with trans people around the creation of sensitive and appropriate guidelines that meet everyone's needs, in sport or anywhere else. Hence the appetite now, across a number of fields, for an end to nuance or individual case-by-case approaches. Hence the enthusiasm for blanket bans. Just get us out, all of us, always, end of.

Because it's not about hospitals, it's not about schools, it's not about refuges or sport. It's not about toilets or changing rooms either. It never has been. There's a big picture being assembled, with energy and dedication. It's about the elimination of trans people from society altogether. 

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Mermaids, the UK charity that supports trans and questioning kids and their families is already reporting on the impact of the lastest ban by FINA of trans people from elite swimming, all the way down to the grassroots. The signaling power of such actions goes deep - right down to the youngest, with the bullying they receive and the isolation they feel. The decision that no trans person can compete unless they have fully transitioned before the age of 12 is clearly (and likely intentionally) ludicrous. Almost no child will be able to do this - in the UK access to the reversible puberty blockers that might start a process is heavily rationed with endless clinic waiting times and hostile voices working to remove it completely hard at work. No child will be through the process by 12 and as Mermaids say, nor should they feel they need to be (in order to somehow protect their chances of being able to swim at the highest level later). 

Read Mermaids' statement here and please donate if you can to help them support the families and kids who reach out to them.