Rayvin

I think we have to agree to disagree on this in terms of the main thrust of it, which is fine. I would suggest that trans people being attacked and killed for being trans would indicate that it's not one sided though. Beyond that point I will say that I can well understand how confusing your own experience of this was, especially as a younger man who presumably looked up to his elder brother. I think such relationships are actually really important for young men so I honestly and completely do understand and empathise with the difficulty that situation would cause you. Especially with her now being quite a public figure. I acknowledge this would be hard for you man.

I understand, but again I would just say that one side is arguing a philosophical position, the other side is having their world broken apart. The evidence isn't there to support the idea that men are doing this to get better access to women to abuse. If it was there, I would have a profoundly different view - but while it isn't, my own framework of principles forces me to conclude that even the debate around this issue is deeply hurtful and invalidating to many people - dehumanising even - and that I personally do not believe that to be worth people's happiness being crushed. I'm sorry to hear of what your sister goes through either way.

It's ok though, Trump is going to settle all of this for us by insisting we drop laws protecting trans people anyway. Either we do that or we don't get a trade deal. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/trump-jd-vance-trade-deal-free-speech-b2733806.html

That's actually quite creative tbf, maybe we should look into it

Yep that's the line of questioning upon which this often falls down. I did look into it once and the attacks are vanishingly small. Smaller, importantly, than attacks by Cis men into those same spaces. The whole narrative seems to conveniently ignore that an aggressive man is going to walk into a women's bathroom either way, it's not like we have guards on the door. My very cynical take on this issue from what I have seen of TERF positions is that they have operated for years benefitting from the sort of victim hierarchy that intersectional feminism creates, and are appalled and indignant that anyone born male is able to insert themselves into their position on the hierarchy chain, or higher. I really do think it's that petty for a lot of them. These are the sorts of people who don't want to make the world better, they just want to have their rage validated by everyone else.

For me it's not so much my feelings that he hasn't scored, more his visible frustration at himself or his teammates. There's even been a couple of times when someone else has scored and he almost seems annoyed. Barnes in particular tbh. That's why I wanted him to score, not because I think he needs to but because he seems to think it.

I don't doubt this actually but I'd wager they're formed by a considerable amount of disgusting abuse themselves. And while for you and I this may be a disagreement on philosophical position, to them any disagreement invalidates their entire being, and they will get that invalidation every day of their lives. At some point I think it does make you hateful. I used to be somewhat skeptical around it myself as a younger man before extensive exposure to trans people as friends, and a conclusion that it simply wasn't my place to cause anyone as much pain as taking that position seemed to create. That's all I see now whenever this comes up tbh, people like JK Rowling fighting for their petty victories (that ultimately have no meaningful impact on anything in their own lives) while causing incredible amounts of pain.

It's this constant thing of how everyone needs to believe it's the money that transformed everything - I sort of get the mackems doing it tbh, but it's not just them. But the single most significant thing we've addressed since the takeover is putting Eddie Howe in charge of the club. The money helps, but it's not enough on its own. The difference between us and the rest is the manager. One day, maybe they'll see that.

Aye I guess so, but I'm convinced that in a family like that, he feels the love anyway. Even from Jacob. I doubt it's anything like being the brother of Jude

He is a lovely guy tbf. His mam gives out tickets to the games to people she goes to church with someones, one of my mates got some that way. I think she's clearly done a great job with the lad as a man, I'm sure she's really proud of him. Always happy for him when he does well.

Chelsea's final 4 games man No way they're getting CL.

Sometimes we are just insanely good. Great result and also glad Isak scored as I've been starting to get a bit concerned about his body language (could just be that he went 3 or 4 without a goal).

I fucking love this group of players.

Yeah agreed - it's a weird one because I honestly suspect that the supreme court have their hands tied on this. They had to rule on this to the best of their ability and the fairest interpretation of existing law. It's not on them to decide what the law should be, just what it is. But nonetheless, while not really blaming them for it, I do think that this whole situation is simply a 'bad' thing.

Yeah I don't think we've got anyone here who would make things weird for any women posting. But still, I imagine calling everyone in sight a cunt does prevent some people of all genders from joining up Remember when @Dazzler's crew joined en masse and within 24 hours we'd offended them all to the point of no return while trying to be our version of "friendly", and they all left. Holden is spot on tbh

I'm wondering if Fish hasn't realised we're talking about Longstaff Tbf to him, half of this thread supposedly dedicated to Barnes is now on Sean. Unless the idea is that Longstaff is going to be racing down the wing for us.

Good question... I'd say yes. I think we can do Palace without him whereas he definitely improves our chances against Villa. Willock instead? I reckon he'd be fine for this match.

The hold that this place seems to have on people who've been banned is really impressive tbh. LTA logging in still as well... I don't know about you gentlemen, but I think we should take this as a sign that we are in fact the intellectual, social and charisma champions that we all pretend we are..!

Yeah for sure, he only failed us because we didn't win the league, right? Nothing about being relegated twice, pissing all over club history and icons, making the least competent management and executive decisions imaginable, ruining club commercial growth by simply not giving a single fuck about it beyond what could be gained by Sports Direct, and otherwise being completely focused on retaining premier league status as if it was some sort of an achievement to get as close to being relegated as you can without actually going down. That's what the vast majority of "non-delusional" clubs want, right???

Was literally thinking to myself that all this ruling does is legitimise hatred. It has almost no meaningful impact on anyone's day to day life, but guarantees that the wrong people will be using it to hate others. JK Rowling will be delighted, I'm sure.

Don't see us beating Villa annoyingly, but I think we can succeed against the others.

To me he hasn't looked happy either - I think he was really enjoying being central to the club in the first couple of years of the takeover, scoring in big games, doing all the soft marketing stuff, getting on interviews etc. Now when I see him come on he just looks...low? At 27 he's arguably going into his best years as a midfielder, not sure he'd want to just be stuck on the bench with no real prospect of ever getting further than that.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/15/liz-truss-to-launch-uncensored-social-network-to-counter-mainstream-media Liz Truss is going to launch a free speech social media platform

I will say mind, if you look at their forums... they look like broken men. They've been humbled, at least a large part of their userbase anyway. The stupid thing about that club is that it was too arrogant to understand that it needed a few years in the wilderness in order to get anywhere near challenging again after Ferguson went. Say 5 years where they're just focusing on rebuild with a good manager, and they'd be back at the top table by now. Instead they've fucked around for a decade raging against the dying of the light, only to come to the same point they needed to ten years ago, but without any of the planning and clever management that it would require.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/04/15/briefings-suggest-eu-faces-choice-between-us-and-china/ So apparently one of the conditions for us to have tariffs dropped is we stop being friends with China I think they might have to get fucked on that one.