Published on 12, July, 2020
Unless it’s because I’m male or something. I certainly seem to have been discriminated against.
In 2019, people made false accusations about me and got me kicked out of a netball club in Stirling.
I tried to find another netball club, but the netball clubs I contacted were all reluctant to tell me anything about themselves, and when I asked further questions about them they just stopped replying or whatever. I also contacted the netball club in Stirling about rejoining, because their constitution says I can ask to rejoin at the next general meeting. They ignored me.
I contacted Netball Scotland, and asked them to investigate why I was being treated the way I was by these 4 netball clubs, and was told they’d investigate it.
I turned up at 1 of the netball clubs (they’d told me they weren’t playing because of the Covid 19 pandemic, and they’d tell me when they started playing again, but never did tell me), and played netball with them anyway. I literally only played there 6 times before they found an excuse to get me suspended by Netball Scotland!
In September 2022, I had the police at my flat, saying that I’d contacted someone at netball saying I need some new friends, and asking me not to contact her again. Then the next day, I got an e-mail saying I’d been suspended from Netball Scotland. They didn’t even say anything about why!
Eventually I found out that the reason I was suspended was, among other things, that I’d allegedly “communicated with a club member, Christina [surname removed by mod], that was uninvited and persistent which placed her in a state of fear and alarm”. I’d sent her 1 message on facebook, she’d replied, and then I replied to her message; and I’d only asked perfectly normal things like “How long have you been playing netball?” and “Where do you live?”
1 of the other reasons for the suspension was that I’d chased Natalie up about her investigation about netball clubs not wanting me to join. I’d supposedly failed to show her respect.
This post’s getting a bit long, so to cut a long story short, I had a hearing in March 2023 about it. And all the complaints against me were upheld, and I’ve been suspended by Netball Scotland for 5 years!
They haven’t answered any of my questions such as “What’s wrong with being friendly?” or “What’s wrong with doing to others what I would have them do to me?” or “What’s wrong with asking Natalie to do her job?”.
What happened at Stirling was brought up to demonstrate a “pattern of behaviour”, but nobody even told me what this pattern of behaviour was. The accusations there were completely different.
I’d put a complaint in about Natalie not having done anything about her investigation. Is this the real reason I’ve been suspended?
Oh 2 other questions that have never been answered are “Would I have had the same reaction to contacting Christina if I was a woman?” and “Would I have had the same reaction to contacting Christina if I didn’t have Asperger’s syndrome?”
So I seem to have been discriminated against.
Random people ask me where I live usually. When it's a person whom I don't trust then I'll give a vague answer as (that neighborhood) and if they ask for more details, which they usually don't, I'd ask them why are they so interested in this info?! And I'd lie to them and give them totally different place than mine. I'd probably avoid this person later because I don't know them and I want to protect myself. It might be just a friendly question and it might be an evil plan in the making. Am I going to sacrifice my safety in order to find out which of these options is the right one?? Nope!. Am I going to kick this person out of the club only because of this? Nope!. I've been a cute, naive girl who believed that the world works similarly to how it does in cartoons, where people are honest and good in heart, but one hurt after the other, I have learned that it doesn't. I have to run away from danger whenever my gut says "there's a 20% possible danger here". This means that I'm probably avoiding nice people in the process and probably losing the option of having potential great friendships, does my safety worth it? Unfortunately, based on many bad experiences, it does.
I'm sorry that you had to deal with this Mark when you were just trying to be friendly. I think it's no one's fault here, definitely not yours. We learn the hard way how to make friends.. unfortunately, they block us instead of giving us the chance or support needed to learn in an easier way how to make new friends.
usually when people ask where you live they dont mean your street, postcode and address.... they mean more like the town... i do this myself at work if anyone talks to me. you ask a person where they live... as in town... as in bolton, or warraington or any villiage or whatever... so you can then get a feeling of how far they came to work and the direction... then perhaps if you have no vehicle and they go in the same direction you can ask them for a lift back lol