Speak Up For Soccer
I would like to announce the formation of a new non-partisan lobby group. Speak Up For Soccer will campaign heavily on preventing children from playing Rugby, preventing teenagers from Rugby clubs or getting coaching, and ban all adults from playing Rugby. It is important to note, we are not anti-Rugby, we are instead a pro-soccer rights group.
Obviously this is an important issue. So important that we have many similar pro-soccer rights friends in countries like the UK and USA. Coincidentally some of these friends may have invaded workplaces to yell anti-Rugby abuse at Rugby people, or promoted their pro-soccer rights messages on the YouTube channels of White Nationalists. Some of them even speak purely in terms of how Rugby is dangerous, but we value their support.
Our organisation is planning a clever advertising campaign. We have enough funding, thanks to domestic and overseas donations, to put up a large billboard in Wellington. It defines a ball as a circular object, used for the playing of soccer. This is clever because it tells Rugby people their ball doesn’t count as a real ball, but if you’re not a Rugby person or Pro Soccer Rights it seems harmless.
That coincides with one of our many meetings, where we advertise it as being about Pro-Soccer Rights at places Rugby People use regularly. But despite all of our aims being Anti-Rugby, because we keep saying we’re Pro-Soccer Rights and aren’t being scrutinised by the media at all we’ll be able to continue to sneakily get Anti-Rugby stuff out. Don’t look at our Facebook, that’s all I’ll say!
Say it quietly but we’re actually hopeful of getting some political support too from a relatively important party. One of our Pro-Soccer Rights people is working for the Opposition, and it looks like it may lead to support for our position which, by the way, isn’t Anti-Rugby but involves ensuring current Anti-Rugby legislation isn’t replaced with something that would make Rugby equal with Soccer!
It’s not easy being Pro-Soccer Rights. People don’t like us, because all we do is talk about how much we don’t like Rugby, so we take support where we can. Sometimes that means working with Anti-Soccer Rights people, like our overseas friends who work with organisations that actually want to take away most of the rights enjoyed by Soccer people, but they’re Anti-Rugby so we have a common goal. This isn’t hypocritical, it’s a good strategy as long as nobody notices it!!
Now, I know what you’re thinking — if you’re a Pro-Soccer Rights group, surely you’ve got more than just some Anti-Rugby policies. It’s a great point, but like we’ve said, it’s hard to find allies for our Anti-Rugby position which is deeply unpopular. So to keep other Anti-Rugby people on-side, we don’t really go in for much Pro-Soccer policies. When anyone asks us though, we point to our previous Pro-Soccer activities, even if we don’t do that anymore because our Anti-Rugby stuff consumes our entire lives.
It’s reasonable that Soccer is a game played by feet, and introducing hands (*yuck*) will be traumatising to soccer players. There’s no place for Rugby in society. Obviously, goalkeepers are exempt, as they agree with our Pro-Soccer Rights views. That means everyone supports us! At least everyone who we count as a person, that is.
You can’t even talk about being Pro-Soccer, or even Anti-Rugby. It’s a Free Speech issue. That’s why our press releases get mainstream media coverage, and many overseas outlets have so many Pro-Soccer Rights commentators. Look at the UK, whose media is so incredibly Pro-Soccer that it doesn’t even pass notice how much they’re Anti-Rugby really. We’re being silenced simply for being Pro-Soccer. When will this end.
In FACT, calling us Anti-Rugby is a SLUR. It’s as bad as the N-word, which I won’t type out because it’s worse. And anyone criticising our Pro-Soccer Rights movement deserves their mentions filled with furious Pro-Soccer people from overseas, yelling at them about hands and Rugby!
And yes, you might know a Rugby player, or someone who is Pro-Rugby. Maybe your friends' child is fond of Rugby, or a neighbour likes the oval ball game — or someone in your neighbourhood. Well,they might seem normal, but if you support them you’re actually ERASING Soccer. If you let Rugby into society, if you treat it as a game equal to Soccer, soon there’ll be no Soccer left at all.
That’s why many Pro-Soccer people cut off all Rugby contacts. You can’t trust Rugby at all, they’re not being honest. Not like us, with our clear Pro-Soccer Rights Position.
We hear so many stories of Rugby Orphans and Widows, J here is just one of them:
And Paula, here, describes the horror of a Rugby person pretending to be a Soccer person! We can always tell if you’re Rugby inclined, even if you look like a Soccer person!
We want to make it very clear I have nothing against Rugby, in fact, we’re ACTUALLY very supportive of Rugby being played in appropriate spaces, we just have a lot of concerns about Rugby ideology and its impact on our children! Essentially Pro-Soccer Rights activism is about protecting children from Rugby and ensuring they have a Soccer future and a home soccer ground to play on. This isn’t controversial because it’s got more than 14 words.
And this matters. Look at this story, kids are being turned onto Rugby at a ridiculously young age by Rugby people with a Rugby Agenda.
We have Serious Legitimate Concerns about safety as well.
Another story, this one about a sibling who took a sudden turn under the malign influence of Rugby ideology.
Rugby is a gateway to other sports. I mean come on, handball? That’s not a real sport, is it? They’re just making them up to be outrageous, it’s all a phase. This is why we need to affirm Pro-Soccer Rights and stop the spread of non-spherical ball sports. That includes tag Rugby, which starts innocuously but can be a gateway into a life-changing contact sport.
The medicalization of Rugby is dangerous to Soccer too. If you allow Rugby players to use Deep Heat, mouthguards, and Vaseline in public, Soccer players could be lured into it without knowing the LONG TERM CLINICAL EFFECTS of these dangerous treatments. Who knows who might even try Rugby and then regret it later, but be unable to return to Soccer. These are real worries.
Now some people ask us, is this all about Rugby people and soccer people sharing changing rooms? Of course it isn’t. How completely weird and genital-fixated would you have to be to spend your entire life lobbying and yelling at people online about people getting changed in the appropriate changing rooms.
But we ask the Soccer-Rights question:
Do you believe that Rugby identified people should have the right to play their sport on community sports fields in front of teenage soccer players?
Think about it. Do you want that?
It’s not just a grassroots issue. There are dark powerful forces at work here. Do you know the Royal Family support Rugby? And, unlike the Pro-Soccer Rights Movement who solicit donations from our supporters, the Rugby Ideology Movement has a big financial backer in George Soros? There’s no evidence for it, but it’s absolutely true.
I know this might seem cruel, but we recognise that our Pro-Soccer Rights agenda will inevitably harm some Soccer people. We’re all different, and if you’re so worried about Rugby people that sometimes you mistake a Soccer person for a Rugby person, mistakes will be made. Some people will be denied access to sports places. But this is a tough decision we decided to take, especially because it won’t affect us at all.
So support Speak Up For Soccer. Because we’ve got billboard money, but we don’t have making you like us money.
Author’s Note: This is, of course, a satire of the horrendous astroturfing astro-terfing organisations that are set up by transphobes, often in collaboration with right-wing conservative and Christian support. I have listed a few of the strategies and smears they deploy against trans people, trans women in particular, in a context that does not directly reference the harm they are currently doing.
Countries that try to introduce trans-equality legislation have found organisations like Speak Up For Soccer appearing, often directly copying or working with similar discriminatory anti-transgender groups from the UK and the US. They want to target the trans-community because if they can prevent trans-equality, they will have a foothold in a long war against lgtbqi+ rights that until recently they had been losing.
There is one message to take from here. Support trans and gender diverse people. They are under a relentless level of delegitimization and discrimination in the UK, US, and elsewhere right now. Check out your local trans-rights supportive organisations and charities. Write to your representatives, be they MPs or Congresspeople. Tell them you support trans and gender diverse equality.
Kia ora.
