Erasing Women

Recently I've found myself longing for another era of not too long ago. A less complicated time when people knew what a woman was and this was celebrated. Women had carved out their place in the world - as entrepreneurs, mothers, corporate leaders, political representatives, creatives and serious athletes worthy of lucrative prizes and sponsorship, for example. Making up roughly half the population, we were being seen as a powerful decision-making cohort with substantial spending power.

For a while there even the fashion world was finally amending the obsession with androgynous looking clothes-hangers and half-starved prepubescent girls that set unrealistic expectations for young women. Like those Dove ads, we were seeing more real women front and centre. Even curvy models on runways. Sadly, it looks like this healthy trend was short lived.

There's an adage about many fashion designers being gay and preferring women who look like boys... In this era of woke not only is stick-thin and androgyny being held up once again as the epitome of beauty, but now trans-woman (biological males) are being held up as models for women and selling products from women's sportswear to beer. Nike recently made trans actor Dylan Mulvaney an ambassador for their women's clothing range.

Who is Dylan Mulvaney? He was an out of work actor who decided to transition to being a she and documented the journey on social media, garnering a few million followers in the process. In order to transition Mulvaney has undergone substantial surgery, although I understand has not completely transitioned. Mulvaney was an adult biological male, capable of making adult decisions. What Mulvaney does with his body to make himself happy is her business.

Watching the clip (in the link above) of Mulvaney prancing around pretending to do workout moves to advertise the Nike gear for women, I was asking myself if this was supposed to be parody? Was Mulvaney trying to comical or was this caricature-like performance mocking women? I'm still not sure on that.

Some claim this is simply Mulvaney's 'brand', which she's now parlaying into work. Whereas we always knew Dame Edna was a Barry Humphries character and created for comedic purposes, as was the Sir Les Patterson character, Mulvaney blurs the boundaries. The result is sometimes unsettling, like when Mulvaney dressed up as 6 year old fictional character Eloise. I get it, actors are actors, but a grown male/trans woman pretending to be a 6 year old girl was disconcerting in a fetish kind of way.

I'm not sure why Mulvaney makes a good a role-model for women. Perhaps Nike are simply jumping on the latest fashion to push a bit more product? Mulvaney is clearly not a sports person, unless you count manically, camp jumping around with exaggerated facial expressions that looks like she's trying to catch flies? It remains to be seen whether Nike using Mulvaney will be beneficial or detrimental to sales.

My thoughts were for all the amazing and serious female athletes out there, who are great role models. Women's sports are underfunded in comparison with men's sports as it is and that includes endorsements. So here again they miss out, this time to a biological bloke, dressed up as a woman doing what looks like pantomime. The response so far is divided with some applauding Mulvaney but many interpreting it as insulting to women.

No-one does womanhood like a man, apparently, and they're now breaking glass ceilings. Amala Ekpunobi

Women are being displaced by people who've had the physiological advantage of being born male and from going through puberty as male. I'm not a big fan of contact and combat sports. I'm more rock-climbing than rugby. As research for this post though, I watched a contest between two 'women' fighters. One of the fighters, Fallon Fox, was a trans. The biological female fighter was knocked out of the competition quickly, despite her impressive form - watch short clip here.

When Fox was held up as the winner and asked the audience whether they enjoyed it, the lack of cheers, if not quiet from a normally rowdy audience, was noticeable. Did I detect some boos in there?  According to Rogan, below, Fox hadn't been honest that 'she' was actually a 'he' for most of his life, so the female contestants didn't know they were going up against a biological male. Rogan, who is a martial arts expert, notes that Fox had bad technique but won on brute strength.

Was that fair?

Rogan covers the Fox controversy well (warning, colourful language), including the backlash against Rogan personally for speaking up. He goes through the biological differences between men and women, even if someone has transitioned, from scientific research done by endocrinologists.

Female athletes are trying to speak out, but this comes at a cost that can put them in danger, as US swimmer Riley Gaines found out only days ago. She was accosted by a violent trans mob after speaking at a University and, in shades of Posie Parker's experience, had to flee and hole up in a room for her own safety, the baying mob outside. She was assaulted and I believe she's suing.

Gaines 'crime' was to state there are physiological differences between the sexes and it's not fair that women are having to compete against biological males. This was the reason women's sports category was created in the first place. Gaines testifies too on how female athletes were forced to share the changing room with trans swimmer Lia Thomas, who has male genitalia, without any consultation. Not so long ago such statements would not have been controversial. Now you can expect to be screamed at, harassed or assaulted.

Is that fair?

Gaines speaks from experience as she was a champion swimmer forced to compete against Lia Thomas, whom she tied with but was told to stand aside while they gave Thomas the trophy. It was a better photo op, apparently. What an insult to Gaines.

A year before, William Thomas was ranked around 465 in men's competitions. Now as Lia she's cleaning up against biological women, coming first and displacing female competitors in the process. Thomas talks about wanting to go to the Olympics. This will mean a biological female who has trained all her life for this will not get to go and a biological male, who was a mediocre performer as male, will get to go instead. It's a huge personal and financial investment to go to the Olympics. Will other countries be happy to see their finest female athletes compete from a starting place of disadvantage? Even serious doping won't even the playing field.

Is that fair?

Thomas towers above Gaines with quite clearly the physique of a male. Tall at 6 3", broad back, shoulders and chest, long wingspan, long legs, big hands and feet. Lia will naturally have greater lung and heart capacity too. When asked in an interview about this being perceived as unfair, Lia responded by saying she was happy she was living her authentic self. Lia dodged the question. So, the world of women's sport is to revolve around 'the world of Lia'? A couple of terms comes to mind. Narcissistic and self-absorbed.

No-one denies Lia the right to happiness. But is what she's doing, fair? Biological females have the right to happiness and success too.

It's important not to treat the trans community as homogenous group without diversity of opinion. Not all trans women believe people like Thomas are doing the right thing by either biological women or the trans community. They state that women also have rights, including to privacy in changing rooms. They're also disturbed by the aggression towards women like Gaines. Some see it as a setback for the trans community creating unnecessary hostility and potential for backlash. One such critic is Caitlyn Jenner, although I've watched others in the trans community express the same views (linked above).

In a piece of poetic justice that highlights the stupidity of this fad, power-lifter and coach (including to biological female athletes), Avi Silverberg, temporarily identified as a woman to enter into a women's lifting competition. This was allowed under the guidelines set. He smashed the record held by trans lifter, Anne Andres, to make his point. The whining about 'fairness' by Andres was priceless.

Unless this is stopped, in future all women's sport will be dominated by the same 2 - 3 people in each sporting category - people who used to be male. As biological female athletes leave, so too will the audiences and the marketing dollar. Any corporation funding this woke trend only has to watch the video of Fox and the audience reaction to know this is true. While it might be the latest politically correct fad, and an unfair one at that, it can only mean the death of women's sport and consequently narrowing the world of females.

One of the best discussions I've seen was between Matt Walsh and a trans EMT called Luna. Luna was making the case that trans women are indeed exactly the same as women. Walsh asks Luna, if she got a call out from a trans woman (biological male) saying she was losing a baby, would Luna treat her for miscarriage? Luna didn't know how to answer.

The clip is worth watching, not just for the logic of Walsh but because it's reasoned discussion and minus the hysterical screeching, name-calling and now often violence, which is designed to intimidate and silence. Kudos to Luna for engaging reasonably and rationally.

In one of the clips I was watching there was a comment posted by a concerned mother who retold the story of her teenage daughter coming out of a changing room distraught because there was a biological male, dressed like a woman, sitting in the women's changing room. He wasn't trans, he was a pervert. Mothers often take their young children into the women's changing rooms. All a pedophile has to do is dress like a woman to get their fix...

Predators, perverts, pedophiles and pretenders do exist. So not only are we setting up unfair situations, but potentially unsafe situations. I'm wondering if the person who punched an elderly woman in the face at the Posie Parker ruckus in Albert Park was actually an opportunistic and predatory male, with issues, who got off on using a 70 year old as a punching bag? Here's a picture of the alleged perpetrator, along with calls asking if anyone can ID the man.

Some have attempted to justify the violence on the basis of assumptions about political perspective, and perhaps not wanting to admit they were primed by a manipulative media. Using a 'they asked for it' (with their wrong-think) rationalisation. It might be sulky and juvenile, but no less dangerous as we witnessed with the mob who attacked Parker and her audience. If people are from the wrong (that is right) side of politics, then seemingly anything goes, including violence to shut them up and shut them down. It speaks to a level of malignancy in political discourse and I wonder where those who rationalise violence draw the line? Any violence should be condemned regardless of who does it.

In my article, The Media Are the Problem, I detailed the irresponsible rhetoric of the media and some in the trans community with the effect of tacitly legitimising violence against biological women who are exercising their human rights. For the record, those who went to hear Parker speak were from diverse backgrounds (gay, straight, left, right and everywhere in between). They were united in the cause of protecting women's and girl's rights. For that they were met with violence and abuse.

Why do trans' rights automatically trump biological female's rights? It's a fair question. I doubt those who revelled in the the Parker episode have stopped to ask themselves that question and without resorting to answers that are about their own need to virtue-signal.

Why do women have to bow out of their sports and stand aside as biological males take the prizes and trophies? Why are biological males now being held up as the epitome of womanhood? Why should a trans woman (including convicted rapists) automatically be placed in a women's corrections facility? Why do women have to share their changing rooms with biological men?

Lastly and most importantly, why aren't women allowed to speak up about these issues that affect them, without being shouted down or risk to their safety?

Below was a police response to frantic pleas for help in the Posie Parker situation in Albert Park a few weeks ago.

She's in a public space. If she feels unsafe she needs to leave.

It's stuck with me. That one sentence ran through my head over and over again for a week or more. It's a key reason why I wanted to stay with this topic longer and explore that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It wasn't just the callousness, given the situation of Parker being in real danger, but also the chilling implications. There's been some speculation that the initial response of police in leaving Parker (and NZ citizen supporters) to the mercy of a mob, who were jacked-up on media disinformation, may have come from instructions up the chain of command. If there's even a smattering of truth in this, the word disturbing doesn't go far enough! Perhaps we need some more OIA's?

The whole Parker debacle has left me feeling unsafe and less free in my country. If I speak up about the rights of biological women, am I safe to leave my home? Am I to shut up or else? As an adult, human female, do I have the right to Freedom of thought and conscience, and religion, Freedom of expression, Freedom of peaceful assembly and Freedom of association? Does our Bill of Rights Act actually mean anything and will our police and politicians uphold these rights? Or will they be sacrificed on a politically correct, ideological alter? This is New Zealand, not some repressive, illiberal country where women are second-class citizens and only venture out with male protection. Or is it?

In the current militant environment, to even pose the questions above carries risk of reprisals, threats of violence and accusations of 'hate speech' towards trans people. Even using the dictionary definition of a woman is considered transphobic and not appropriate for public spaces, apparently.

Not only are women being erased, but we've moved beyond reasoned debate to fanaticism and dogma! Neither condition makes finding solutions to accomodate all rights possible. Trans people are a reality. This small number of people need spaces and sports categories of their own, not given carte blanche to forcefully colonise the spaces of biological females, at the expense of all biological females and without their consent.

When journalist Sean Plunket asked Prime Minister Hipkins, what is a woman? Hipkins stuttering response was embarrassing and deeply worrying in its weakness. While this exchange was eventually and somewhat reluctantly covered by legacy media in New Zealand, internationally it went viral immediately!