Rugby is a violent contact sport. For context, we need to understand that rugby was the sport that American football was based upon. It involves running, kicking, and tackling, and unlike American football, players generally do not wear protective equipment such as helmets and shoulder pads. It’s not a sport where females should compete against males.
But enter the transgendered community. Specifically, those “transitioning” from male to female.
As they are in weightlifting, track and field, and even mixed martial arts, males who “identify” as females are being allowed to participate in a sport — rugby — that should rightly be segregated by gender, not only for the sake of fairness but for the safety of female participants. In the U.K., some referees of the sport are making a stand for common sense and leaving their jobs rather than participate in such a farce.
Although England Rugby rules do have a testosterone limit on female players — below five nanomoles per liter for twelve consecutive months, which is half the level set by the International Olympic Committee — referees are not allowed to check whether a player has been cleared to play by the Rugby Football Union (RFU). They must take the individual player’s word.
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The rules of rugby say that the referee is “the sole judge of fact and law during the match,” and under such rules is required to remove any player who represents a danger to themselves or others.
Unless the player in question happens to be “transgender.” One referee, speaking to the Sunday Times on condition of anonymity, reported that he encountered at least five bearded players on women’s teams in half a season. The same official also said, “If you even ask the question, you are told you’re a bigot.”
Another unidentified referee told the Sunday Times, “Being forced to prioritize hurt feelings over broken bones exposes me to personal litigation from female players who have been damaged by players who are biologically male. This is driving female players and referees out of the game.”
One such is example exists in Wales, where Kelly Morgan, a male “transitioning” to female, is destroying his female competition in a Welsh women’s rugby league.
“[Morgan’s] going to be a good, good player for the next few years, as long as we can stop her [sic] injuring players in training,” said Morgan’s coach Brian Minty.
Morgan’s team captain, Jessica Minty-Madley, recounted that Morgan once “folded a girl like a deckchair during a game, which was quite funny.”
Morgan apparently understands the advantage that he has over the biological females. “I do feel guilt but what can you do?” Morgan asked. How about not play against girls, Kelly?
Morgan is symptomatic of a well-funded movement that is pushing for the normalization of transgendered people in society. Women’s sports is among the first targets in that agenda. Dr. Nicola Williams of Fair Play for Women, an organization that contends women and girls have a right to compete on a level playing field with each other, contends that RFU and other sports organizations are under pressure to be inclusive of transgendered athletes and not ask questions.
“They have been put under tremendous pressure by well-funded and powerful trans lobby groups telling them that it is inclusion at any cost.”
Female tennis great Martina Navratilova, a lesbian, has drawn ire from the LGBT community for her very rational assertion that men should compete against men and women should compete against women.
“It’s insane and it’s cheating,” Navratilova wrote. “I’m happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair.”
A gay-rights activist and homosexual icon since coming out as a lesbian in 1981, Navratilova nevertheless faced the wrath of the transgender community. “We’re pretty much devastated to discover that Martina Navratilova is transphobic,” tweeted the transgendered activists group Trans Actual. “If trans women had an advantage in sport, why aren’t trans women winning gold medals left, right and center?”
Well, to folks at Trans Actual, I simply say, give it time. Male-to-female transgendered athletes are already rewriting high-school and collegiate record books. In time, given the increasingly insane culture we live in, where boys can simply say, “I’m a girl” and be allowed to compete as a female, it’s only a matter of time until the Olympics is affected as well.
Image: jacoblund via iStock / Getty Images Plus
