PDGA survey

[robdeforge]

In all seriousness, as fun as all of these culture war shenanigans are (73 pages of fun!)

Pro tip:
User CP --> Edit Options --> set "Number of Posts to Show Per Page" to 40, and join the rest of us here on page 19!

When we say we love FPO, the reality is that people actually view women competing athletically (and we're talking almost entirely about men doing the viewing) as A) embarrassing (Kona's putting, Hokom's butt, Blumroos' tears), B) pornographic (Tattar's tight pink outfits and Mertsch's stoner pixie dream girl act), and maybe a tiny bit of C) patronizing (props to PP working so hard to make it to 1000 even though dudes throw 1000 ratted rounds at league every wednesday with three or four beers in them).

that was.... weird

 

[jenb]

I wouldn't say that's a fair paraphrase of the majority view on gender. Nor would I presume all folks agree on something like "moral good".

I just think women generally and Natalie Ryan in particular would be happier if she was allowed to play FPO.

Primitive man did not most successfully spread his seed by targeting women who look like they can run fast or fight back effectively. And thus men developed an attraction to the sight of easy prey. Footbinding, clothing that hampers movement (high heels, tight skirts), long hair easily grabbed and used to control, accessories that resemble manacles and/or other devices used to restrain or mark one's status as chattel (bracelets, earrings), all became the norm for women. And women who embraced these norms and the behavior expected to accompany them multiplied as well.

Forgive me if I don't share the common view that these things should be encouraged.

 

[Arisugawa]

Doesn't it seem a bit wrong for such a hot button issue to get no discussion at the board level of the PDGA? How is that leadership? You're letting the member base run amok on trans players, because both sides feel like the board isn't doing anything substantive.

This is just an assumption, but I think that was a typo and "no" should have been "not." Meaning, they haven't not yet reviewed the medical boards findings, as that will be at the summit, not they will not be reviewing it at all.

 

[Skamanda]

I think that encouraging these ideas is encouraging women to hate their femininity, beauty, softness, and vulnerability.

When we say we love FPO, the reality is that people actually view women competing athletically (and we're talking almost entirely about men doing the viewing) as A) embarrassing (Kona's putting, Hokom's butt, Blumroos' tears), B) pornographic (Tattar's tight pink outfits and Mertsch's stoner pixie dream girl act), and maybe a tiny bit of C) patronizing (props to PP working so hard to make it to 1000 even though dudes throw 1000 ratted rounds at league every wednesday with three or four beers in them).

I think growing an intimate relationship with her body and mind will only help her continue...

I hope her involvement encourages women and young girls to similarly focus their energies on the flourishing of their unique gifts, ones which are very different than Natalie's, just not in athletic competition but instead, gifts of communal, emotional, relational, etc.

Do you...honestly not understand how creepy and mysogynistic everything I've quoted from your post is? Reducing women to the aesthetic and behavioral traits you desire? Focusing on the size of Sarah Hokom's butt as something embarassing? Treating Tattar's outfits or Mertsch's atittude as pornographic? Passive aggressively diminishing the work Paige has put in, because men score better in a rating system engineered around men's performance?

And your user tagline is that you're hiding in Kona's CLOSET?!

How are we supposed to take anything you say seriously, when it's an utter caricature of the sort of fetishization of women as domestic objects for use only in softer pursuits, or for sexualization?

 

[ChrisWoj]

I wouldn't say that's a fair paraphrase of the majority view on gender. Nor would I presume all folks agree on something like "moral good".

I just think women generally and Natalie Ryan in particular would be happier if she was allowed to play FPO.

Your exact statement was:

In all seriousness, as fun as all of these culture war shenanigans are (73 pages of fun!), a decision like this is only going to lead more young women and girls into thinking that athletic competition is appropriate for them, that they can compete and win just like (and sometimes against!) males, that these differences between the sexes are strictly biological and this dimorphism doesn't extend and enrich every part of our full selves.

As a conservative, I think that encouraging these ideas is encouraging women to hate their femininity, beauty, softness, and vulnerability.

It is absolutely fair to say that you believe women should embrace being susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm when you outright condemn the idea that women should hate being susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.

 

[Skamanda]

This is just an assumption, but I think that was a typo and "no" should have been "not." Meaning, they haven't not yet reviewed the medical boards findings, as that will be at the summit, not they will not be reviewing it at all.

I don't fault the typo, or that they haven't discussed the findings of a report they haven't received yet. I fault the casual admission that there has been zero discussion or planning on this, even though among the community it has been the only policy issue being talked about, since DGLO. It's doubly damning, considering Laura sparked similar controversy herself when she won AM Worlds, so she knows first hand that this is an issue that people will make a giant fuss over.

What has the PDGA board been doing, if not discussing the most talked about policy issue in the entire competitive disc golf world?

 

[ChrisWoj]

And your user tagline is that you're hiding in Kona's CLOSET?!

In fairness to this - a number of users here think it is funny to purchase taglines for other users. I did not purchase a tagline for my account calling myself a Common Core Crusader.

 

[Shallows]

Do you...honestly not understand how creepy and mysogynistic everything I've quoted from your post is? Reducing women to the aesthetic and behavioral traits you desire? Focusing on the size of Sarah Hokom's butt as something embarassing? Treating Tattar's outfits or Mertsch's atittude as pornographic? Passive aggressively diminishing the work Paige has put in, because men score better in a rating system engineered around men's performance?

And your user tagline is that you're hiding in Kona's CLOSET?!

How are we supposed to take anything you say seriously, when it's an utter caricature of the sort of fetishization of women as domestic objects for use only in softer pursuits, or for sexualization?

Buddy, I'm not saying that's what I think or that these attitudes are good or commendable, I'm claiming these are sadly the majority perspectives on FPO (and yes, I find them mysognist, hence the need to eliminate the FPO).

 

[Shallows]

Your exact statement was:

It is absolutely fair to say that you believe women should embrace being susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm when you outright condemn the idea that women should hate being susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.

Perhaps I should clarify I mean vulnerability in a more expansive way, not strictly in a physical or predatory (as jenb excitedly details) way. I think vulnerability is a virtue we should all cultivate, including men. Though I think it's a trait that women seem to have deeper capacity for.

 

[ChrisWoj]

Perhaps I should clarify I mean vulnerability in a more expansive way, not strictly in a physical or predatory (as jenb excitedly details) way. I think vulnerability is a virtue we should all cultivate, including men. Though I think it's a trait that women seem to have deeper capacity for.

So, are you also saying that men should likewise be prevented from engaging in sport because it encourages them to also hate being vulnerable?

 

[Skamanda]

A quick look at my disc golf career since may 2019, when I competed in gender-based divisions for the first time, I cashed twice out of 28 tournaments, for a career total of $183.

How is it you didn't cash, when you took 1st place in 7 tournaments, and 2nd place in 2 more, in FPO, in 2019? And another 1st in 2020, in the only event you played? And a further 8 1st places in 2021? And 3 more 1sts and a 2nd in 2022?

Are you turning down cash when you win, were the payouts not reported for all of those tournaments, or is the PDGA genuinely allowing sanctioned events to not pay out their winners in FPO?

 

[Skamanda]

Buddy, I'm not saying that's what I think or that these attitudes are good or commendable, I'm claiming these are sadly the majority perspectives on FPO (and yes, I find them mysognist, hence the need to eliminate the FPO).

If it isn't what you think, perhaps you should avoid literally saying it's what you think, in what you say...

 

[gingerandhoney]

First and foremost, you're white. Even if you had been around in the US during the Jim Crow era, you never would've had to worry about which water fountain to use. It is disingenuous at best for you to use that analogy in this, and you would rightly be run up the flagpole for it, if you made it in a more public manner. I'll give you a minor amount of leeway here, because you aren't from the US so you may not fully appreciate the harm you do as a white person claiming the struggles black people had back then as your own, but you should never, EVER use that as part of your rhetoric again, if it never applied to you.

I totally get what you say there, and I truly don't mean any harm here. I am not appropriating another people's harm as if it were mine. Apologies if it comes across as that. Thanks for the leeway.
I am pointing out - by using three very visual human rights issues that are strictly lmited to segregating one group of people from another (two of which very exlusively limited to the USA, one strictly limited to Europe) - what a ban of transgender women would mean on a social and human rights scale.

As for me being white; you're factually incorrect. I am not as white as you claim I am. (And no, I am not pulling an Elizabeth Warren here)
Please don't make assumptions like that.
The only thing you happen to be right on, is that I am not of African American descent. Had I lived there and then in the USA, I may have been allowed to use the water fountains that were intended for white people; grandparents on both maternal and paternal side were not 'white enough', while not being considered "black" either, they were most definitely "colored", so they may have had to use the "colored" fountains as well.

My lineage is a different kind of problematic; my direct descent (as in maternal grandmother, and paternal grandfather; both of whom were alive during WWII and both experiencing atrocities first hand; not something remote centuries ago) is that of two 'races' (as defined by the Nazi regime), that they actively tried to stomp out. Had I lived then, I'd have been interred or exterminated in a Nazi camp, and would have worn three colours and markings in the shape of the star we all know. On both sides of my lilneage, people actually ended up in those camps for their 'race'.
I'd have 'scored extra points' for also being lesbian.

No, I am not old enough to actively have lived through either the 1930's and '40s in Europe, or the USA Jim Crow laws era. That doesn't make the points I make disingenuous.

But still, I'll apologise for having given you or anyone else the chance to think I was appropriating anyone's struggle as being mine. I did not.

I didn't live through the mide '10s "Bathroom Bills" issues either, other than seeing the notices on public bathroom stalls in the venues we played with the band I toured with in a country that I do not live in (I got to use the non-gendered backstage toilets that would certainly not be policed by the "you don't belong in this bathroom" staff).

You spend a lot of your comment speaking of what would, essentially, be the emotional fallout to us from the decision. That's a bit disingenuous, because you know for a fact (if for no other reason that the constant, loud, and aggressive hate the PDGA has done nothing effective to address in its membership) that nobody in this discussion cares how it will impact us in any way, least of all how it will make us feel.

The fact that the PDGA or anyone else should not take into account anyone's feelings here does not restrict me to actually talk about what the fallout would be for me personally. And yes, I do - loudly - oppose the PDGA's inaction as one of the seven Board members; instead imploring other roads be taken that do actually protect the ones at harm. The fact that I do not get my way does not mean I do not fight for 'us'. On a Board of seven, I represent one vote; as do the others.

But let's turn it around, and I'll listen to what you say and suggest I do as a Board member in this regard. The floor is yours.
And I still have about two weeks to finalise my position presentation at the Fall Summit; it's been a full time job getting that done, and still is.
Maybe you can help point out a fe more things I should add to my presentation.

No offense, but don't use your lack of cashing to minimize the effect of a ban on those who have done their best to make competitive disc golf their career. Your information on that is 100% specific to you, and your personal disc golf career, yet you word it as if this is how all trans women would feel. Do we all want to do better? Sure, that's why we do field work and putting practice. But we pay our dues and play tournaments because we want to compete, and have a chance at winning/. There is zero purpose to playing in tournaments, if our registration fee is guaranteed to be a donation to people we never have a chance at beating, and we'd never make it to the DGPT if we can't play well enough to be competitive in our division, no matter how hard we work at improving. A trans woman winning 2 high profile events in one year isn't representative of that sort of effect on the FPO division, but it would be a 100% certainty for any trans woman who has medically transitioned, in MPO.

I was - on purpose - 100% specific to just my case - wining/cashing has never been been a motivator for me. I do not pretend or assume it's the same for anyone else. The fact that you interpret & extrapolate what I said as being valid for all or most transgender women is on you, not on me.

A ban would be the PDGA ham fistedly trying to prevent the hypothetical issue cis women being able to make a living playing disc golf, by guaranteeing no trans woman can ever make a living playing disc golf, ever again. Yes, it would other us, yes it would open the PDGA up to title IX fights in court in the US, yes it would violate laws in states or countries where competition bans have been made illegal - but pragmatically, this effect is the only one that actually holds any more impact than we, as "out" trans women, face every single day in the workforce, or when we walk out in public - and it holds a HUGE one for someone like Natalie who, unlike you, has actually been able to support herself to some degree with her winnings. It sends a message to every trans woman who has a passion for disc golf, and would love to compete, that the most they can ever compete for is a few discs from the fly mart, which they can hope to sell for a couple hundred bucks, if it was a pretty big tournament.

Do you actually think we disagree on that?!?
"representation > visibility > awareness > acceptance" is key to how I live and advocate. In disc golf, and in my working career. To the level of ad nauseam to those around me. "Oh yes, right on cue, there's Laura again... :/"

It is absolutely crucial that Natalie is able (and she chose to; we have actually had numerous talks about her potential (non-)visibility) prior to becoming a touring player to be that visible - even if it comes at a terrible mental and emotional (and possibly financial one, should a ban be enacted) price for her.
Her visibility - as is mine, even if I don't show up on tournament coverage, or in "has won this amount of money" - is so essential for any transgender person in disc golf; without people like Natalie, Chloe, and myself, there'd possibly be other people representing, but for now, we are the ones representing.
I totally understand and accept that if the Board were to decide against transgender participation it will not be the cisgender men being virtually hung, but that it will be me who gets that honour. Ironically, I'd then be hung by the very people who voted for me to protect their rights; rather than by those who voted to get me off the Board in the first place). Still, knowing that, I fight for what I believe in every single day I wake up.

The disconnect between your view, and the reality of the problem, is why the trans disc golf community has no faith in the BoD. You should be keenly aware of the impacts that matter most immediately in this discussion - yet you're talking about them as if they're something to be shrugged off, because you're more concerned about something you already have to deal with in every other facet of your day to day life. We know that the PDGA would never feel the loss of our membership and tournament fees, because of how few of us there are right now, so there's ZERO reason for us to believe the PDGA will do right by us, because angry, bigoted cis men are so much louder, and more numerous (and thus pay you so much more money) than we will ever be - and the complete SILENCE from the PDGA about doing anything substantive to the abusive rhetoric being thrown at us every day among the player base speaks more loudly than any feigned reassurance from a board member ever could.

How do you think my view is why the trans community has no faith in the BoD? Please explain.
You really think I am talking about isses the transgender community faces as something to be shrugged off? What is that based on?!?!? Because I wrote because I personally don't care enough about making a living playing disc golf?!?!?! That extrapolation is bizarre.

Like I said, I still have (about) two weeks to deliver that presentation. So, tell me what I should be saying and stating during that Fall Summit, in case I hadn't already made that a talking point myself.

As for the "and thus pay you so much more money", who is "you" here? Is that PDGA receiving membership and tournament player fees?
Do you think that the PDGA would decide on a ban because the angry cisgender men scream louder (and bring in more fees to the PDGA) than the transgender women could?
That is not a Board I am a member of. Nor want to be. I am a Board member because I believe in the good I can achieve; not in the revenue I can (help) generate.
I have been, and will keep on, advocating for sustainable and wholesome growth; ie. not giving in to those with the loudest voice or biggest wallet, if that does not produce sustainable growth.

 

[gingerandhoney]

Keeping in mind she's not from the US, she might not have been referring to the Jim Crow laws in the US. For example, in some parts of the world, Jews still encounter water fountain restrictions even today. But I can see why it would seem to anyone from the US that she was appropriating Jim Crow.

Yes, I was referring to the Jim Crow laws, no I did not appropriate the struggle of the people affected by it as mine.
I was pointing out - by using three very visual human rights issues that are strictly lmited to segregating one group of people from another (two of which very exlusively limited to the USA, one strictly limited to Europe) - what a ban of transgender women would mean on a social and human rights scale.

 

[Shallows]

So, are you also saying that men should likewise be prevented from engaging in sport because it encourages them to also hate being vulnerable?

Good point, nothing forces me to confront my own vulnerability than my C1 putting...

 

[gingerandhoney]

I did a fair number of Google searches before I wrote that part of my comment (to make sure I wasn't missing a ban on trans people using drinking fountains in the Netherlands, for example), and again from your reply in case I missed something specific to Jewish people, and was unable to find anything not pertaining to the Jim Crow era (where it was mentioned that Jews and Hispanic people often used the non-white drinking fountains during that time, to be safe from aggressive responses from white folks), other than 3 cases of Jewish students not being allowed to use a water fountain on the Temple Mount when police stopped them, and didn't explain why. Can you link me to what I missed?

You got one part of my lineage covered there; Jewish.
And no, in The Netherlands, where the most recent two generations of my family lived, there were no specific water fountain regulations against Jews; there were countless others.
My paternal grandfather and his direct relatives faced all sorts of segregation (and getting fired BECAUSE of being Jewish ; my grandfather's employer actually signed an agreement with the Nazi oppressors to fire all Jews in return for not being shut - or shot - down) during WWII.

 

[Shallows]

If it isn't what you think, perhaps you should avoid literally saying it's what you think, in what you say...

True, I'll confess to being less than respectful in my treatment of Ms. Panis since our breakup.

 

[gingerandhoney]

The legal issues strike me as controlling. I trust you to raise them if no one else does. The Lana Lawless suit under California non discrimination laws against the LPGA is a good example, a potential distinction being that the LPGA does not offer "mixed" divisions.

I will if no one else does.

 

[medic5888]

This is a very narrow perspective. A touring pro can want to a) make a living playing the sport that they love and b) be oriented solely on achieving the best possible performance against the course.

Ultimately I think the most narrow answer that applies broadly to "why be a touring pro?" is "to make a living playing the sport that you love. Beyond that - there are likely many rationales for what it is that drives them toward the sort of great performance that makes that feasible.

So why have a job to be mediocre? I don't understand that mindset. I strive to be the best paramedic out there. I don't wanna come in and do bare minimum and earn a pay check. I want to be the best. Being the best provides the best patient care. It should be applied to all jobs.

 

[gingerandhoney]

Doesn't it seem a bit wrong for such a hot button issue to get no discussion at the board level of the PDGA? How is that leadership? You're letting the member base run amok on trans players, because both sides feel like the board isn't doing anything substantive.

This is something that, in any organization I have been in a position of leadership on, would've gotten discussed well in advance of findings from the medical board, to at least discuss what the options and alternatives are, so that when the medical board does make its presentation, there isn't a huge delay in catching up.

When is the fall summit? Google finds no mention of a date on the PDGA website, and the most recent item tagged "summit" is from 2013.

Because - as per November 2021, the Board asked the Medical Committee to review the current policy and make a recommendation based on its findings, that part of the discussion is delayed until the Medical Committee present their findings.
On the divisiveness on social media and public domain, the Board most definitely discussed and does discuss. And took action.
No, not enough, and not the correct action, if you asked me.

I am not sure whether the Summit dates are publicly available; if they are not, I don't think it's my right to disclose exact details. What is publicvly available is this: "The PDGA Board of Directors will be briefed on the results of the survey at the PDGA Board of Directors Fall Summit in early November. This briefing, along with a presentation of medical research reviewed by the subcommittee, will be used to guide policy on the topic of transgender competitors participating in PDGA sanctioned events. After this process is complete, the board of directors will share pertinent research data with the membership."