Save Women's Sport - the pearl clutching begins

[allezfred]

This is from a prominent Irish lesbian feminist journalist:

Those who think there’s a “point” to this manufactured discourse, need to look around at who their allies are. Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin disinformation machine has centred anti-trans rhetoric as a propaganda tool for his domestic audience to fear this manufactured spectre of the decadent West, in an almost identical manner to how Russia previously pushed anti-gay propaganda. Conspiracy theorists rant about “gender ideology”. Ethno-nationalists bolster anti-trans rhetoric masquerading as feminism. Fundamentalist Catholics – who oppose gay rights and women’s rights at every juncture – are on board. The American Christian right is busy using the pincer move of attacking trans rights and women’s reproductive rights in order to deny anyone but cis-men bodily autonomy. The accompanying chaotic online “discourse” must be a delight to anyone who stands to benefit from division in progressive liberal democracies.

As a lesbian feminist, the idea that trans people are infringing upon my rights is utterly detached from reality. It’s not trans people who are trying to roll back reproductive rights. It’s not trans people who are up in court, day in, day out, for sexually assaulting women. It’s not trans people who sent domestic violence incidents rocketing during the pandemic. The threat to cis women’s rights and safety is the same threat to trans rights and safety: male violence and the patriarchal structures that uphold it.

We need to see the manufactured debate on trans rights for what it is: nonsense

Those who think there’s a ‘point’ to this discourse, should look at who their allies are: Putin, ethno-nationalists, fundamentalist Catholics and the Christian right

www.irishtimes.com

 

[Asli]

To be honest, when I read this the major problem I see is how inhumanly we treat people who are incarcerated. People shouldn’t be put in vulnerable positions where they are sharing cells or showers with potentially violent people.

Do you agree with me though, that people convicted of raping women and haven't gone through any kind of transition, either hormonal or surgical, shouldn't be put into women's prisons?

Karen White is an example of one such person claiming to be a transgender woman. Convicted for paedophilia and on remand for multiple charges of rape and sexual assault on women as well as stabbing, she was sent to a woman's prison and sexually assaulted two female prisoners.

This isn't even an issue related to transgender people. A person committing those crimes against women is never a trans woman! It is a question of bad laws that have women's safety as their last priority and the establishment putting women under its protection into harm's way.

Again I would ask - why are we being whipped up into talking about such rare cases involving transgender people (and mostly women) when the overwhelming amount of violence committed against (cisgender and transgender) women is by (cisgender) men?

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is very frustrating that the worldwide struggle against violence against women doesn't attract any of the media attention given to the trans activist vs feminist wars.

Especially since, in many countries, the vast majority of women are victims of systematic violence and abuse, including one or more of domestic violence, widespread incest, genetic mutilation, underage marriage, forced marriage (meaning life-long rape), forced pregnancy or forced abortion, forced prostitution, workplace sexual abuse, rape and murder.

When talking about "cis women" as a privileged bunch, people shouldn't forget that hundreds of millions of biological women in the world are victims of these sorts of violence and discrimination, starting from infancy. The situation in the West isn't as great as some seem to believe, either.

 

[Asli]

This is from a prominent Irish lesbian feminist journalist:

We need to see the manufactured debate on trans rights for what it is: nonsense

Those who think there’s a ‘point’ to this discourse, should look at who their allies are: Putin, ethno-nationalists, fundamentalist Catholics and the Christian right

www.irishtimes.com

I think it's best for neither side to call the other "conspiracy theorists" (which they both do) and to decide their positions on how to best protect the health, safety and rights of whichever group they are interested i, transgender people, women, gay people, teenagers etc, based on science, logic and what is happening in reality.

 

[barbk]

To be honest, when I read this the major problem I see is how inhumanly we treat people who are incarcerated. People shouldn’t be put in vulnerable positions where they are sharing cells or showers with potentially violent people.

Totally agree with you on how we treat people who are incarcerated and how we tolerate violence towards those who are incarcerated. It is a disgrace.

 

[PRlady]

I think the Irish journalist has some good points. I said at the outset that from a political point of view trans rights are being used successfully in the US as a wedge issue, one that differed from marriage equality (for example) by asking people to accept postulates that are not intuitive and in some ways are not, IMO, without problems. Both BR and I then posted about what some of those postulates are and why they’re problematic. Neither of us said or thought that the theoretical issues should be used to deny anyone’s rights. They should be understood in terms of the broader political debate and the messaging should be built on an understanding of what scares or concerns people - which is true of EVERY social cause.

I spent two years figuring out messaging that upholds church-state separation without scaring religious people, and 13 years figuring out messaging on human rights in Israel that could communicate with Jewish Israelis whose fears came from the second intifada. And years before that figuring out messaging that worked for gun control without alarming ordinary gun owners. All those efforts included looking at the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of my own side and seeing the weak points.

I am sincerely sorry that this was taken as an attack on trans people themselves. The activist excesses are not their fault. The trans people in my extended family aren’t living in a philosophical debate about dualism or concerned about how the issue is being exploited by the right or why some feminists feel threatened. They just want to live.

As to the new posters, it is always odd when brand-new members start here with fiery posts on a political subject. Maybe they’ve been lurking in skating threads for years, IDK. I admit that my doxxing makes me more paranoid. That’s all.

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

This will please some and displease others who have posted here:

World swimming bans transgender athletes from women’s events

FINA members widely adopted a new “gender inclusion policy” on Sunday that only permits swimmers who transitioned before age 12 to compete in women’s events.

www.nbc12.com

 

[On My Own]

Open competition sounds interesting - if the point of sport is to determine who's the best, then a "free for all" is a good way to go about it.

 

[overedge]

Open competition sounds interesting - if the point of sport is to determine who's the best, then a "free for all" is a good way to go about it.

A sports historian on BBC last night was pointing out that there are very few swimmers that would currently be affected by the FINA guidelines, so an "open" competition may not be much of a competition at this point. And putting the swimmers that do fall into this category in a separate part of the competition isn't exactly being inclusive.

 

[On My Own]

I don't mean open competition that just includes trans athletes. Open competition that includes men, women, intersex, and trans people, all in one category, would be interesting to see. Since the point of a sport competition may be stated as "to determine who's the best at this task", I think placing everyone, regardless of gender identification, would make for an interesting competition.

 

[overedge]

@Dai's Blues for Klook Sorry, I thought you were referring to the FINA proposal for a separate "open" category where trans swimmers would have to compete.

 

[allezfred]

It seems now that all female swimmers will be subject to chromosome testing by FINA which was ditched by the IOC two decades ago as it was highly unreliable. There are currently zero transgender women competing internationally.

Men will not have to undergo chromosome testing. Well done to all involved.

 

[Rukia]

It seems now that all female swimmers will be subject to chromosome testing by FINA which was ditched by the IOC two decades ago as it was highly unreliable. There are currently zero transgender women competing internationally.

Men will not have to undergo chromosome testing. Well done to all involved.

This is a pattern that will repeat itself time and time again in so many ways. When the rights of some women are attacked, all women suffer.

 

[Trillian]

It seems now that all female swimmers will be subject to chromosome testing by FINA which was ditched by the IOC two decades ago as it was highly unreliable. There are currently zero transgender women competing internationally.

Zero trans women competing internationally, but chromosome testing can be a minefield for intersex athletes. Who’s going to get flagged by chromosome testing? Someone who has androgen insensitivity syndrome, who was assigned female at birth and experienced most of the same changes as average cisgender girls during puberty, who might not even know she’s intersex yet depending on her age and situation, who happens to have XY chromosomes. That’s why we stopped doing chromosome testing in women’s sports. It helps no one, but it absolutely has the potential to hurt women.

 

[Flake99]

There has been a lot of backtracking in this thread in the last 24 hours--people claiming they didn't intend to harm any transpeople. While I think it's necessary for me to take them at their word in good faith, I think the layers of anti-trans talking points embedded in many of their posts are worth breaking down because I would hate for anyone who is trans or struggling with their gender to see allies like me shut up in response. Also, I would never doxx anyone, I like Nathan Chen, and I have no insight in figure skating that would compel me to post about it enough to set up an account on any social media platform. I'm just going to talk about one paragraph.

For 99% or more of humanity, your body is you. Having to medicalise it or operate on it to make it look like what your soul feels is a sad solution and I’m sorry for people who have to undergo it, like I’m sorry for myself and anyone who has had to endure painful procedures. But the fact that for a very small minority of people the body’s essence is not who they feel they are is not a reason to treat bodies as random accidents, extrinsic to real personhood.

I want to make it clear that I am not personally insulting anyone or calling anyone transphobic, but simply drawing attention and commenting on transphobic talking points lurking in this rhetoric.

First is the focus on emphasizing how small the percentage of the general population is trans. This tells people that they’re statistically insignificant, but it also can be used to pit trans rights against other oppressed groups’ rights. (“There are more women than transpeople so let’s only be feminists.” “There are more refugees than transpeople so let’s only help refugees.”) Pitting minorities against each other is a classic right wing strategy that concurrently denies intersectionality and obscures differences within the trans community. (Side note: the amount of posts in this thread that either essentialize or infantilize both transpeople and ciswomen is astounding, and I’m happy to elaborate on that.)

Further, the “very small minority” talking point suggests a false dichotomy from defaulting to gender/sex determinism (after all, it’ll be fine for 99 percent of people) and making room for arguments like “transpeople are asking us to do so much to accommodate just a few people,” as if letting people exist and have agency is such a burdensome undertaking for cispeople. Finally, this talking point clears the way for arguing that dysphoria is so rare that we should trust people who say they’re experiencing it, which is one of the bedrocks of denying trans existence but also opens up talking points about people transitioning on a whim or because social media made them confused or they wanted to make JV instead of C-team sports.

It’s also interesting to me that such a tiny group of people seems to have the ability to swarm into and take over every lesbian bar in every Western country. Oh wait—those aren’t actually trans people; they’re allegedly men whose horrible behavior is blamed on the existence of transwomen.

About being sorry for anyone has to go through “painful procedures”: yes, there is pain involved in transitioning. Many go through puberty a second time, have suicidal ideations, and realize that transitioning wasn’t an option until much older age than they really wanted and needed it. But the pain comes mostly from society’s lack of inclusion—from legal barriers like this week’s swimming decision to the outrageous expenses associated with surgery and hormones—rather than from transpeople being trans.

The pain rhetoric also makes it easy to frame all the doctors performing transition surgeries as unethical people who are exploiting rash decisions and damaging fragile young bodies, especially when people transition before puberty (which, as I mentioned in a previous post, is itself linked to multiple transphobic talking points.”

The last talking point I see here is pitying transpeople and comparing their pain to the pain others experience (presumably from disease, surgery, etc.). It’s a clear choice to say “It’s such a shame to be you” instead of “It’s a shame society is prejudiced,” and it also pathologizes being trans by comparing it to diseases that attack the body and make people feel or look less healthy or even less human. This talking point is part of a continuum of medicalizing LGBTQAI+ identities (just like “homosexuality” was a mental illness and AIDS was “the gay plague”).

Why not be happy for people who finally might have the ability to live as freely as possible in the world after their transition and, instead of being sad for transpeople to undergo “painful procedures,” save the pity for a society that doesn’t love and accept people and also prevents lots of people who want to undergo those “painful procedures” because they can’t access them for financial or other reasons?

 

[PRlady]

Since it’s my post you’re quoting I will respond.

“Tiny minority” may be misused as a talking point although it is objectively true. And weighing the good for numbers of people IF their interests conflict is political philosophy 101. The question of conflict in this area was one of the topics in this thread open to debate.

It never occurred to me that expressing sympathy for someone’s physical pain, whether from transitioning or lifesaving surgery as I had, somehow could be critical of the doctors doing their job! And no one is comparing transitioning to illness, but post-surgical physical pain is no joke and I’m sorry for anyone, anywhere, who goes through it. I’ll take your word for it that mentioning pain can be used transphobically but that sure wasn’t my intention.

And if you have no insight into skating (not required: many of us just have opinions!) strong enough to be here or post here, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you get here? This isn’t Twitter. It’s a welcoming community of people with a sports interest who like each other enough to discuss everything (and I mean everything) else, trivial and serious. So I’m genuinely curious.

 

[Asli]

It’s also interesting to me that such a tiny group of people seems to have the ability to swarm into and take over every lesbian bar in every Western country. Oh wait—those aren’t actually trans people; they’re allegedly men whose horrible behavior is blamed on the existence of transwomen.

Another misunderstanding. I talked about one city in one country in which there are only a couple of lesbian bars that used to be single-sex and I didn't blame anything on the existence of trans women. This was supposed to be one example of possible unwanted consequences of single-sex spaces being accessible according to gender.

These couple of places were female-only. Now anyone can self-ID at the door and enter. Therefore straight men enter too. That's the whole story.

There has been a lot of backtracking in this thread in the last 24 hours--people claiming they didn't intend to harm any transpeople. While I think it's necessary for me to take them at their word in good faith, I think the layers of anti-trans talking points embedded in many of their posts are worth breaking down because I would hate for anyone who is trans or struggling with their gender to see allies like me shut up in response.

This forum being a community, as @PRlady said, I've known and cared about most of the people who post here on non-skating subjects for twenty years. I am aware of their personalities and their opinions on dozens of subjects from their favorite skaters to Brexit. For many of us, these comments aren't anonymous. I can read their opinions without thinking that they are out to get me and I hope it's the same for them. Even that is barely working for a subject as divisive as this one.

Naturally, with anyone who has just joined, in order to avoid a misunderstanding, one needs a long preamble and ten disclaimers before writing with the directness that we're using here. I don't have the energy to make all those explanations and therefore I don't write on any social media sites.

If any young person who is struggling with their gender - as you say - is reading the comments here: This is not a place that can help you with that struggle. Please don't pay heed to these or any other anonymous comments on the internet. You don't know who these people are, what their intentions are and whether they have a clue about anything.

 

[allezfred]

Do you agree with me though, that people convicted of raping women and haven't gone through any kind of transition, either hormonal or surgical, shouldn't be put into women's prisons?

Karen White is an example of one such person claiming to be a transgender woman. Convicted for paedophilia and on remand for multiple charges of rape and sexual assault on women as well as stabbing, she was sent to a woman's prison and sexually assaulted two female prisoners.

This isn't even an issue related to transgender people. A person committing those crimes against women is never a trans woman! It is a question of bad laws that have women's safety as their last priority and the establishment putting women under its protection into harm's way.

I agree with you that all there is a duty of care on those managing prisons and other institutions to keep everyone safe.

These couple of places were female-only. Now anyone can self-ID at the door and enter. Therefore straight men enter too. That's the whole story

Is “Management reserves the right to refuse entry” not a thing in privately owned businesses in France?

 

[Asli]

Is “Management reserves the right to refuse entry” not a thing in privately owned businesses in France?

Are they going to deny access to someone who says they are a woman, because the person looks like a man? I don't think they can risk that.

Anyway, I am now motivated to go to one of these bars at the earliest convenience and I'll report back.

 

[Asli]

Are they going to deny access to someone who says they are a woman, because the person looks like a man? I don't think they can risk that.

Anyway, I am now motivated to go to one of these bars at the earliest convenience and I'll report back.

The best-known lesbian bar La Mutinerie looks tiny and stuffy in the photos, but I would pay extra just to see some of the scenes that guys are complaining about in comments, especially from the previous years. They seem determined to go there even though it is minuscule and there are a zillion other bars in Paris.

A guy who calls himself Vianney complains that his cisgender dog was welcome while he himself was cordially shown the door. He says he would have pointed out the pseudo-open-mindedness of this place but couldn't when he was threatened with a pair of shears. In short, he says, not a good place if you are a guy feeling good in your sneakers, but fine if you are part of this small "victimized" community.

Charles Thibault says:

The waitress' welcome: "It's a lesbian bar!"
Me: "Don't worry, we don't mind. ( )
Waitress: "Maybe we mind!"
Me: "Really?"
Her: "Yes, it's reserved to lesbians and trans women."

I am shocked!

Quite a few other hetero men from previous years complaining of the intolerance, hate and lack of inclusivity that leaves them at the door. Well, as I said, I'll report back.

 

[Sylvia]

AP column by Paul Newberry (June 20):

Column: FINA ban casts storm clouds on transgender athletes

Swimming has fired the first major salvo against transgender women athletes, which will surely clear the way for other sports to impose similar bans ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

apnews.com

“The ‘open’ category is incredibly othering and impractical,” said Schuyler Bailar, who became the first openly transgender swimmer in NCAA Division I as a member of the Harvard men’s team.
“Consider if Lia were to make the Olympic team — right now, she is the only known trans woman competing in women’s elite swimming. Who would she compete against?” [...]
Bailar, who recently launched a company called Lane Changer that provides training on gender issues, said it was no coincidence that FINA essentially snuffed out Thomas’ hopes at a meeting Sunday in Budapest.
“This new policy is undoubtedly, absolutely, inarguably directed at Lia Thomas,” he said in an email. “There is quite exactly no one else it could be directed at. She is the ONLY one to whom it applies.”

More about Bailar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuyler_Bailar

 

[Japanfan]

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is very frustrating that the worldwide struggle against violence against women doesn't attract any of the media attention given to the trans activist vs feminist wars.

Especially since, in many countries, the vast majority of women are victims of systematic violence and abuse, including one or more of domestic violence, widespread incest, genetic mutilation, underage marriage, forced marriage (meaning life-long rape), forced pregnancy or forced abortion, forced prostitution, workplace sexual abuse, rape and murder.

When talking about "cis women" as a privileged bunch, people shouldn't forget that hundreds of millions of biological women in the world are victims of these sorts of violence and discrimination, starting from infancy. The situation in the West isn't as great as some seem to believe, either.

When talking about "cis women" as a privileged bunch, people shouldn't forget that hundreds of millions of biological women in the world are victims of these sorts of violence and discrimination, starting from infancy. The situation in the West isn't as great as some seem to believe, either.

Susan Faludi wrote a book called 'Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women' some years ago, but it still rings true today. She demonstrates that for every step forward women take, they take two or three back. One example among very many that she gave was films in the 70s and 80s. Whereas some 70s films showed women striking out to live life on their own terms, the 80s saw a backlash with films like 'Fatal Attraction' - the subtext of which asserted that single women go berserk in the absence of a man, whereas women taking care of hearth and home are content.

An example of the war against women, IMO, is what has happened to Women's Studies. Finally, women had earned their own discipline in academia, Women's Studies. Now, in my part of the world, we have 'Gender and Women's Studies.' Once again, women have been pushed out of first place.

Somehow, and sadly, women's oppression has been entrenched in societies - even in societies where women have gained considerable rights and freedoms. Women still remain the second sex, but many seem to think that is right and correct, including women themselves.

 

[Flake99]

Interesting to mention Susan Faludi here, because she is the child of a transwoman and, in fact, her most recent book is about their relationship and, more generally, about how she came to understand the fluidity of gender based on exploring modern trans issues. The book is called In the Darkroom and won several awards. I would also guess that Faludi's head would explode if she tried to make it through this thread.

PRLady has engaged in tone-policing, attempting to discredit my content by interrogating why I am here and implying that new posters are less valuable, and changing the goalpost regarding her actual position on trans rights. These are all signs she is not engaging in good faith, so I will bow out and say I hope anyone who is reading this thread knows there are people fighting for your rights, your voices, and your agency.

Also, as to how I found FSU, I googled "figure skating discussion board." It was the second result after Golden Skate and before UK Ice Skating Forum. I found it the best of those three, and have been reading it for a while.

 

[Trillian]

Susan Faludi wrote a book called 'Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women' some years ago, but it still rings true today. She demonstrates that for every step forward women take, they take two or three back. One example among very many that she gave was films in the 70s and 80s. Whereas some 70s films showed women striking out to live life on their own terms, the 80s saw a backlash with films like 'Fatal Attraction' - the subtext of which asserted that single women go berserk in the absence of a man, whereas women taking care of hearth and home are content.

Susan Faludi just published an essay in the New York Times about the current state of feminism. She had a lot to say about celebrity culture but I don’t recall that she blamed trans women for any current problems.

An example of the war against women, IMO, is what has happened to Women's Studies. Finally, women had earned their own discipline in academia, Women's Studies. Now, in my part of the world, we have 'Gender and Women's Studies.' Once again, women have been pushed out of first place.

I’ve seen multiple perspectives on this. One possible implication is that people believe women aren’t deserving of their own discipline; a more positive spin is that the name change is meant to reflect a more intersectional approach and the fact that gender is just one axis of oppression. My guess is that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Either way, it wouldn’t make sense to blame this on trans women since their experiences would fall under the women’s studies umbrella without any name change needed.

 

[Japanfan]

I’ve seen multiple perspectives on this. One possible implication is that people believe women aren’t deserving of their own discipline; a more positive spin is that the name change is meant to reflect a more intersectional approach and the fact that gender is just one axis of oppression.

An intersectional approach is fine, but women still deserve their own discipline and focus. Women's intersections differ from the intersections of others in character.

 

[Asli]

Either way, it wouldn’t make sense to blame this on trans women since their experiences would fall under the women’s studies umbrella without any name change needed.

Nobody blames anything on trans women.

OTOH their experiences wouldn't fall under the umbrella of women's studies, because the vast majority of women's problems worldwide concern only biological girls and women.

Some of these are: selective abortion of female foetuses, killing female babies at birth, the sub-standard education of young girls, child marriage and being married to the rapist, genital mutilation, forced marriage, lack of access to birth control, lack of access to safe and legal abortion, forced pregnancy whenever the husband wants another child, forced abortion, the lack of research and care on menstruation problems, lack of post-natal care and paid post-natal leave, the vast majority of forced prostitution, lack of access to medical care where it is available to men, for certain countries, never reaching legal majority and lifelong guardianship by a man.

 

[Trillian]

Interesting to mention Susan Faludi here, because she is the child of a transwoman and, in fact, her most recent book is about their relationship and, more generally, about how she came to understand the fluidity of gender based on exploring modern trans issues. The book is called In the Darkroom and won several awards.

Thanks for mentioning this book - I heard about it when it was published but I don’t even think I registered that she was the author. I’m very interested in her perspective and will definitely pick this one up soon.

An intersectional approach is fine, but women still deserve their own discipline and focus. Women's intersections differ from the intersections of others in character.

I don’t disagree, but funding for liberal arts programs in general is a disaster right now and I’d guess that broadening the scope - at least in name - is a survival strategy in many cases. And I agree that there’s an anti-feminist component. I just don’t see that it’s relevant to a discussion about trans women.

Nobody blames anything on trans women.

OTOH their experiences wouldn't fall under the umbrella of women's studies, because the vast majority of women's problems worldwide concern only biological girls and women.

None of the experiences you listed are universal things that happen to all women everywhere in the world. Not one woman posting in this thread has the exact same experience of being a woman. Likewise, trans women have different experiences of being women (as well as some of the same ones, depending on circumstances). So do intersex women. Those experiences aren’t universal just like the other things you listed aren’t universal. That doesn’t mean they’re not valid areas of study.

 

[Asli]

None of the experiences you listed are universal things that happen to all women everywhere in the world.

They aren't universal experiences of all women. They are examples of experiences that only biological women can have.
Many of women's problems are related to fertility issues.
This is neither positive nor negative. It's just a fact.

 

[Trillian]

They aren't universal experiences of all women. They are examples of experiences that only biological women can have.
Many of women's problems are related to fertility issues.
This is neither positive nor negative. It's just a fact.

Why would the field of women’s studies be limited to only some women’s experiences and exclude others? I’m interested in a broader view of what it means to exist as a woman in the world because it helps me contextualize my own experiences. I read about the sex and gender-based experiences of women who have lived lives vastly different from mine in all kinds of ways; why wouldn’t this include trans and intersex women?

 

[Deleted member 221]

I am sincerely sorry that this was taken as an attack on trans people themselves. The activist excesses are not their fault. The trans people in my extended family aren’t living in a philosophical debate about dualism or concerned about how the issue is being exploited by the right or why some feminists feel threatened. They just want to live.

Stop apologizing to extremists. You are right. The only people who see this as an attack are those looking for one. If people think any posts on this thread are anti-trans, they're truly living in a bubble. Everyone on this thread is supportive of people living as whatever gender they wish, and having access to whatever gender-affirming care they want. That's not anti-trans in any way.

Back to FINA, I think it's the right ruling, but short on detail and high on procedure. They need a better plan for "open" competition v. a vague promise; as it stands, trans women are shut out. They also need a way to implement this plan without subjecting all women to testing.

 

[Trillian]

Everyone on this thread is supportive of people living as whatever gender they wish, and having access to whatever gender-affirming care they want. That's not anti-trans in any way.

I agree that people on this thread are generally not questioning the right of trans people to exist. But the original point someone made is that trans skaters reading this thread might not feel welcome or supported as competitive athletes in figure skating. Multiple people have argued that they don’t think trans women should compete in women’s sports. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that a trans skater might read this thread and assume that people mean the exact thing that they’re saying.