When I was still not dropped out of my university, back in like 2017-2019, I (tme, nb) played on a women's club rugby team (that means not sponsored by the school just affiliated with it, we were allowed to make our own rules) and was a board member. The community we developed, the skills I learned, the fun I had. It was something I thought everyone should experience once in their lives.
I distinctly remember the conversations we had where we decided to explicitly write into team's by-laws that transfeminine people were allowed to play on our team if they chose to do so. I remember working with our Captain, President, and VP to plan ahead for what we would do if a transfem joined our team and faced backlash, either internally or externally and how to protect her. I encouraged my transfem friends to join our team (although only one was slightly sporty and she leaned more towards something less full-contact because of her disabilities).
I also remember having conversations around allowing trans men on our team because the men's club team WOULD NOT let them join and we really just wanted to get as many underrepresented people exposed to rugby as possible.
But that was the whole point, the small group that had been cultivated at my university hated the segregated, hierarchical system placed on us. We wanted everyone, reguardless of gender to be able to participate in the thing that we loved and felt like made us so much stronger.
And thats why I am appalled how in 2026, almost 10 years later, so many people (cough cough queer tme and particularly cis women) into women's sports seem to have completely lost the plot when trans women start to be involved. I thought this stuff was basic feminism. I thought this was entry level stuff. But instead you let your transmisogyny regress you into something so vile that you forgot what you were even fighting for in the first place.
You forgot that all of this started by "women" being "too weak" to compete against "men" effectively and the counter argument that people's gender has nothing to do with their propensity for a specific sport. And now your head has gone so far up your own ass that you are peaking out the other side screaming that "poor weak biological girls can never compete against big biological men" and beg to keep your sports segregated.
Take one second to listen to the experiences of the trans women around you and the impact this has on them. Why should you get access to something that they are completely barred from purely for being transfeminine? You shouldn't.
So you know what? If a transfem wants to tell you that you don't deserve what is being denied to them if all you are going to do is leave them behind then boo fucking hoo on you I guess, loser.
