ClaphamFox

I suppose that will depend on whether we want to learn from our mistakes or continue making them.

What a time to be alive

It seems he used up his lifetime's supply of integrity when he walked out on PSV. Like a salmon that can only spawn once, he's done the decent thing on one occasion and is now incapable of doing it again.

Unfortunately he's a tactical dinosaur at a time when the best young coaches are all tactically-savvy and flexible. He might well 'change the culture', but that will only go so far if he's being outsmarted every week by more tactically intelligent managers. If we have any ambition for the future we won't touch him with a barge pole.

A delayed pay out is still a pay out - we'd just be pushing it into the next spending period, where money will likely be very tight again. If he resigned we wouldn't have to pay him anything. I've no idea what's happening behind the scenes, but RVN has been hinting for weeks that he's getting frustrated with the owners because they haven't sat down with him to discuss next season. It just sounds a bit like when somebody wants to end a relationship but doesn't have the stomach for the break-up conversation, so starts acting all distant and doesn't return calls etc in the hope that the other person will get fed up and do the dumping.

Because sacking him would mean a payout and the club suspects it can save that money by pushing him into a position where he'll feel compelled to resign?

Top would have signed that off.

They’re probably mindful of the fact that he walked out on PSV because he felt he wasn’t supported by the board and are hoping that if they make him feel he’s not supported here he’ll quit at the end of the season - and save us the compo money.

Just seen this tweet from the club from yesterday. I love how by avoiding using the word ‘relegation’ they make it sound like an achievement

I hope the first part of your sentence is correct, but it seems the second half isn’t. In his article yesterday John Percy, who is among the few reliable journalists covering Leicester, explicitly stated that there is no relegation clause. If he‘s right, that could mean that sacking RVN will incur a heavy cost, which may cause issues given our ongoing dicey position with PSR.

That team is just Ruud giving us all the finger before he departs.

I’d have to take your word for it.

He’s having ‘FUK U’ tattooed on his arse cheeks as we speak for when he moons the plane.

Apologies for the late response - mad weekend looking after the kids. Your description of the Dhejne report is not accurate. This is a direct quote from the report “In this study, male-to-female individuals had a higher risk for criminal convictions compared to female controls but not compared to male controls. This suggests that the sex reassignment procedure neither increased nor decreased the risk for criminal offending in male-to-females.” As is this: ”Male-to-females…retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true for violent crime.” This is unambiguous. The report does not state anywhere that M-toF patterns of criminality were different from 1989-2003 than in 1973-1988. Some activists have claimed it does, but there is no data in the report to back the claim up. Dhejne herself clarified this point in a 2017 interview when she said: “Regarding criminality there are only results from either both trans women and trans men and displayed for the whole period 1973-2003 and for the periods of 1973-1988 and the 1989-2003. If one is only interested in transwomen data is only available for the whole period.” (My italics). So there aren’t any specific findings for M-to-F patterns of criminality for the 1989-2003 period to support your theory about “changing attitudes to LGBT people”. As for other evidence, a Freedom of Information request in 2019 resulted in the UK Ministry of Justice releasing figures that compared sex offence convictions among male prisoners, female prisoners and male-born prisoners identifying as transgender. It showed that trans women in custody had sexual offence conviction rates far exceeding those of both male and female prisoners - reflecting a male pattern of offending within the M-to-F transgender cohort. There are obviously limitations to the data available and that more research is needed. But there is no evidence that transgender women assume the criminal behaviour of biological women, and the limited data we do have suggests they retain male patterns of criminality. At the very least there is currently no basis to believe that a man who says he identifies as a woman can be safely assumed to be less of a risk than any other man.

Fact.

RVN is under contract until 2027. If the club’s intention is for him to stay, why would they issue a statement about it? They’re renowned for keeping things close to their chest and never respond to rumours with public statements, so it’s puzzling that you think they would do so in this instance. There might be a clause that enables them to sack RVN more cheaply once relegation is confirmed, but I wouldn’t assume that this is their intention simply because they haven’t made any public statement on RVN’s future.

It is not the responsibility of women to solve the problem of male violence. Of course trans women prisoners must be protected from the kind of horrific abuses you describe, but the answer to that is to create places where they are safe - it is not to put them in women’s prisons and put women at risk of being the victims of male violence. There is no evidence that medical transition fundamentally alters the male pattern criminality I describe above, and which I regard as fundamental to this. Medical transition cannot fully reverse the masculinisation of the brain that occurs during foetal development and puberty, and the available evidence we have suggests that post-transition trans women continue to behave like men. Hence why I believe trans women do not belong in female prisons and that other solutions must be found to protect them from V-coding and other forms of abuse.

The logic of your argument is that there should no single sex spaces at all - ie, men and women should share changing rooms, bathrooms, hospital wards, prison wards etc, and that nobody should be allowed to create a space for one sex because to do would be to unfairly discriminate against the other because of a tiny minority of ‘scummy’ individuals. If that’s what you think, fine - at least there is a logical consistency in what you’re arguing. I disagree, however. The fact is, men are overwhelmingly more dangerous to women than vice versa. Men commit the vast majority of sex crimes and violent offences - male pattern criminality is fundamentally different to female criminality. That is why we have single sex spaces. As a man, I understand that there are certain spaces I cannot enter and I also understand that this is not a judgment against me personally - it’s because I am a man and there is no way of determining which men are a risk and which are not. To pick up your example, we don’t segregate along racial lines because there is no evidence that one race is overwhelmingly more dangerous than any other race - there would be no justification in doing so. The same does not apply to sex. I believe in single sex spaces because the evidence we have about male and female behaviour supports their existence. And once you have such a policy, it doesn’t make any sense to me to allow an opt-out for men who believe it shouldn’t apply to them. A safeguarding policy that allows anybody to opt-out if they choose is no safeguarding policy at all.

That’s precisely how many activists have tried to circumnavigate debate on this issue. It’s because they’ve always been well aware that any genuine debate would invariably end with them on the losing side. You can’t actually make a meaningful case for men to be allowed in women-only spaces or sports - it just can’t be done. Hence the tactic of constantly trying to shift the conversation away from those key points by accusing opponents of: a) being hate-filled bigots; b) acting in bad faith; c) being dupes for the US religious right; d) overstating a minor issue. And so on. These tactics reached their high watermark a few years ago but have been in retreat since as people have grown weary about being bullied into saying they believe something they don’t actually believe. The aggressive activists on social media have had their day; hardly anybody is listening to them any more. It’s worth remembering why this case was brought in the first place. It was because the Scottish government had tried to argue that quotas for female representatives on the boards of public bodies could be open to any man who had paid for a piece of paper declaring him to be female. During the hearing, Ruth Crawford KC argued on behalf of the Scottish government that a heterosexual man with a gender recognition certificate is a woman and so “becomes” a lesbian and should be able to join lesbian groups even if those groups do not want him as a member. This was plainly absurd and it is insane that it had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to finally knock it down. Yesterday’s ruling does not remove any rights for transgender people - it merely confirms that as far as the law is concerned, ‘woman’ means biological female and nothing else, and that biological females have the right to women-only shortlists, services, spaces and sports. And despite having followed this issue closely for many years, I still haven’t come across anybody offering a plausible argument for why they shouldn’t.

If a man is convicted of raping a woman but began identifying as a woman during his trial, do you think the media should refer to him as ‘she’ and claim the rape was committed by a woman? How do you think the victim will feel about seeing the media describe her penis-endowed attacker as a woman, and having her horrific experience twisted and lied about to spare the feelings of the man who destroyed her life? Because this actually happens.

You are welcome, my child.

Yes it has. It was always likely the judgment would go this way, but it is a relief that it has been confirmed. Hopefully we can now focus on ensuring all people are protected against discrimination and harassment without having to indulge in absurd fictions.

His last game will probably be in May 2026.

We may have even reached Cal Richards level:

RVN said he is starting to focus on next season, so presumably he expects Kasey to be with us then.