Olympic gold medallist Caitlyn Jenner says she opposes “biological boys who are trans competing in girls’ sports at school”, telling a reporter that it’s “a question of fairness”. Good for her, says Debbie Hayton in The Spectator. “Human beings are not disembodied souls residing in perambulating devices; we are our bodies and those bodies have a sex.”
Some of us – me and Jenner included – have changed our gender, “but neither hormone therapy nor gender surgery can unravel” the physical advantage of biological men over women. “Politicians need to realise that there are differences of opinion within the trans community itself” – not all of us have bought into the nonsense of “gender ideologues” who insist biological sex is irrelevant.
But Jenner is being hypocritical here, says Mia Mercado in The Independent. In 2016 she played in a women’s golf tournament where she started from the women’s tees, which are closer to the flag. In the Vanity Fair interview announcing her transition, Jenner joked: “I’m not doing this so I can hit it off the women’s tee.”
Man United’s pitch battle with the fans
A fortnight after the European Super League fiasco, Manchester United scored “another damaging own goal” on Sunday by allowing angry fans to take to the pitch, forcing the club’s game against Liverpool to be postponed, says Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph. The club and police knew a week in advance about plans for a protest against the Glazers, Man United’s American owners. What a “shambolic failure”.
Pundit Graeme Souness blamed years of poor results for the protest, but former Manchester United player Gary Neville is right – the fans don’t trust the Glazers, and “what happened on Sunday has been brewing”, says Andy Mitten in The Athletic. Their buyout in 2005, which loaded the club with debt, was “deeply unpopular”. Interest charges have since reached £1.5bn, the Glazers take a dividend of more than £15m a year and the players’ wage bill was second only to Barcelona’s in 2019. Manchester United feels “like a swimmer with bricks tied to his ankles”.
If Sunday gave the Glazers pause for thought, “they ain’t seen nothing yet”, says Ian Herbert in the Daily Mail. The fans’ “pent-up fury” will be felt when they return at the start of next season, in less than 100 days. We can expect mid-game walkouts, as well as email bombing and endless “unordered pizzas” directed at firms that work with the Glazers – their PR agents were “subjected to a barrage of unsolicited stuffed crust” around the time of the takeover. Supporters should be given a boardroom-level “golden share” before the government forces the club to make such an arrangement, as it well may. Because the fans “are not going quietly”.