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There is a fundamental confusion about Equality & inclusion. It doesn’t mean ‘treat everyone the same’. It means that everyone should have equal access to opportunity, which means that some groups need to be raised up or accommodations made to enable a level access point. 1/ https://twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1290205619845124096
Different accommodations are needed to enable a fair and achievable access point. Women, people with disabilities, people in the BAME community, the LGBT+ community, people with particular Faith, may all need different things to enable them to participate in varying areas. 2/
This doesn’t mean that all groups need all accommodations all the time. And Inclusion means creating those access points so that people are treated fairly and equitably. It *doesn’t* mean that everyone can do everything all of the time. That’s where policies get confused. 3/
Different people in groups with protected characteristics under EA2010, can, in law, have those accommodations made. They are also legally allowed to have their own interests as a discrete group recognised and represented. This includes women, as a biological sex class. 4/
It also includes Autistic people, under the group of disability. Within that, I campaign for autistic women and girls. We are protected under two vectors of EA2010 (disability/sex); that’s what intersectionality means. Not that every class has to include everyone else. 5/
Women’s sport is protected under the protected class of Sex. Because sportswomen are on the whole smaller, less muscle, different hip ratio, smaller lungs so less oxygenated blood/muscle etc. See @FondOfBeetles for more info on the 6000 differences between male/female bodies. 6/
Everyone knows that sportsmen and sportswomen mostly compete in separate sex classes because males have an overwhelming advantage at almost every level. This is something we all accept as common sense. And is written in law. 7/
Trans men are not considered a threat to men’s sport because on the whole their bodies are smaller and less powerful. Trans women are co side red a threat to women’s sport because their bodies on the whole are bigger and faster. This is a neutral fact not a judgement 8/
It just means that at the moment, females get to compete in sports separately from males. No judgement, no discrimination, just a law in place to allow women to compete against each other on a level playing field 9/
If people want to lobby to change that law, so that people born male who ID as women or girls can compete at will in womens sports, despite the proven advantage (regardless of T levels), they are allowed to do that. Of course they are as we live in a democracy. 10/
And women are allowed to lobby back, and say ‘No’. To say ‘We think this is unfair & pulls the accommodations that allowed us to compete against at each other on a level playing field, right from under us’. To say ‘We understand that you want to compete, but not like this’. 11/
Women are allowed to say this. We are allowed to protect our rights. We are allowed to use our voices. We. Are. Allowed. Without being smeared, abused, patronised, shouted down, ‘cancelled’, sacked or otherwise dismissed as bigots. 12/
If you think we shouldn’t use our voices to protect our legal rights, then you are the problem. If you think we should allow anyone who wants to, into the protected group that we belong to *because we are all members of a discrete biological sex class*, you are the problem 13/
If you think we should be silent because what we are saying isn’t what you want to hear, you are the problem. If you believe *any* of those things, you disrespect us as a sex class. You disrespect us as people. You disrespect us as women. 14/
This is constantly & deliberately framed as being ‘anti-trans’ or ‘anti trans rights’. This is a deliberate misrepresentation. This is purely & simply, women, saying ‘we are a sex class, and that matters. You must be female to be in that sex class and have those rights’ 15/
Being Trans shouldn’t be shameful. It should be a thing of beauty and pride. There’s no shame in being different to people in a different protected class. You are not us and we are not you. Inclusion doesn’t mean everyone can do everything, go everywhere with no boundaries 16/
If you believe that, you’ve been lied to. Boundaries are everywhere. Laws are everywhere. To protect us from the minority who wish to hurt us. That the people might want to hurt different t groups, doesn’t make those groups the same. 17/
Women have accommodations because of our biology and the way that we are treated because of it. Not malice, or hatred or phobia. Just biology. People have forgotten that exclusion is built into law. That sometimes it’s not just okay, but necessary & legal, to say ‘No’. 18/
