The entitlement of male athletes competing against women under the claim of being transwomen = sorry, trans women – continues to amaze. Joan Smith at UnHerd on trans cyclist Emily Bridges at ITV Wales:
Earlier this week, the channel broadcast a documentary about a trans cyclist who wants to race against female athletes. ‘Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges has opened up to ITV about her journey’, its Twitter account gushed. Beneath the tweet was a link to an interview with Bridges, which began uncompromisingly: ‘I’m a sister, a daughter, a partner, a friend, an athlete and a person.’ …
In an interview veering between self-pity and entitlement, Bridges claimed to be ‘heartbroken’ after being refused permission to ride for Wales as a woman in the Commonwealth Games. (British Cycling has suspended its policy on transgender athletes while it carries out a review.) Bridges also claimed to understand the anxieties of female athletes who don’t want to compete with biological males, but dismissed them because ‘I am not a man’.
Not many people, one would guess, really believe that men can become women, but trans activists have created a climate where the fear of being labelled ‘transphobic’ inhibits honest responses. Bridges’s interview is an egregious example, linking criticism of trans participation in women’s sport with the murder of five people in an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs last month. The deaths of two trans people in the attack ‘are directly related to dehumanisation and demonisation of trans people in the media, online, and in debates such as those about sports,’ the cyclist claimed.
It’s tempting to observe that ‘directly’ is doing a lot of work there, but it’s more important to ask whether anyone at ITV Wales actually read this piece of malevolent hyperbole before they tweeted a link. Doesn’t anyone at the channel feel uneasy about publishing a claim that female athletes who defend sex categories in sport are in some way responsible for the actions of a mass killer in the U.S.? (Someone who, according to his lawyers, identifies as ‘non-binary’ and uses they/them pronouns.)
When I started out as a journalist, there used to be this thing called ‘balance’. It’s been one of the principal victims of gender ideology, which appears to have persuaded sections of the media that treating opposing views with the seriousness they deserve is akin to encouraging murder. You have to admire the cheek: what other group is allowed to invade other people’s categories, police their language, and still represent themselves as helpless victims?
Or you can read Mara Yamauchi's Twitter thread:
Lots of interesting detail from Bridges here 👇.
1. The words ‘sister’ & ‘daughter’ are taken, by females. Bridges is male. Why have ITV allowed this? https://t.co/Wz5teEZp9O pic.twitter.com/w4dAHd2J4d
— Mara Yamauchi (@mara_yamauchi) November 30, 2022
Mick Hartley 
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