Mick Hartley

We heard yesterday about "Danielle" McGahey, the latest man to put on a blonde wig and barge his way into women's sport:

Canada's Danielle McGahey is set to become the first transgender cricketer to play in an official international match.

McGahey has been included in Canada's squad for a qualifying tournament on the pathway to the 2024 Women's T20 World Cup in Bangladesh.

The 29-year-old opening batter has fulfilled all of the eligibility criteria the International Cricket Council (ICC) has for male-to-female transgender players before the event in Los Angeles from 4-11 September.

Well, yes – except he's a man. Being a woman is the one eligibility criterion he'll never be able to meet to participate in women's sport. You might think it'd be the only criterion, but apparently not.

Victoria Smith at UnHerd:

For a while, I thought: “why aren’t they more embarrassed? When male sportspeople barge into female categories, stealing places on teams and prizes reserved for women, why don’t they feel a bit, well, ashamed?”

It was one of the reasons I — along, I suspect, with many others — considered male intrusion on female sports unlikely to be a consequence of gender self-ID. However else it might be misused, surely no one would wish to stand on a podium looking so petty, so selfish and so deluded. If sports is about pride, wouldn’t that just be too degrading?

It has just been announced that Danielle McGahey, a biological male, will represent Canada as the first trans cricketer in an official international women’s match. What’s more, McGahey isn’t remotely ashamed to be stealing the place of an elite female cricketer. All the rules have been followed: blood tests, declarations of gender identity, and all the rest. As long as a series of arbitrary hoops — none of which turn males into females — can be jumped through, McGahey assumes the right to pose as the injured party should anyone object….

The inclusion of male people in female sporting categories may not be the most important feminist battle, but it could be the most instructive. It exposes the degree to which people will bend, twist and outright deny everything we know about human biology to ensure that the same half of the human race gets whatever it wants.

We all know that women are not just men with lower testosterone. We all know that having a female gender identity (whatever that means) has no influence on one’s ability to run a race or kick a ball. Nonetheless, we have been obliged to pretend otherwise, lest one look — God forbid! — like a bigot who just doesn’t want to play on a team with someone whose haircut doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth.

It is astonishing, the arrogance and shamelessness with which these men stand on the podium waving their trophies in triumph in the faces of the women they've beaten. You wonder: do they really believe all this bullshit about testosterone levels and fulfilling the eligibility criteria, or are they smirking inside, knowing they've got away with a massive fraud at the expense of the defeated women? I'm not sure it really matters. Yes, the idiot sporting bodies who allow this to happen are culpable, but it's the sheer nastiness of the men that stands out. They really don't care at all about the women they've beaten or displaced.