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.
Hello, Peter,
Your immediate response to Mark's opening post was to suggest that he contacts a lawyer; in doing this, you've somehow overlooked the extraordinary measures taken against him (police involvement, an exceptionally long ban etc etc) - why would your default position be to agree that he has been discriminated against when his own words imply not discrimination but persistently troubling actions and attitudes regarding women?
It's very understandable that we here generally take the side of our fellow autists...but that in itself shouldn't be our default position in every single case.
its kinda normal too though..although i dont talk to women myself or anyone unless they talk to me, but if anyone talks to me and i need a idea of where abouts they come from i ask "where a bouts are you from" more so asking like...what town or city are they from, usually so i can gauge how far they came and how long they must have took to travel there, although thats mainly a work thing. everyones always local from the nearest town although one person came all the way from blackpool and traveled like 2 hours to work each day lol
if you was a woman the other person would be suspended instead.the woman probably made false accusations against you and made everyone take her side and believe her #believeallwomen lol
If what he’s telling us is accurate it does sound like PC gone mad doesn’t it. I imagine maybe if he’s the only guy in the class and maybe he’s at the top of their age range and the rest of the class members are closer towards the bottom maybe people are viewing this with a very biased stereotyped lens.
but that’s no excuse for professionals like the police or even a netball club to be applying those sorts of stereotypes and biases to these sorts of situations
Mark said: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.
It's PCs gone mad...
If the mod had some sense of humour, it would have replaced it with Christiana Aguilera
You're hardly strengthening your argument by posting the full name of your correspondent.
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.
I'm not questioning how women collectively feel about things, well actually yes I am in this specific case, but more generally I'm not saying women don't perceive themselves as being in more danger than men. I'm saying A) I'm not convinced that's rational, B) we should proceed in society based on demonstrable facts not feelings, C) the law is designed to apply to people not groups, it shouldn't disadvantage the individual because some other group they're not in is disadvantaged. D) if you feel discrimination law is not being properly implemented to protect women the solution is not to suggest it shouldn't protect men either.
Ok that's fine but as a mater of record the equality act, which is the major law in the uk on discrimination, doesn't recognise a separate 'woman's rights,' it recognises a persons right not to be discriminated against on a number of grounds ... including sex. That's not opinion that's fact.
Yes, men and women SHOULD be treated equally. Yes, that's what the law says. But that's not what is happening in the actual lives of many women. The patriarchy didn't vanish overnight when the equality act went into effect. Please take some time to listen to what women are telling you about what it's like to live in a sexist world instead of dismissing us as unreliable narrators of our own lives.
womens rights apply in society because we are still treated unequal in society.
I am leaving this conversation and shall not be replying to any more of what you ask.
Peter, you might benefit from talking with a counsellor who is versed in autism, to help answer your questions on this, and help you gain an understanding of this
It's not disrespectful to say men should be treated equally compared to women ... it also happens to be the law!
Astrid said:genre based towards women
what does this mean?
Women are more likely to be abused than men.
What you are saying is actually becoming genre based towards women . Please be respectful
Where do you live is kind of creepy?
The first twenty or so times men sent me these kind of messages, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Every one was creepy, so now I block. If a guy kept persuing me after that I'd absolutely escalate it.
battybats said:It's different because we live in a society where women are at more risk from men than men are from women.
You may feel that, frankly I don't agree, and that's not the position of the law. There is no special exemption where you can say 'oh but because women feel more unsafe we can have different rules for women' written anywhere into the equality act.
Yet again, when you know for a fact that the person approaching you can overpower you and outsprint you, the feeling is very different. You make no attempt to understand this.
Same. I've given people the benefit of the doubt on this kind of thing dozens of times and ever time they've turned out to be a creep.
It's different because we live in a society where women are at more risk from men than men are from women. That doesn't mean there are no men being hurt or harassed by women, or that every man is a danger to women, but on a wider scale women do generally have to be more wary of men.
Is it fair for Mark to be misjudged as asking invasive questions when he was actually just trying to be friendly? No. But it's also not fair that women have to assume the worst case scenario to keep ourselves safe. In this case, no harm was meant, but we're not mind readers: we don't know which men are asking "what general area are you living in" vs which ones want to follow us home.