UK IX: This Economy Will Self-Destruct In...

[fishbowlhead]

Profiteering over Covid PPE ‘disgraceful’, says UK government adviser | Coronavirus | The Guardian
A leading Government advisor says the scale of profiteering around PPE is disgraceful

I’m socked, shocked!

[charlesr]

Johnson has said he will step down from being an MP because he knowingly mislead the House.

No, wait, he's still denying it's worth talking about. This bloke is bombproof.

[Neon Ignition]

Covid experts call for return of free tests as UK cases hit new high | Coronavirus | The Guardian
Another call goes out for free LFT's to return

[cutmymilk]

I will probably be called transphobic but interested to know what you guys think about this turn of the tide https://twitter.com/EllieBaker1998/s...GHMxa62-w&s=19

[Brad]

My thoughts are that it's a difficult situation and until there's a fair solution trans women shouldn't be allowed to compete against women.

[Cassius_Smoke]

There is a huge biological difference between men and women. It's not just muscle size, it's muscle density, heart size and lung capacity. Transitioning to a woman doesn't change these things (unless caught very young).
Perhaps the answer is to do full physical assessments of men and women and place them in the respective categories. Fitness vs fitness rather than gender.

[Asura]

I'm an awkward person with this as I have little reverence for sport, when stacked against respecting people's expression of gender.

Additionally I think people with strong opinions fixate on the sporting question a lot, when in practice it affects hardly anyone.

[endo]

It's striking that, as with lots of related issues, it's women getting the **** end of the stick here. There's no uproar about trans men competing with cis men- why is that? Like lesbians getting called transphobic for not wanting to have sex with trans women with a penis. Hetero cis men who wouldn't have sex with the same trans women generally aren't getting called out as transphobic.

[Dogg Thang]

That’s because trans men tend to get completely erased from the conversation. The reasons you’re not seeing these things is exactly about the transphobes. Nobody is writing any articles to object to about hetero cis men not wanting to sleep with trans dudes because the transphobe obsession is with penises. What you wrote there says everything about the ridiculousness of transphobia.

[Neon Ignition]

Boxing has different classes, why not other sports? Kind of sorts all the issues out and allows more people in general the opportunity to do do well in their chosen field

[Dogg Thang]

I know very little about sport so I’m probably the wrong person to weigh in (ahem) on that but it seems to make sense. I mean, it’s not like separating by gender in any way results in a kind of even playing field anyway. There are all kinds of men and women.

[cutmymilk]

I'm an awkward person with this as I have little reverence for sport, when stacked against respecting people's expression of gender.

Additionally I think people with strong opinions fixate on the sporting question a lot, when in practice it affects hardly anyone.

It affects a lot of women. In this case, every female cyclist and every female swimmer. Instead, scared committees and polticians protect the feelings of a couple of self identified trans athletes.

Saying what was said by a woman in the tweet above shouldn't be "brave" and the responses show that finally women feel able to speak out without being "cancelled" and threatened by twitter trolls.

[cutmymilk]

Boxing has different classes, why not other sports? Kind of sorts all the issues out and allows more people in general the opportunity to do do well in their chosen field

You aren't wrong, but I don't think the world is ready to watch 9 different 1500m running tournaments at the olympics!

[Brad]

I'm an awkward person with this as I have little reverence for sport, when stacked against respecting people's expression of gender.

Additionally I think people with strong opinions fixate on the sporting question a lot, when in practice it affects hardly anyone.

People ’fixate’ on sport because it’s an obvious issue where the standard line of a trans woman is a woman doesn’t wash and there is no argument for allowing trans women to compete in certain sports other than the line you used of it hardly affects anyone so let’s not discuss it.

Neon has the right idea I think. I’m not saying it would work for all sports or that I wouldn’t ruin them even but it does at least try to be fair.

[Dogg Thang]

I always find it very telling when people suddenly become very concerned about women’s issues when it involves trans people (again, very specifically trans women because, like with homophobes, it usually amounts to penis issues). Thankfully, women have champions like Glinner to look out for them in these dark times so I think that role is well covered.

Edit: on the sports issue, Brad, again I simply don’t know enough about sports and biology to get into any specifics about how certain sports are split but I will say that certain golf balls may not be allowed to be used and it doesn’t mean they aren’t golf balls. That’s more about sports rules than anything else. So personally, my own view is that I think it’s okay to say that trans women are women even if certain areas have differences for obvious reasons. I don’t think any argument about the classification of sports should invalidate trans people.