Even Standing On Your Head, it Makes No Sense

Women's team full of men dominates Sydney women's comp - and women who complain are warned they will be guilty of discrimination

Sydney women who refuse to play soccer against a team featuring men identifying as women have been told they will be punished for carrying out an “act of discrimination”.

Honestly, the only way in which to understand the modern world is to stand on your head.

Only then does it make sense.

Kind of.

Dozens of women have threatened to drop out of the North West Sydney Football League competition rather than play The Flying Bats - a team featuring five trans players.

The Bats breezed through the pre-season comp undefeated, and thrashed their grand final opponents 4-0.

Why wouldn’t they? When there are 11 players in a soccer team and five of them are packing a little something extra, it’s quite the advantage.

Opponents, who say they did not know they would be playing against blokes, have told the league they fear for their safety in the regular season.

But the North West Sydney Football league, at a meeting on March 20, told clubs that they would face penalties if they forfeited games and that they would be further penalised if the forfeiture was based on “discrimination”.

Are you standing on your head to read this?

It’s fair for men to play in the women’s comp. It’s not fair for women to object to men playing in the women’s comp.

And it’s not dangerous for men to play against women. It’s only dangerous if men are forbidden from playing against women. In other words, the risk of physical injury to women is far less a problem than the risk of mental stress suffered by men being told they are not actually women.

That’s the argument from The Flying Bats, whose president Jennifer Peden told Daily Mail Australia …

“The Flying Bats FC stand strongly for inclusion, and pride ourselves on safe, respectful and fair play.”

How blokes taking the place of women in the women’s comp demonstrates “inclusion” was not explained.

How “safety” is promoted by putting blokes on a football field with women was not explained either.

And nor was it explained how it was “respectful” for a team comprised half of dudes to dominate the women’s league rather than play in the mixed competition.

Speaking of respectful, the LGBTI Rights Australia Facebook group posted this message after the Bats won the pre season comp …

'Congratulations to the Flying Bats Soccer Club. (And to all the transphobes complaining, we suggest you train a bit harder).'

Nah. Even standing on one’s head, none of this makes sense.

And yet it continues.

Increasingly I feel like Abraham of old who described himself as “a stranger in a strange land”.