Ex-pro-wrestler Val Venis loses it on Twitter after trans wrestler Nyla Rose is crowned women’s champion

I don’t really know much about wrestling, so I don’t have much to say here.

Sadly, real biological women have always had to fight from underneath the regular subjugation by the male species. When the female species rises up from that man powered subjugation, a man simply pretends to be a woman & steals the empowerment of women out from underneath them.

Seeing shades of TERF here. Also, “female species”? Still sounds like a misogynist to me. I notice a lot of transphobic men are also misogynists who try to redirect their misogyny by claiming to champion what they perceive as “real women” then being transmisogynistic and also attacking cis women who are trans* allies. This is what Graham Linehan does.

Today I identify as a Great Dane. Gonna enter the Westminster dog show and win the XL Dog title.

This man is an insult to all the good dogs in the world. And still unoriginal stupid joke even if he changes the punchline slightly.

Scripted match.

Seriously.

Qualifying term “scripted”.

Regardless of anyone’s position on what unfair benefits may or may not have been conferred on those who transition post-puberty (which,with the greater focus I’ve been hearing on maybe letting trans kids transition pre-puberty or delaying puberty until legal adulthood, seems like if it’s a problem it will sort itself out), this doesnt even begin to qualify for a discussion or argument on that front because it’s scripted! Not even real! Acting! Pre-determined outcomes! Rigged results! It could just as easily be a trans woman superhero besting Harley Quinn in a comic book, and would have as much impact on the issue of whether or not trans women have unfair advantages irl!I

Not that these guys won’t bitch and moan anyway, because sjw etc, but the idea that the made up outcome of a play-acted fight has any impact on irl sporting outcomes is beyond ridiculous. Esp since these are the exact sorts of guys who love to emphasize to us ladies that just because Catwoman held her own or even beat up Batman, we shouldn’t get any uppity little ideas in our silly pink heads that any woman could ever actually hold her own in a fight against any manner any circumstances because it’s fiction and has no connection to reality where penis always and forever triumphs over vagina regardless of any other factors because of Reasons Concerning Very Serious Science and Maths That Cannot Be Argued With. So seeing them suddenly turn all feminist champions of women (in a terfy way) because of their inability to differentiate between reality and fiction is…kinda hilarious.

Btdubbs, I don’t usually bother with either Marvel or DC with some notable exceptions (coughDeadpoolcough), but I would totally buy that comic book cuz that kinda sounds awesome.

Closest I ever saw to such a thing was the cross dressing Maid Man from Empowered, who I initially groaned at because I thought he would be there for cheap gay/trans/genderqueer punching down jokes (and thought also “omg, Adam Warren, and I liked totally too, you are so much better than this”) but surprised me by being treated like a real dead serious superhero who just unapologetically chooses to dress the way he wants for his own reasons and the criminals are terrified of him.not because of some cheap and predictable gay-rape joke but because of his totally serious competence and total badassery as a superhero–one of the Batman variety, in fact,who has no powers and must rely on with and training and prep. At some point, you just think of him as an awesome badass and totally accept the French maid outfit and persona as part of it. Quickly became a favorite character of mine, (fuck yeah, Maid Man’s here, now y’all gonna get it!) and I would adore a solo book!

I prefer the term “choreographed” when it comes to pro wrestling. Yes, the results are pre-booked, but there’s still the chance of legitimate injury — much like in ballet or cheerleading routine. All it takes is one wrong move or blown spot. CTE is as much a problem in wrestling as it is in football. Probably even worse as most wrestlers are screwed over when it comes to health benefits and insurance, especially if you’re not considered a “big name”. And there is no “off season”. If you don’t work, you do not get paid.

I can only assume that Val took the ludicrous position of “identifying” as a specific woman, rather than just a woman who would compete in the women’s grand slam is because he knew that “massive package” or not, Serena Williams would wipe the floor of the tennis court with his transphobia ass.

@Surplus

Is this more evidence for TERFs and the alt-right cross-fertilizing one another?

More TERFs and the religious right cross-pollinating. This isn’t new, seeing as the religious right has been funding TERF groups for years now, most notably the Women’s Liberation Front, which appears to be entirely a conservative puppet organization.

@Demonhype

Moreover, it sounds like the “regular” women who are athletes in any of these fields have no problem sharing the locker room or the playing field with trans woman athletes, or think they’re being cheated out of anything in an unfair competition. Why should anyone else have a problem with them then, if the afab women athletes themselves dont, for the most part?

Because they can use it as a springboard into bigotry. It sounds very similar to the dialogue going around when sports were being integrated.

Yikes. Fell down the rabbit hole on some of these alt right Twitter accounts. It was just sad.. Led me to the trad side of the alt right where it’s believed that women are worse off having rights, education and financial freedom. Some of them glorify the times where women died in childbirth so often it was expected. Alot of it praising the privileged class of those times since they wouldn’t want to actually work as hard as the people did back then. No surprise that these people also despise the LGBT despite LGBT people always existing.

But I also know that alot, I mean alot, of these alt right trad accounts are people that hardly follow what they glorify too and that it’s all fake. Still so toxic to keep praising…

Could this dude please identify as an original thinker?

Also, could he give it a fucking REST?

I think there is some resentment of trans women entering sport while seeming to have physical advantages. There’s a lot of argument about what advantages but on average they have longer limbs and are stronger, even with lowered testosterone.

But this is how sports works! Every professional athlete in the world has natural physical advantages over me. No matter how hard I worked, I‘d always be short, curvy and less muscular. Most sports have a physical body type that does well, and only people that have the ability to gain and enhance that body type will do well, when competitiveness requires winning in fractions of seconds. Every athlete that has less advantages than a trans athlete presumably had some physical advantage over someone else, which was just as fair or unfair.

I’d really like it if we had a society where elite sports were less important, especially since we have sports like gymnastics and football which demand thousands of children sacrificing play, academics and lifelong physical health for a few to succeed. I‘d really love a society where mass participation in sports for social and health reasons, and sheer enjoyment in using the bodies we have well was encouraged. I had to rediscover physical exercise as a joy instead of a chore as an adult, because I was taught it was about winning and fighting through pain, not revelling in what my unique body could give me. If sport and life is treated as fun and not a winner takes all competition, there’s no point in resenting the other participants.

My pet peeve with that asshole is that he both talk of “biological sex” and “sex is assigned by God”.

He need to choose one or the other, to start with. Theology and biology don’t work terribly well together (as do relativistic physic and quantuum physic, since it’s more a problem of them not being compatible with each other).

Then, biological sex only concern itself with reproduction. When we talk of gender, we talk of a group of feature, who only partially overlap with reproduction. Crucially, here, that asshole isn’t harping about the women’s champion being unable to get pregnant [EDITOR’S NOTE : she may or may not be able to get pregnant, none of my concern], but secondary and tertiary characteristic that are more indicator of social “class” than anything that biology say about sex.

But even for theological sex, I think he is on shaky ground. The bible certainly never outright say that God assign anything, and the bible don’t say much about what is the essential difference between men and women ; it talk more of how each should act.

@Tokha

Alot of it praising the privileged class of those times since they wouldn’t want to actually work as hard as the people did back then.

They conveniently appear to forget that they wouldn’t be the upper class and would probably be working class, as most people were.

@Mogwitch

But this is how sports works! Every professional athlete in the world has natural physical advantages over me. No matter how hard I worked, I‘d always be short, curvy and less muscular.

I’ve used this argument before in the Caster Semenya debate. I pointed out that Michael Phelps has really long arms, which gives him an advantage, yet no one is arguing to cut his hands off. Each person has advantages and disadvantages, some people are better suited to a sport than others. I could do all the training in the world and any pro wrestler could take me out in seconds.

@Alan Robertshaw
Without them, hard.

Lumipuna, your Death Match was genius.

@RedSilkPhoenix

there is no XL Category for dogs in US shows

Maybe there’s an XL category in WWE and little Venis is getting confused?

@everyone
I’ve never followed the whole wrestling thing, but IIUC a lot of these wins are set up so that the audience gets a bigger thrill out of seeing the scripted villain lose. After all, if the “good guy” wrestler always beat the “bad guy” wrestler, there would be no suspense.

So I’m wondering if the whole bit about this woman “winning” this scripted bout is just to set up the storyline of the cis woman “fighting back” and “overcoming the odds” to achieve a greater “triumph” later.

I’m sure I won’t seek out news about it, but I’ll be interested to read (should an article come across my screen) about how the trans* wrestler’s subsequent loss is handled.

As a final note, given how much these things are scripted in the WWE world, I’d give at least a little credence to the possibility that Venis’ tweets were also predetermined as part of WWE’s attempt to build controversy and attention for future championship matches involving the trans* wrestler.

For what it’s worth Nyla being trans has never once actually been brought up on screen, and Riho had beaten her three times in a row before this, so I very much doubt they’re looking to make any kind of storyline out of it.