Broken Oars, Episode 33: Trans-Am - Lia Thomas; Science, Morality, Ethics ... and Sport for All! - a podcast by brokenoarspodcast

from 2022-04-01T15:44:42

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Back once again, the renegade masters!

That's right. After our first ever semi-official hiatus to-date, Broken Oars Podcast returns.

In this episode, the Southern one and the Northern one discuss life, and how it gets everyone in the end; extended projects; bringing down the education system from within; why the Twilight series is an extended and disturbing primer on staying in abusive relationships; the Steinman philosophy of love and why Jed Bartlett isn't the President America deserves (as we all thought when The West Wing was in its pomp), but is actually a really annoying know-it all gobshite.

Sidestepping neatly into a discussion of the golden age of television; why 16 - 26 year olds tend to want explosions and gunplay over dramatic consistency; and whether MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and MMU (Manchester Metropolitan University) are related, and if so, is MMU churning out the next generation of steriod-using hyperviolent psychotics to feed Dana White's empire, we gingerly get to the business of the day.

(And by gingerly, we don't mean that the Southern one again advances his theory that gingers excel in sport because the playground has toughened them up, but gingerly in the sense of cautiously and with caveats abounding ...).

Because this is the episode where we get to grips with the ongoing furore that is the inclusion of Trans individuals in sporting categories.

Broken Oars Podcast has previously discussed Jurgen Grobler's problematic past; doping in sport; athlete welfare; and the historical failures of sporting institutions to provide that. We've seen Bikey Twitter throw poo at us because we had the temerity to say that female athletes should be paid the same as male ones. We have also, let it not be forgotten, seen Matthew Pinsent rowed out of our fantasy eight by Beowulf.

So, we're no strangers to controversy.

However, the tsunami of opinion that engulfed us when we recently came down on the side that Lia Thomas should be allowed, encouraged and supported in competing - because we believe in sport for all - while also saying that we felt it was unfair on the women she was competing against that she was competing against them ... well, that was off-the-charts.

So the same spirit that saw us address Jurgen's past in the GDR when a bunch of trolls suggested that British Rowing's success was juiced saw us sit down to talk through the whys and wherefores of Trans individuals in sport.

And we do it gingerly because we're two middle-class, middle-aged, middlingly-educated men of a certain skin colour and nationality ... and frankly, that even discussing this seems to be an invitation to having your head kicked in the third decade of the twenty-first century is terrifying.

Nevertheless, we talk through the science, ethics, morality and transphobia of trans individuals in sport carefully and with qualifications and caveats proliferating, asking how the current situation has been allowed to evolve into such a badly-handled firestorm, and asking what the way forward is.

We're back!

Did you miss us?

Because we missed you.

(NB: This episode was recorded before the ruling on Emily Bridges had been passed).

Bowside? Pull strokeside around again. They deserve it. Lazy buggers.

Enjoyed this episode?

Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd.

Thank You!

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