Yeah I’m not touching this with a ten foot pole. This is so low priority.
Iz-rah-el who’s iz-rah-el?
Newsom has consistently and repeatedly fought for trans rights. I dunno why trans advocates are getting hung up on sports. I swear you guys were manipulated into digging your heels in with the dumbest position possible solely to divide and discredit the movement for equality for trans people.
It’s like how the news media will ignore dozens and dozens of innocent Black men getting shot by police until there’s a story of a gang member with a rap sheet a mile long who was actively trying to rape someone when police shot him, and then they’ll run the story hoping that the anti-racists will rush to defend him.
Insisting on having untransitioned or partially transitioned trans women in women’s sports is such an obviously stupid hill to die on. You’re all playing right into their hands.
Because once you lose one right, the rest fall like domino’s.
Ok then in that case you are SO fucking late to the party
Not placing a value judgement on this, but you can probably expect a lot of Dems to distance themselves on trans issues. It’s a group of issues that takes up a lot of air, and divides the party, while uniting republicans.
It’s stupid because their donors do not want them moving left, so they continue to pander to these nonexistent folks that they think will move away from the republican party to vote for them, leaving behind their actual base, who will simply not vote.
Sadly. You’re correct. The existence of people like me is a wedge issue. >_<
It’s a case of “follow the leader”. Whenever a candidate wins in a democratic or semi-democratic system, all other candidates become more likely to lean more towards the winning candidate’s positions on issues, either in the hope of peeling off votes or preventing defections from their own moderates.
If only there was some way we could have went the other direction on the issue. Maybe a candidate who wasn’t a openly raging transphobe.
Sports are games.
Games are supposed to be inclusive and fun.
Society taking games deathly serious (and equivocating it with academic merit, aka serious pursuits) is the problem.
People rioting and murdering if the game didn’t work out for their team is the problem. Putting billion dollar stakes on games is the problem.
Trans people or any people wanting to play games with their friends should be what society fosters and nurtures as the entire fucking point of society’s existence. Something something… planting trees something something knowing they’ll never sit under…
Nope? let’s bring on the climate change induced extinction then. If our values are hyper competitive, dog eat dog bullshit from labor to fucking games, we should go extinct.
Games are supposed to be fair. Unless you’re going to completely desegregate men and women’s sports, there’s a real biological argument to be made here. To pretend otherwise is delusional.
Trans people or any people wanting to play games with their friends should be what society fosters and nurtures as the entire fucking point of society’s existence. Something something… planting trees something something knowing they’ll never sit under…
Coed teams exist. They’re finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn’t go through puberty as a male. That’s clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.
Maybe the solution is non-gendered weight classes for sports, or just more coed teams. Idk
Edit: yall will convince yourselves of anything lol. Really wild the dumb shit some people will say
What about trans women who transitioned before puberty? What about cis or intersex women with elevated levels of testosterone? What about sports where it has been shown that after a long enough period of medical transition trans people have no significant advantage over their cis counterparts?
You appeal to science yet fail to cite a single source, so let me do it for you:
They’re finding issue with mtf athletes playing against a league of individuals who didn’t go through puberty as a male.
Good news! Puberty blockers exist and have been studied and used for literal decades for other reasons.
That’s clearly an advantage, and to say otherwise is to ignore science altogether.
The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there’s no more advantage.
In fact, women who haven’t transitioned often have an advantage because their testosterone levels can be higher than women who have transitioned.
And that’s the crux of the issue: human variation.
Puberty blockers exist and have been studied and used for literal decades for other reasons.
In the case of a trans woman having not went through puberty as a male then yeah true enough as far as I know.
The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there’s no more advantage.
Are you sure about that? Because I looked it up and (after a few instances of “we have no idea but maybe not”) I found this. I’ll also admit that I only read the conclusion so I can’t make any guarantees for the quality of the paper.
In fact, women who haven’t transitioned often have an advantage because their testosterone levels can be higher than women who have transitioned.
Yeah that’s the thing: Testosterone is only one part of athletic ability. The paper lists some parameters that are either not affected or affected but not reduced to within the average range of cis women, but the obvious example would be height.
The paper does what all transphobes, and coincidentally most sexists, do when this subject comes up:
Pretends that the average woman has a shot at high level athletics even at just the college level.
If there’s scholarships on the line, the people getting them are going to have certain natural advantages on top of busting their asses for years at the sport.
To quote an old Utah Jazz coach:
You can’t coach height
So when you compare the average 22 year old woman to an elite college athlete, you’re gonna a very large gap. Just like comparing an average 22 year old guy to whoever just won the Heisman trophy.
The difference is larger in women. Because the average guy is more likely to have played sports growing up, and those gains in coordination when you g last for life.
And that’s not even it.
There are just soooooooooo many reasons why this who thing is overblown fearmongering designed to get idiots mad at a very small very vulnerable group.
Of all the things to be mad about right now, your mad at tops, absolutely tops, double digit young non-paid athletes.
Just fucking why?
If it’s not transphobia, what other reason do you care to still be going thru this thread desperately trying to have the same argument?
If it’s not transphobia, what other reason do you care to still be going thru this thread desperately trying to have the same argument?
Well I care about the truth for its own sake, but you can also call it pedantry. I recognize that this is culture war bullshit by conservatives meant to demonize trans people for what’s mostly a non-issue, but setting aside conservatives being conservatives it is a debate worth having. And I have nothing better to do, that helps too.
The science says 2-3 years of hormone therapy levels the playing field and there’s no more advantage.
Would you be opposed to a requirement that trans women wanting to compete in women’s leagues undergo 3 years of hormone therapy before being allowed to play?
I think most trans people would agree that’s reasonable, but at that point, you also have to talk about the bans on transition for minors, which would affect a minors ability to have that time frame met, and then their ability to play.
True, and that’s a thorny problem but one that has to be addressed eventually.
Ah, yes, let’s make laws specifically banning 2-5 children from ever having fun.
Like… what the fuck is wrong with you that you think a law targeting under 10 people in the entirety of the US is justified and not literally just bullying those kids on a national level to hope they fucking commit suicide? A law to tell 5 kids, specifically, that fuck them and they’re not allowed to have fun is god damn crazy.
https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-transgender-athletes-play-womens-sports-1796006
Having fun is one thing and winning competitions against people you have a biological advantage against is another. It only takes one person to win a championship.
So you’re saying that people like Michael Phelps should be excluded from competing in sports due to the famous athelete’s “biological advantages”?
Should Michael Phelps be allowed to compete against 13 year olds?
If they’re allowed to team up on him, sure. XD
So segregating competitors to some extent based on physical ability makes sense?
The women’s section is separate from the open section specifically so that women can get their place to compete without being dominated by men’s biological advantages over them. Micheal Phelps is competing in the open section, which is… Well… Open. Also please leave strawmanning to the conservatives.
You missed my point.
If the argument is that unfair competition due to “biological advantages” should be reduced then I agree. Sports should be segregated by performance classes and open to all genders.
But if the point of segregating sports is to make space for women in sports, then excluding trans women is nothing more than discrimination on par with excluding black or disabled women. Trans women deserve not to have to play with the boys too.
If the argument is that unfair competition due to “biological advantages” should be reduced then I agree. Sports should be segregated by performance classes and open to all genders.
That’s probably the ideal solution, but the problem is that nobody’s gonna watch anything except the top leagues. I mean watching the kinda good but not really amazing people’s football league just isn’t an appealing prospect, unless I misunderstood what you meant by performance classes. The whole point of this debate (other than conservatives shitting on trans women anyway) is that you need a framework where:
1-trans people can compete, 2-cis women aren’t unfairly disadvantaged and 3-that people would actually watch.
I’m frankly not sure such a thing exists.
This is a really stupid argument. The thing that makes athletes special is their biology.
There’s a reason that DK Metcalf towers over all of the cornerbacks in the NFL. He’s a biological specimen that has incredible agility, height, muscle mass, and speed.
https://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/d-k-metcalf-proves-he-s-an-athletic-freak-at-combine
Michael Phelps also has a biological advantage that very few humans have.
None of this excludes them over their competition.
I’ll just copy my reply to the other guy.
The women’s section is separate from the open section specifically so that women can get their place to compete without being dominated by men’s biological advantages over them. Micheal Phelps is competing in the open section, which is… Well… Open.
Thanks for the gibberish. So many words to say absolutely nothing.
Please tell me what these “issues” are, with peer reviewed scientific sources. There are no significant advantages to a “male puberty” that are not countered by HRT. Furthermore, the same people touting trans kids for their supposed “advantages” are the same people forcing them to develop those “advantages” by restricting their access to healthcare before puberty begins.
The cruelty is the point.
There are no significant advantages to a “male puberty” that are not countered by HRT.
Uh… Palm size? Heart and lung size? Height? Don’t get me wrong I recognize this for the culture war bullshit it is, but there is some truth to this that needs to be addressed.
Edit: I only read the conclusion (and wouldn’t be able to tell if the methodology is flawed anyway) but I found this.
So shouldn’t we eliminate all players who may have physical advantages? What about a woman from birth who grows to 6’5"? Seems like that’d be an unfair advantage when playing against other women who may be only 5’10".
I mean by your logic we should just eliminate women’s leagues entirely and make everything coed.
That’s not my logic, that’s your logic. Some people are born with genetic traits that make them good at certain sports, and that’s always been the case. Your argument is that it’s unfair if people have advantages and should be banned, so why not take it all the way instead of nitpicking here and there?
Because that’s stupid? Why SHOULD we “take it all the way”?
Athletes have always leveraged unfair advantages in sports. There’s a reason there’s super tall players in basketball and short ones in gymnastics. May be they should enforce that average height of teams must match global averages. Countries with fewer resources just can’t support athletes in many sports so why not make that more fair?
There’s research showing that some women athletes (i.e., born with female reproductive organs) have higher testosterone levels than many men, and even some male athletes. So why are they allowed to compete in women sports instead of men?
There’s a lot of ways to make sports more fair. Banning transgender people without fair science based facts is not one of them and is plain bigotry. It’s like saying an athlete on anti-depressants should be banned because they are happier and more motivated so have an unfair advantage.
Member when the neoliberals tried to pretend this douche would be the next presidential pick?
The worst part about neoli erals is places solid blue like Cali get conservative leaders because they’ll take dirty money in primaries, then the only option is a Republican.
It depresses turnout till a Republican wins, and that usually comes with the state flipping in an election year because that’s when campaigning is highest.
It’s not just that they’re shitty people who won’t fix anything, they’re actively hurting dem turnout all over the country when it hits the news
We need higher standards across the board, not just in the oval.
Literally his only good feature was that he was combative with Republicans. We all knew he didn’t believe in any of it, but he had a shtick. Without that he’s just another useless moderate.
And to abandon it now, when we need to unify as Democrats and not feed into any of their bullshit is particularly dumb. No one’s going to give him brownie points for folding now, moderates just can’t help themselves but reach for that golden ring of triangulation.
