In Conversation With: That Guy Who Actually Cares About Women
Get to know the Chief Sports Writer of one of the UK’s largest national newspapers, who only dips his toe into women's sport in order to promote bitchy, anti-trans views.
Each time a trans woman is born, somewhere in the world a bigot cries big, heaving sobs of relief. ‘Thank goodness’, the bigot thinks, ‘the birth of this innocent ensures the peaceful continuation of my life’s work, my crusade happily disguised, celebrated, even!’ Gone are the days when the bigot would be challenged for slamming LGBT+ people or policing women’s bodies — now, he gets to do all this while being hailed as a protector of women.
This is allyship! Born too late to save Emily Davison from the horse, the bigot is delighted that society’s intensifying preoccupation with trans women offers him the chance to take up the role he was born to fulfil, That Guy Who Actually Cares About The Safety Of Women, After All.
I thought this was all pretty nuts, so I decided to contact That Guy Who Actually Cares About The Safety of Women, After All to get to know the guy behind all that tireless caring. Here’s how our chat went.
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Journo: Hey, That Guy! Thanks, man. You know, it’s confusing, these people calling you a bigot. They must be wrong, cuz here you are, standing up for a minority! Nawh, I’m sure you’re doing the right thing. It’s tough that women have been beaten down for generations; it helps to have real people whose voices truly matter chipping in on their behalf. Seriously, nice job. How did you get into Actually Caring About The Safety Of Women, anyway?
That Guy: To be honest, I’d not given it much thought until recently. I had understood that Actually Caring About The Safety Of Women meant having difficult conversations and pissing off people that might otherwise do me a favour, one day, but I discovered lately that the role can be as straight-forward as shitting on an even more vulnerable community!!
Journo: Wait… so undermining the safety and comfort of some people can make the lives of other people safer and better?
That Guy: Yeah! I think so!
Journo: That’s wild.
That Guy: Right?
Journo: I would’ve thought that targeting this minority group — some of society’s most powerless and trodden-upon people — was less of a priority when it comes to protecting women than, say, confronting those men who have been getting away with violence against women for centuries.
That Guy: Nice idea, smartie pants, but you’ve answered your own question, there. They've been getting away with it for centuries! What next? That Guy Who Actually Cares About The Safety of Woman reinvents the wheel? As my old man always told me, if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it.
Journo: Sure.
That Guy: You’re not convinced? Look. Remember last summer, when the head coach of the Zambian national women’s football team was accused of rubbing his hands on the chest of one of his players at the World Cup?
Journo: I must have missed that. At the tournament?
That Guy: Yeah, it happened during a training session in New Zealand while Zambia were preparing for a group stage game. I’m not surprised you missed it — there were so many other fun and exciting things happening at that time. The newspapers had enough of a job ‘celebrating women’s sport’ without getting their hands dirty with some he-said-she-said tittle tattle. Of course, they got their shot at that on the day of the final with that very public sexual assault during the trophy ceremony. Take that, rotten system!
Journo: Wow! Did you have something to do with the overhaul of the corrupt Spanish Football Federation?
That Guy: Yeah, I sent a tweet. It wasn’t really a big deal.
Journo: Oh.
That Guy: Well, no, it was a big deal. To some people. This is what I mean, though, Actually Caring really is for everyone, and anyone. You’ve just got to pick your battles. In the case of the Spanish abuser and his enablers, the key was to wait until the victims had done most of the hard work advocating for themselves, then leap in right at the end, and say that you felt it had been wrong all along.
Journo: So cool. I guess that struggle — with your tweet and everything — after that, there was probably some attention directed back to the Zambian coach guy who committed an assault while the rest of us were too busy shouting ‘women are amazing!?
That Guy: I think you’re missing the point. You can’t Actually Care about everything. It would be exhausting. That guy who did the rubbing… I mean, yeah, most people forgot about that guy.
Journo: But… you’re not most people??
That Guy: You got it. I work smarter, not harder. That Zambian coach incident is exactly the kind of thing that put me off Actually Caring for so long. Holding him to account would’ve been, man, it would’ve been a lot. I might get to it, one day, but in the meantime there are so many more time-efficient ways to Actually Care.
Journo: Really?
That Guy: Yeah, when you start to really look, the opportunities crop up everywhere. For instance, this Zambian player called Barbra was recently voted BBC Sport’s women’s player of the year.
Journo: No way! She won the award despite having to spend a lot of her working life around a national team coach reported to have a history of helping himself to women’s bodies? She must be so strong!
That Guy: Yes, well, it’s funny that you should say that, because -
Journo: I’ve always admired those who overcome adversity to find success. It sounds like this is a Woman who didn’t need you to Actually Care about her safety in order to thrive!
That Guy: Huhuhuhuh, I’d love to agree with you, but in fact, no, dear, she’s not a woman at all!
Journo: What?
That Guy: No, apparently they found loads of testosterone in her body so she couldn’t compete in the African Cup of Nations.
Journo: Strange. That didn’t come up when I Googled her just now. When did that happen?
That Guy: This one time. A couple years ago. Idk.
Journo: It just said that she is the second-most expensive women’s football player in the world, and scores loads of goals? It also says she’s participated in plenty of other women’s tournaments since, and I guess they’ve been diligent in discerning the sex of participants, though, to be honest I find that a bit icky…
That Guy: Well, no, the AFCON disqualification is not a huge part of her story. I only heard about it cuz some X user masquerading as Emmeline Pankhurst slid into my DMs. But when you look it up, it’s true.
Journo: It also says here that she just won the NWSL Shield and Championship with Orlando Pride!
That Guy: Yeah, but so did some other players, and their testosterone is totally normal.
Journo: Who do you think should have won the award, if not Barbra?
That Guy: She was once deemed to be not womanly enough, so the idea that she would be given an award for being a woman who is good at football is ridiculous and wrong. Think of all the womanly women who could have been given the award! Like that lass who took her shirt off at Wembley, that time.
Journo: Chloe Kelly? I think she’d be a bit embarrassed to receive it, having not really played this season. I don’t really follow your —
That Guy: I Actually Care! I Actually Care!
Journo: But given that Barbra Banda is a woman who is really good at football, it makes sense to me that the BBC would give the award to her, doesn’t it?
That Guy: Look, you can choose what you want to think. If you Actually Cared, you’d help me to irrationally exploit this ambiguity in the name of Making Women Safe! You can’t commit sexual assault if you’re tied to your keyboard, arguing whether or not voiceless victims of abuse have the right to exist, after all!
Journo: Taking yourself out of the frame, and putting someone else in it, instead?
That Guy: It’s easy, when you try!
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