(Part 1!)
Now Wimbledon has begun, I wanted to share some of my favourite photos of Bertie playing tennis!
When he was still The Duke of York, he participated in a doubles match at Wimbledon with his mentor & friend, Louis Greig (above). Bertie was extremely anxious and asked to play on one of the outer courts, as opposed to Centre Court, to keep attention away from him. A compromise was eventually made for Court 2, where there was still a considerable crowd.
One spectator recalled that, ‘The Duke of York was very nervous and couldn’t play at all, at times lashing at the ball with his racquet…”
The Prince and Louis Greig lost the match in straight sets: 6-1, 6-3, 6-2 to Herbert Roper Barret and Arthur Gore - both considerably older and more experienced than the then 30-year-old Bertie! Some exasperated people in the crowd even yelled out that he should try playing with ‘the other hand’ (i.e. his right hand, as Bertie played tennis left handed). It is likely that his anxieties and quick temper —usually aimed at himself!— affected his game that day.
In reality, Bertie was, in fact, an extremely talented tennis player!
He had previously won the RAF doubles competition in 1920 (pictured above!) and when at White Lodge, he loved playing tennis with Elizabeth in the mornings, before breakfast.
The ladies’ Wimbledon champion, Suzanne Lenglen, watched Bertie’s match on Court 2 that day and said that, ‘with plenty of practice’ he would have ‘the makings of a champion’. Nonetheless, the whole Wimbledon experience traumatised the sensitive Duke, and he never played a game in public again.
Sources: George VI, by Sarah Bradford; The King Maker, by Georgie Greig.
Photo credits: Getty, Alamy.
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P.S. Sorry I've been very absent from this page! I'm so, so busy with work :( But I promise to catch up on all your questions, and I have a ton of Bertie to share when I get more time!
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Way to cheat, bro!"
By Bryndís Blackadder October 23, 2023
A trans-identified male high school student has won the Fastest Sophomore Girl award at a race meet in Belfast, Maine this past weekend. Soren Stark-Chessa previously floundered while running in the male category, and only began participating as a “female” student this year.
In 2022, while representing Coast Waldorf High School in Freeport, Stark-Chessa came in 25th place at the Maine XC Festival of Champions where he ran as a freshman boy, and 14th place at the Southern Maine Class C Regional XC Championship in the Division C Boys 5000 Meter Run Finals.
But since transitioning to “female” sometime within the last year, Stark-Chessa had begun to dominate the female categories, rapidly improving his standing in record time.
On September 30, Stark-Chessa took 5th place at the Festival of Champions in the female category, with a time that would have ranked him 162nd if he had raced in the male category. One week later, on October 5, Stark-Chessa took first place at the Cape Elizabeth High School 2023 cross country race, besting the fastest female runner by nearly 2 minutes.
On October 21, Stark-Chessa seized the title of “Fastest Sophomore Girl” at a regional high school cross country championship, completing the 3.1 mile course over 80 seconds faster than his female competitors.
Stark-Chessa, who was previously ranked 172nd in the Freshman Boys category, is set to compete in the female category again on October 28.
In late September, his participation as a “female” runner began to receive backlash after footage of one of the races he ran in began to circulate on social media. In one video, shared by Shawn McBreairty, spectators could be heard shouting “way to cheat, bro!” as Stark-Chessa ran past them.
See rest of article
By Anna Slatz October 27, 2023
Female martial artists have come forward to reveal that male athletes claiming to be transgender have completely overtaken the women’s categories of a major grappling association, leaving them fearing for their safety in many instances. One of the men, Corissa Griffith, took home four gold medals in the women’s category during a tournament in Georgia on October 21.
The North American Grappling Association (NAGA) is the largest submission grappling association in the world, and facilitates standards and tournaments in various martial arts, including Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But while NAGA has provided competition categories for males and females since its inception in 1995, it has recently become the subject of controversy after a number of female athletes were found to have been matched up against trans-identified males.
The issue first received widespread attention in September after it was learned that a female Brazilian jiu-jitsu athlete had not been informed she would be competing against a male. Taelor Moore posted a clip of her fight against James “Alice” McPike on her Instagram, noting that there was a 65lbs weight difference between them.
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The girls team with the boy was going to compete against girls who could not interact with him for religious reasons without any prior communication.
By Anna Slatz January 8, 2024
A girls basketball team from a Muslim high school in California may have canceled a game after the school’s board was made aware that the opposing team had a trans-identified male player.
On Thursday, January 4, Averroes High School was set to compete against San Francisco Waldorf in a girls varsity basketball event, but the event was abruptly canceled. While the school has not provided comment on the reason why the sudden forfeiture took place, the decision was reportedly the result of the institution being made aware that a male player was participating on the Waldorf girls’ team.
Averroes is an Islamic school in the Bay Area, and sources close to the matter speculate that the hesitancy to compete against Waldorf was due to religious objections regarding the Muslim girls risking physical contact with the male player.
While the name of the male student will not be released at the request of sources, Reduxx has reviewed past game footage featuring the boy on the Waldorf team. He is seen towering above his female counterparts, boasting an obvious height and limb length advantage. According to team rosters, the male student has also retained his “masculine” name.
SF Waldorf playing a match against another California high school in November.
Speaking to Reduxx, Julie Lane of Women Are Real, an independent, California-based women’s advocacy group, revealed that information on the Waldorf player was first brought to their attention by a concerned father in November of 2023. His daughter had played a game against Waldorf, and had been left “traumatized” by the experience. Following the tip, Lane scouted out a Waldorf event to see for herself.
“The boy had an obvious advantage,” she says. “[The girls] didn’t necessarily run their offense through him, probably because they didn’t want to be targeted. But he got most rebounds and was able to jump much higher than the girls.”
She continued by noting that the male player “was not particularly skilled,” but that he had a longer range of arm reach and could jump significantly higher.
“They were at a complete disadvantage,” Lane says. “I caught one scramble for the ball with another player and my heart stopped. She was more than a foot shorter than him and could have been seriously injured.”
According to the statistics tracked by MaxPreps, the Waldorf Wolverines Girls Varsity team has won all but one game it has participated in over the past year.
Determined to raise awareness of the Waldorf player, the team at Women Are Real looked into the school’s upcoming games. Learning about their scheduled appearance against Averroes, a religious school focused on Muslim youth, the group then contacted the school’s board to alert them to the presence of a male on the opposing team.
“I was hopeful and thought there was no way this board would let their female athletes participate with a boy,” Lane said, noting that she never received a response from Averroes.
On January 4, Lane and some members from the Women Are Real team arranged to attend the match between the Waldorf and Averroes teams. But upon arriving, Lane was unable to locate the girls’ event. Confused, Lane approached some parents for answers, and was directed to speak to a female Waldorf student who had been sitting on the bleachers watching the boys’ game.
But Averroes has avoided providing a concrete, official answer about their motivation for abruptly canceling the match, and did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Jean Berns, another representative with Women Are Real, believes the confusion and silence surrounding the cancelation suggests Waldorf’s male player was the cause.
“As the school hasn’t made an official statement we can’t say for sure why the game was canceled. However, none of the multiple reasons we have heard from various sources make sense. We heard from the school director that there were not enough athletes to field a team, yet they played a game two days later with more than enough players. We heard from others that the coach was ill, yet he was able to coach the boys team the same evening of the cancelation. All this mystery and secrecy leads me to believe that the true reason for the cancelation most likely involves the male athlete,” she said, adding that she was “relieved” when she learned the game had been called off.
“On one hand, I feel strongly that no girl’s safety should ever be compromised and that no girl should be competing against a boy unawares. On the other hand, I’m saddened that the result is girls quietly self-selecting out of sports,” she continued.
“Will girls’ sport die a silent death here in California? Seeing that the boys game went on made me angry. Nothing has happened to them. What message are we sending these young girls?”
Speaking with Reduxx, Marshi Smith of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports speculates that the confusion surrounding Averroes’ forfeiture may be the result of concerns about potential penalization from the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF).
“The CIF falsely claims that boys who say their ‘gender identity’ is ‘female’ have legal entitlements to girls’ opportunities and access to girls’ teams, dorms, locker rooms, scholarships, titles and records,” she explains. “Families and schools like Averroes are wrongly told they’ll be in violation of federal law if they don’t force their daughters to compete against or with males. Tragically, feeling powerless, teams will quietly forfeit more and more.”
But Smith says CIF’s threats are “false and unethical,” and calls on schools and families to push back against gender ideology-based policies.
“Families must boldly oppose this injustice against women and girls now. There are millions of Americans ready to champion them.”
UPDATE: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that SF Waldorf had won “every single” game it had competed in over the past year. This has been updated to reflect a single loss.
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Not to be soft on main, but I found out one of my students is turning seven years old and I was like “no?? you’re not?? you’re still six years two months??” but she explained that her birthday is in August, so she’ll be seven…and I just crumbled inside.
I’m not a parent, nor do I plan on being one. But, that shit parents say about kids growing up so fast is true. My students age and so do I, but I swear they age faster than me. When I saw one of my students who I coached at six join my team at eight and a half, I almost had a stroke.
When I watch them go through milestones and become more of themselves, I feel so grateful for them. It’s not their job to help me, but they do it so effortlessly.
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