They think trans women have an unfair advantage in… fishing?

Three members of an English women’s fishing team in England are refusing to compete at the world championships due to the fact that one of their own teammates is trans.

The Shore Angling World Championships will take place in Italy in November, and the board of the sport’s governing body, the Angling Trust, has said it will not prevent trans angler Becky Lee Birtwhistle Hodges from applying to compete.

  • madthumbs@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    17
    ·
    1 year ago

    Why is there an issue with ‘trans’ but not ‘women’s’? If they’re going to divide up (exclude) sexes, perhaps make a ‘trans’ competition too.

    • Grammaton Cleric@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Seriously. Do they think men have an advantage over women because it’s normal for a dad to take his son fishing growing up? I really can’t think of any other reason.

      • Knusper@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        24
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Women’s sport is not necessarily about having a physical advantage. It can be the case that the sport is simply male dominated and then, especially when there’s no physical reason, women may feel like it should be advertised to girls more. And that’s what then leads them to organize women-only championships.

        • Dagnet@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Exactly, which is why e-sports sometimes have women’s tournaments. Genders play no role here but it’s a male dominated sport

      • Throwaway@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Well yeah, thats pretty much it. The womens team is there to get more women in fishing. Sure, a dad might take his daughter to the lake to fish and the deer lease to hunt a few times, but its not as common as a dad taking his son.

          • Throwaway@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Thats not really a concern. Not saying crazy assholes don’t exist, but thats not why womens league exist. Besides, it would be easy to see she caught a bigger fish.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      25
      ·
      1 year ago

      In chess it made sense.

      You only get better by playing higher quality opponents. And even today a lot of the male grandmasters won’t play women unless forced to.

      For fishing tho?

      It makes no sense, there’s not even skill involved with fishing, just luck on what bites.

      So really, you should be asking why is anyone holding fishing tournaments

      • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        28
        ·
        1 year ago

        there’s not even skill involved

        I’m not even a fisherman but I know that comment would get you hung up by your nether regions from the nearest tree 😂

      • FlickOfTheBean@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        1 year ago

        I am very much failing to see how the chess thing makes any sense…

        It seems that the chess association that did that is operating from a sexist stance of “men are inherently more logical than women” which led to their transphobic stance of “trans women are not to play ciswomen”

        Am I missing something? How does it make sense?

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          In chess the highest ranked men refused to play any women. Really, any man refused to play any woman in a ranked match.

          To get good at chess, you need to play better opponents.

          By not playing women, it meant women would never get as good as the best men.

          That’s why a women’s chess league made sense, and why after it women have ranked in the top 10 globally. Because they were able to find each other and have matches.

          My point was, in a solo activity like fishing, there’s no need for a women’s league. It’s not like fishing in a tournament against other people somehow makes you catch bigger fish.

          • OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            14
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I feel like, at a certain ranking, refusing to play (unless previously beaten said opponent in X amount of time) should be an automatic forfeit. And fuck anyone who says that would reduce overall skill, Magnus Carlsen can eat my left, anal-vibrating, nut.

      • LdyMeow@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        What are you even on about? ‘In chess it made sense’ like you think women are too dumb for chess??? And no skill in fishing? I guess it’s pretty obvious you’ve never been fishing.

        Big yikes

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          While the comment about fish is probably bullshit the guy explained his reasoning pretty well. Chess grandmasters refuse to play against women, so women don’t get the chance to improve to that level as much. Women competitions solve that problem.

          • LdyMeow@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yeah they explained it in a different message, and that makes sense. Didn’t see that one so it came across as you can only get better by playing someone better, so none of the men would play women. With no context sounds like it ‘made sense’ because women can’t play chess. With context it becomes more clear

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          What are you even on about? ‘In chess it made sense’ like you think women are too dumb for chess

          No, I’m saying the only way to get abnormally good at chess is to play people that are already that good at it…

          So women were set back decades in competitive chess and only got where they are today by organizing a high level women’s league.

          This isn’t something I pulled out of my ass, just because you didn’t know about