by wredcoll | 2025-04-16 03:48:39+00:00
Just for you, and anyone else reading this, I actually went and looked up this report. For the record, you can find it right here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a79325-r...

Here's a snippet from the first few pages:

> Women and girls in sport, including female sports officials, are vulnerable to physical violence.5 When eligibility norms are deliberately violated and when the risk of injury to athletes is knowingly increased, the physical harms sustained can be characterized as “violence”.6

"The risk of injury is increased [...] can be characterized as violence". Really. People getting hurt in a sport is now violence against women. Ok.

But hey, they cited a source to back up this claim! It's got a footnote and everything! Let's check it out:

> 6 Submission by Independent Council on Women’s Sports

Well, that's pretty vague. I'm not an expert in reading academic papers so someone correct me, but what exactly is this citing? An email from an advocacy agency?

Just for amusment I went and looked up "Independent Council on Women’s Sports." just to see what kind of non-partial and independent academic body was making this submission

> The Independent Council on Women's Sports (ICONS) is an American anti-transgender advocacy organization that opposes transgender athletes participating in women’s sports. ICONS hosts an annual International Women's Sports Summit, where anti-transgender activists are invited to give talks over the course of three days. They also contribute amicus briefs and organizational assistance to anti-transgender legal cases, and their co-founder, Kim Jones, has infrequently hosted a podcast to discuss ICONS’ activities since August of 2022.

I don't want to make an argument from authority here, but this citation is not really compelling me to do further research.

I mean, the person making the claim is required to provide proof, right? Or is that not a thing any more?

Edit:

I looked further in the paper. The next good bit is here: "Female athletes are also more vulnerable to sustaining serious physical injuries when female-only sports spaces are opened to males,9 as documented in disciplines such as in volleyball,10 basketball11 and soccer.12"

What a scary sentence. Good thing it's got citations to prove it's worrying claims, let's check those out:

> Alec Schemmel, “Injured volleyball player speaks out after alleged transgender opponent spiked ball at her”, ABC 13 News, 20 April 2023

Wow, that sounds bad, injured by a spike, hey what's that funny word doing there, "alleged". Hmm, what could that be doing there?

> (of an incident or a person) said, without proof, to have taken place or to have a specified illegal or undesirable quality.

I'm glad we cited this definitive source where they claim they were hurt by someone who was transgender with zero proof whatsoever.

A bonus section! Here's another worrying section about the horrors of being a female athlete:

> Female athletes who may look “masculine” may be derogatorily described as lesbians.46

Ok, yes, that seems like a problem, but I wonder what else "female athletes who make look masculine" are called? Like, maybe they're accused of something else these days? Some other term is used to attempt to diminish their achievements and slander them? Weird they didn't mention that term.