It’s complicated because I believe the decent thing to do is weigh the trade-offs between the acceptance and well being of transgender people with the intent of sex-based sports division. There’s a big difference between professional sports at the highest level and rec ball with teenagers.
No idea if “most people” agree with that since my view is based on my own study and contemplation.
I think your post is bullshit and unfair, and what Simplicitus actually cares about is winning the election, and the reason this topic is being brought up in every trump ad in PA and other swing states, and why this topic that as pro-trans people pointed out only affects a few hundred people in the country is being centered as critical in the campaign cycle, is that they know it’s a losing issue for our side. You can engage with the arguments or ignore them, but this nonstop game of closing your eyes and shouting “bigot” has gotten us absolutely nowhere when rightly or wrongly, most people in the country who look at the cases don’t feel comfortable about them.
The reason FlyWf was so good at what he did is that he called people “racist” AND dismantled their arguments with logic and reason.
The best policies for governing transgender athletes’ participation in sports and the politics and political strategy of those policies are two totally different discussions and should exist in different threads.
I did a very quick skim of the thread, and it seemed to be more about the former than the latter.
Perhaps you’re right they should be separated. I would say they are distinct but also connected, in that both involve incorporating the proper narrative and persuasion. Simp’s first post from yesterday specifically relates to the latter though.
He didnt write just one post yesterday though
I think this right here is where you’re going wrong. Gender identity is not a “decision” people make any more than being gay or heterosexual is. I believe there are people on the cusp who identify as both male and female or even go back and forth, but it’s not something they are consciously deciding
If you don’t believe this, you need to do more research into the science on gender
Don’t think it’s at all clear this is a losing issue for us electorally, I don’t think many people at all are voting one side or the other based on this, and haven’t seen anything showing that it’s detrimental to Dems chances, the gop is blasting it because they like hating on trans people that’s it.
I don’t think we should be moderating on it and I don’t think “gotten us no where” is correct either
Agree, but arguing over whether X issue is good/bad politics is frankly boring and unprovable. It’s also what mainstream media does 24/7 as a device to talk about policies without actually talking about them.
Every argument simplictus made was throughly dismantled itt.
An election is not worth winning if you have to do so by throwing the least powerful yet most attacked people in your coalition under the bus.
I do think it’s true that this has become a really effective wedge issue; just the fact that there’s any argument about it ITF (like a top 10 liberal/progressive space on the internet) is proof of that.
The thing is, though, people’s objection to it is gonna fall along a spectrum. Folks further to the right are pretty hopeless because they’re mostly gonna be like “eww trans people gross get them away from my kids” (regardless of whatever polite BS framing they use publicly like “protecting our kids/integrity of sport” etc.) With more moderate/liberal folks, even though as a whole they empathize with trans folks and recognize their rights in general, them balking and drawing the line at sports participation seems to be the result of a couple of specific (and at least reasonable-sounding, if ultimately unfounded) concerns:
–The possibility of a legit safety issue if a trans girl who’s a few standard deviations bigger/stronger than her peers plays in a contact sport
–The chance that a trans girl who’s an outlier could potentially ruin competitive balance and make a mockery of a particular league/division (like some girl hitting more HRs in softball than the rest of the league combined while also striking out 20 batters every day, or something silly)
Now again, as has been discussed, it appears that trans women on hormones for long enough under certain guidelines shouldn’t have any kind of crazy advantage, so that seems to be the angle to push back and reassure folks about the above. But how easily can you do it when it is indeed such a small sample size? And what about “enforcing” those guidelines to reassure folks (opening a huge can of worms again about the idea of kids’ sports leagues getting unwelcomely into everyone’s business)? It seems tricky.
Arguing a topic on the basis of it being bad politically is often just a way of smuggling in your viewpoint without saying it directly. If your uncle goes out of his way to tell you he thinks the Dems must really be regretting that Tim Walz pick because of how tampons in boys bathrooms is going to play, it’s probably a safe bet that he hasn’t been pouring over swing state favorables and crosstabs.
I’m not saying that is what Simplicitus has done ITT, because frankly in the bit I skimmed he was making direct arguments.
Y’all are doing this wrong.
If ever you’re confronted by a conservative gentleman appearing passionate about the audacity of trans women competing in sport against ciswomen, you first need to rule out the possibility that they’re initiating a bad-faith argument with you. If that’s the case then merely engaging in good-faith is a losing position.
Ask them this:
“Jim Bob, I had no idea you were so passionate about women’s athletics! While I’d never dream that you’d engage in a bad-faith argument, I’d like to start by ruling this out. Can you please name 5 or more contemporary female professional athletes off the top of your head?”
When 97% of the time Jim Bob fails to surmount this incredibly low bar you can politely decline to engage.
For what it’s worth I’ve never personally cared about women’s athletics, and for the past 20 years I’ve not paid much attention to professional sports at all. So if I can establish that neither I nor Jim Bob actually care about professional female athletics then it becomes hard to find a reason to hash out rules that only impact like 0.2% of competitors in competitions neither of us pay any attention to.
This is the next best option, just dismissive indignation in response to bad-faith conservative engagements like this. It’s effectively trolling, and big picture it’s donor-class GOP folks trying to change the narrative from them setting policy to allow them to hoard money to cultural issues that they’d rather we pay attention to.
Yea the main point I was trying to make is no one is voting gop because of trans issues, if you let them win on trans issues they’d still vote trump and I really don’t think swing voters are heavily worrying about trans sports when they go into the booth, there’s just no evidence Dems are losing voters on this that I have seen, it polling badly doesn’t mean people are voting on it
If they are arguing in bad faith, my response is that of course I support trans women beating up cis women in sports.
I just really disagree with the statement that anybody who raises questions about transgender participation in women’s sports is buying into some form of GOP bad faith trolling.
The idea that gender transition is entirely understood and we have perfectly figured out how people who are born in one biological way and through a medical process transition to another fit into a society that has for centuries been split into two defined genders is just a huge leap to take for a lot of people who don’t just view transgender people as “Ewww Gross”
If you’ve taken the bait and have developed a real strong opinion on protecting the sanctity of women’s sports from the onslaught of trans women ranching the helpless cis ladies, it is because on some level you’ve bought into the GOP’s bad faith trolling.
For the little it’s worth, my position is I’m truly not sure how best this should be managed by whatever athletic bodies oversee professional sports in this country. Like basically I can admit my ignorance and uncertainty.
But beyond that - and most importantly - the pros and cons of this are super clear. Definitely at the amateur level with high school and college, the benefits of trans people competing with others of their gender far outweigh the cons of them potentially maybe having a competitive edge. Ultimately that’s so incredibly inconsequential when contrasted with the 16 year old trans kid feeling a sense of belonging and acceptance. Literally it saves lives.
But even at the professional level, I’d be hard pressed to find the pros/cons weighing out in such a way that we should be checking for a dick before letting women compete or what have you. And for similar reasons frankly.
So I guess I can concede the possibility that trans women have a competitive edge (…not sure if it’s even true, but could concede it anyway) while still feeling it’s extremely evident how the benefits of them competing outweigh the alternatives. But I’m a goddamn social worker and psychotherapist who predominantly works with adolescents, so I acknowledge my perspective isn’t one that others may share.
Imagine people who’d fall into the category of donor-class ultra-wealthy folks who influence the GOP narratives through the use of their pocketbook.
Do you think:
A) They want to focus on this issue because it’s personally meaningful to them?
or…
B) It’s a useful tool to distract from tax policy and instead focus attention on this cultural issue?
I’m open to alternative reasons they’d direct the conversation in this way, but to me the reasons are…clear.
And if I’m right then I guess you can define that as not “trolling”, but you’d be hard pressed to define it as good-faith in any way shape or form.
Also true. The fact is there just aren’t that many people who either watch women’s sports or have girls in the right age group who actually play, so having a negative opinion on it probably doesn’t move the needle much. For a lot of people if they ranked all the issues by personal importance, it’d be like 37th or something lol. Having a strong opinion on an irrelevant issue doesn’t make it suddenly more relevant for most.
Not to mention that for Dems that have girls playing high school or college sports (for whom the issue might move up to top 10 or something), abortion rights should shoot to #1 with a bullet, and trump everything else.