“It is a complicated issue. It is truly a complicated issue, with a wide range of views, truly a wide range of views,” Jean-Pierre said. “There is no ‘yes or no’ answer to this, it is complicated. There is a rule that the Department of Education [DOE] has put forward, and we’re going to let that process move forward, and again, we want to make sure that while we establish guardrails with this rule, we also prevent discrimination, as well, against transgender kids. But again, a complicated issue with a wide range of views, and we respect that.”
“Absolutely no reason for the Biden admin to do this,” New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “It is indefensible and embarrassing. The admin can still walk this back, and they should. It’s a disgrace.”
“Honestly, this move by Biden to push a rule on trans kids in sports is not only a backwards betrayal, it [forces] us to have to spend our time dealing with god d*** sports instead of criminal bans on our healthcare,” Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and LGBTQ+ advocate, wrote. “He could have just done nothing. This is legitimizing transphobia.”
The mOsT PrOgReSsIvE Administration in History™ 
“A complicated issue with a wide range of views, and we respect that” Fuck off out of here with that “centrist” nonsense. There’s nothing complicated about it, and it’s not an issue unless you want to turn it into one and want to appeal to people’s emotions like Republicans are doing. It was only a matter of time before they’d start throwing trans people under the bus. I guess with the coming elections it’s as good a time as ever.
This sports transphobia is mostly directed at trans girls/femme/women, right?
Are they doing this shit to AFAB people in men’s sports?
Regardless all this discourse is wrapped up in misogyny too, implying that people AFAB are always going to be worse at sports.
And it doesn’t take into account the general unfairness in sports. Some people are born into wealthy families who can afford to feed their kids, get them healthcare, and train them into sports.
It’s all the talking points about affirmative action, just in a different font.
Are they doing this shit to AFAB people in men’s sports?
chess is lmao
yes. You will notice though that the primary direction of transphobic rhetoric is aimed at trans women and not trans men. this is a result of misogyny at its core. this is part of the phenomenon of transmisogyny, the intersection of misogyny and transphobia
It is also about patriarchy in that it is seen as a problem for a man to give up his patriarchal benefits, while it is seen as a virtue for women to seek patriarchal benefits. Same reason that gay men always suffered more gay hate than lesbians, the appearance of taking on the “feminine” role is viewed as a threat to patriarchy.
And in a world where modern psychology was founded upon the teaching that all young girls suffer from penis envy, most people think striving for masculinity seems like a perfectly reasonable goal. Author and sex activist Patrick Califia, who is a trans man, addresses this in his 1997 book Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism: “It seems the world is still more titillated by ‘a man who wants to become a woman’ than it is by ‘a woman who wants to become a man.’ The first is scandalous, the latter is taken for granted. This reflects the very different levels of privilege men and women have in our society. Of course women want to be men, the general attitude seems to be, and of course they can’t. And that’s that.”
Once we recognize how media coverage of transsexuals is informed by the different values our society assigns to femaleness and maleness, it becomes obvious that virtually all attempts to sensationalize and deride trans women are built on a foundation of unspoken misogyny. Since most people cannot fathom why someone would give up male privilege and power in order to become a relatively disempowered female, they assume that trans women transition primarily as a way of obtaining the one type of power that women are perceived to have in our society: the ability to express femininity and to attract men.
Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano
Transphobia directed at transmascs is also always mysogynist in nature. Its core concepts are toxic notions of masculinity seen as unfullfillable for AFAB individuals, the maintainance of control over AFAB bodies as reproductive units and sexual objects, and the denial of agency to AFAB individuals, all due to their assigned “female” gender. Terfs routinely claim that trans men and transmasculine nonbinary people are just “confused girls” making a mistake, the entire terf discourse around the issue hinges on the concept not to let people designated as broodmares decide what to do with their uteruses because they are too emotional and irrational to make choices for themselves. It doesn’t get more mysogynist than that, which is ironic when the target of the mysogyny are men, but that’s bio-essentialism for you. When you want to see how fully seperated any and all terfs have become from the feminist roots at least some of them used to have, how deeply and utterly mysogynist they have become, ask them about trans dudes.
“Gay = Feminine” never made any sense to me. I’m gay as hell and I’ve never been anything close to feminine. It has literally zero basis outside of, I don’t know, cishet creep mentality?
In their minds it’s simply because anyone that wants to get with a man is obviously taking on the feminine role, and that both men are feminine because of it.
And the other side of it is probably campness being the one thing straight people could use to clock gay people, and campness becoming associated (incorrectly) with all gay people because of its visibility.
Guess that for the straights there are two orientations: straight and sexual/flamboyant.
I’m basically like a stereotypical straight guy in every way except I happen to be gay (and without the creep attitude that seems incredibly common).
That I don’t fit the stereotype has led to an “are you sure tho?” Groundhog Day. Like, motherfucker yes I’m sure, I don’t go around questioning your straightness and suggesting you try same sex relationships every other week.
Cishets need to be placed under clinical observation.
Right and this is a problem for trans people in a unique way too. The trans people that pass can blend so well that cis people don’t think they even exist, and if they do they’re actually ok with those people because they don’t even register as “bad” to them, they can just pretend they don’t exist and in doing so they don’t threaten patriarchy at all because they’re non-existent.
The only idea of a trans person that exists in the head of cis people is those that do not pass. The ones they can clock. The ones that do not fit in the social design and patriarchy that they want.
The intersection of transphobia and misogyny, but you’ll still get people who deny that intersectionality is a thing.
I am so exhausted with this heteronormative/cisnormative (I’m sure there’s another word for it but I can’t recall) society treating every LGBT person as some exotic animal, like there must be an explanation and you owe it to them for your deviation from the “norm”. Rabid queerphobes spewing their vitriol about the LGBTs controlling society when trans people are being murdered left and right. Disgusting, profoundly sick society.
Yes, trans men are being forced to compete against women against their will. They never cared about fairness, it’s entirely about hurting trans people.
Yeah max beggs in Texas. Trans guy wrestler who absolutely dominated because transphobic Texas politicians made him compete vs women.
They just need to combined all sports and make them genderless. In cases like boxing just go by weight class, since they do that for men and women’s leagues anyways.
At least at the pro level, they technically are genderless; there are no rules against women trying out. Women’s leagues exist because biological males have such an extreme physical advantage that biological females do not qualify in open competition. Weight classes aren’t sufficient, testosterone dramatically affects more than just muscle volume.
If all sports were genderless, they would be exclusively cis-male at every level after puberty with any significant competition, regardless of weight class
testosterone dramatically affects more than just muscle volume
Yet we do not see any post-transition trans woman in any sport wiping the floor with her competition that did not go through a testosterone puberty. That doesn’t bother any transphobe who has a say in pro sports, tho, in swimming competitions we now have the situation that cis women who’ve cheated by taking testosterone throughout their youth get a 2-4 year ban while trans women who had the wrong puberty forced on them get permanent bans from all competitions they’d stand a chance in.
tl;dr: you’re a transphobic gender essentialist idiot who doesn’t understand basic biology or how transitioning works and systematically ignores all empiric evidence that shows you’re full of shit, go fuck yourself
Besides what everyone else is saying in defense of trans rights which are human rights, I want to add a tangential point. I wouldn’t ever want my elected representative to think an issue is complicated. I sent you to the executive branch to exercise power on my behalf. Not to exercise fairness, not to exercise @Civility@hexbear.net . No, motherfucker, we WON, fucking act like it. I don’t need the issue explained to me, you’re not a salesman. You don’t propose shit; I do. If you’re the one for the job, I vote for you. You are my public servant. I don’t know what drivel they taught you for that bullshit law degree, but it’s clouded you to the reality that your will, desire, and vision for the country as an elected official is secondary to mine. The issue is not complicated as far as you’re concerned; we’ll tell you what the answer is.
Honest question, but as a trans athlete, should I wait to get on HRT before trying to compete in the women’s division?
Yeah, it looks like after around a year of hormones you are at baseline for your preferred gender.
Bonus if you are amab and want to compete in mens sports it is tradional to start taking masculinizing hormones before you compete as well.
In
speak calling something “complicated” is just an excuse to take the reactionary positionAnd Hillary Clinton says the Democrats focus too much on trans issues. Still have no idea what the hell she’s talking about. Have heard more about gay marriage than anything explicitly trans.
The only reason why anyone cares is because everyone thinks their little Johnny is going to get a sports scholarship, and somehow a trans athlete is taking that away from them. It’s yet again another false zero sum situation, where we have yet again pitted groups against each other instead of asking why a college athletic scholarship is the difference between succeeding and failing in this broken system.
If you took the money aspect out of all of this, it just leave only the true transphobes. Like, does anyone get pissed if a trans person gets a perfect score on the SATs? No. Because we all love meritocracy (supposedly). So, this is the only place where transphobia is being tolerated.
EDIT: There will always be transphobes, but I’m saying the people that are reachable (maybe), this is the stupid argument they reach for, so why not interrogate why that argument is even being treated as an argument instead of being correctly identified as just being transphobia with extra layers. Make college free
anglo island would be proud
Ironically cracker island doesn’t have anything like this. I suspect that’s mainly because school sports aren’t professionalised as for-profit enterprises like the horror show in america though and would exist if that were the case.
Give blockers to all the kids so they have equal playing field
Clearly we need to ban all sports until we can figure out and resolve what the fuck is wrong with Americans.
What if we need to ban all Amerikans until we know what the fuck is wrong with sports?
This also works
Wow! I love having my continued existence being labelled “complicated” by people in high elected offices.
Trans people matter, sports don’t.
Wholeheartedly agree, I have yet to see this take in person
What stands out to me is that the people worrying the most about trans people in womens’ sports are the same ones who were making fun of womens’ sports specifically right up until they realized they could use it to attack trans people.
The way I always interpreted it was that any artificial environment necessitates artificial constraints which will always ‘sample’ from a ‘population’. Sports are an artificial environment actively ensured to be such for some purpose. Whether that be entertainment, social bonding, profit, etc.
The sampling can have methods of organizing, say in a simple ordering of individuals based on skill with certain qualities. Think weight classes in boxing and the ranking of within them. It doesn’t need to be so, and it seems that it tends to be the case to make it easier to conceptualize the relationships between the people who participate.
Of course in such an artificial environment certain traits like physical strength, coordination, flexibility, endurance, or whatever, in isolation or combination determine the likelihood one may succeed according to the artificial constraints. Are we to be surprised individuals who have been the primary enjoyers and participants, i.e. men, perform ‘better’? It’s what would be expected if the conflict of interest of fascicle chauvinism is accounted for rather than ignored for reasons of self-interest.
What I never understood was, say there are participants of some group in some sport who are overwhelmingly unlikely to win. This would be true for the participants, what about the coaches? If you open up the artificial environment from some small scale to something bigger, say at the level of winning teams, where are the differences then? In the case of owners of teams, where the amount of risk or investment the owner wants to take is then the primary metric? As you move further and further away from the artificial environment to the real world, the differences matter less and less.
Sure, my wife is not as tall as me, if I am around I’ll help grab something on top of the fridge. That isn’t the only environment she finds herself in. We have a step stool she uses to get stuff, she can rearrange things to bring it lower, or find some alternative item. There are any number of solutions or strategies one can take outside of an artificially constrained environment.
It’s really as though these individuals want to hate women and trans people, or any marginalized group, then find the environments which may be hostile, make them actively hostile, and then when their plan succeeds and they have oppressed or disadvantaged these groups enough they claim victory due to their perceived superiority.
There’s a quote from Catch-22 I think of when this sports talk comes up:
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
Think weight classes in boxing and the ranking of within them. It doesn’t need to be so
Yeah like Street Fighter. Which of course the Gamer™ types have no problem with when they play with a girl character… But put a trans woman in there an all of a sudden they explode.
I genuinely feel like this is such a non issue that even if I was completely wrong and science was a lie and trans women did have some kind of advantage over cis women in sports, it still wouldn’t fucking matter because there are roughly six trans women playing sports at a high level. Manufactured outrage go brrrr.
This is a real genuine question. Can you link me to some peer reviewed studies from a reputable source? I can’t find any that say trans women have zero advantage over cis women in physical sports.
https://www.cces.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/pdf/transgenderwomenathletesandelitesport-ascientificreview-e-final.pdf As far as I know there is no real indicator of advantage, but it isn’t the most researched subject of all time. Personally I think the lack of Trans women winning anything outside of like one swimmer once is pretty good evidence.
ik so many trans women are shut in nerds (myself included, i pretty much only go outside to go to the lgbt center and avoid other situations at all cost)
adding this to the long list of reasons im not voting for biden again when libs ask. my go-to is always “that fucker still owes me $600!”
So, you think voting for a Republican or not voting is going to get the job done?
yes, if the democrats won’t earn our votes, we’ll withhold them. it’s not like a democrat in office meaningfully slows down the pace of fascism.
Withhold and help the Republicans.
the democrats are helping the republicans far better than I ever could.
no, democrats have demonstrated repeatedly that they are unwilling to do anything. you would be a fool to vote for them over and over again after seeing their incompetence and unwillingness to even slightly push back against the reactionary policies being enacted under biden
The Democratic Party has room for improvement, sure, but it’s also the only party with room for improvement. On this issue, not voting is the same as voting for a Republican. That surely won’t get you any improvement.
The Democratic party doubled Trump’s deportation numbers, gave the police record funding and has now ceded trans rights to the right
There is no room for improvement and no point in voting in national elections, we warned you motherfuckers but you didn’t listen, now eat shit dem
no, not voting is just not voting. voting for the republican party is voting for the republican party. and from where im standing, the difference between dems and republicans is negligible. the dems arent offering any “improvement”
The Republicans are salivating over the prospect of you not voting. Exactly what they want.
further exploiting and oppressing the working class is exactly what the republicans want. and the dems are united w them in that
Thise two parties are nothing alike.
the dems are salivating over the prospect of useful idiots like you voting for them election after election after decades of failing to deliver on any of their promises because “it’s complicated.” Exactly what they want.
Voting for Democrats means you are actually voting for Republicans because Democrats do whatever Republicans want, serve the same class, and are themselves Republicans. So not voting is actually harm reduction. Voting just helps Republicans.
So you think that rewarding the Democrats for having the only standard be “Our senile, racist, rapist, corrupt, reactionary war criminal doesn’t have an orange spray tan” is going to “get the job done”? Or just the entire party being the polite, norms-respecting Republicans.
I think it’s the only party that does not vilify LGBTQ people, so I’ll keep voting for them for that reason and many others.
the only party that does not vilify LGBTQ people
might wanna check the OP you’re posting on before you.trot that take out there chief
You’re right. They are more of the Uvalde Cops to the Republicans school shooter. Even when they nominally have power they wont even rhetorically fight back, let alone use that power, to defend LGBTQ people in any way.
I understand your frustration, but not voting or voting for a Republican will just make matter worse. There’s surely room for improvement among Democrats, but it’s also the only party with room for improvement.
No, ignoring the extremely limited efficacy and right-wing bias of electoralism, their entire point is just being the “Not Republican Party”. As long as they can only offer that and nothing else, and still be electorally competitive, they never have to improve and will actively fight against improvement. Additionally, they actually do more to aid the Republicans and right-wing agenda as long as they are really ineffective and out-of-touch and in people’s minds voting for them is the only real opposition the Republicans, while constantly capitulating to Republicans on issues like trans rights. But ultimately, this is why the Republicans are much more responsive to what their base wants, since even if they are reactionary, and can somewhat generate the culture war issues, they are the only party offering a positive agenda. (Positive in the sense of a politics of making changes and advancing agendas rather than just saying that the other party is worse. Not saying their agenda is good, obviously)
So, yes, there is some times, particularly on close elections or local elections where you can get improvement by voting Democrat over some Q-anon or MAGA psycho. But you also have to admit, especially with Federal elections, not voting for Democrats is not really making things worse or doing less “harm mitigation” than voting for a Biden, or whatever right-wing bigot the Democrats throw up next. Especially if, even on things like LGBTQ rights, they immediately capitulate and take the Republican position, just with more polite rhetoric.
Since I was eighteen, I have voted for a third party even when its chances were hopeless, if the main parties were unsatisfactory; or, in absence of a third choice, voted for the lesser of two evils.
I could vote, but the election in which I could vote was a farce.
I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.
This Administration is dominated and directed by wealth and for the accumulation of wealth. Corporate wealth profits as never before in history. We turn over the national resources to private profit and have few funds left for education, health or housing. We let men take wealth which is not theirs; if the seizure is “legal” we call it high profits and the profiteers help decide what is legal. If the theft is “illegal” the thief can fight it out in court, with excellent chances to win if he receives the accolade of the right newspapers.
Gambling on the stock market is increasing and all prices are rising. It costs three times his salary to elect a Senator and many millions to elect a President. This money comes from the very corporations which today are the government. This in a real democracy would be enough to turn the party responsible out of power. Yet this we cannot do.
I have no advice for others in this election. Are you voting Democratic? Well and good; all I ask is why? Are you voting for Biden and his smooth team of bright ghost writers? Again, why? Will your helpless vote either way support or restore democracy to America?
Is the refusal to vote in this phony election a counsel of despair? No, it is dogged hope. It is hope that if millions of voters refrain from voting in 2024 because of their own accord and not because of a sly wink from Putin, this might make the American people ask how much longer this dumb farce can proceed without even a whimper of protest. Yet if we protest, off the nation goes to Russia and China.
Fifty-five American philanthropists are asking China “to face manfully the doubts and promptings of their conscience.” Can not these do-gooders face their own consciences? Can they not see that American culture is rotting away: our honesty, our human sympathy; our literature, save what we import from abroad? Our manners are gone and the one thing we want is to be rich–to show off. Success is measured by income.
University education is for income, not culture, and is partially supported by private industry. We are not training poets or musicians, but engineers. Business is built on successful lying called advertising. We want money in vast amount, no matter how we get it. So we have it, and what then?
Is the answer the election of 2024? We can make a sick man President and set him to a job which would strain a man in robust health. So he dies, and what do we get to lead us? We remain in the same mess. I will be no party to it and that will make little difference. You will take large part and bravely march to the polls, and that also will make no difference.
Stop running Russia and giving Chinese advice when we cannot rule ourselves decently. Stop yelling about a democracy we do not have. Democracy is dead in the United States. Yet there is still nothing to replace real democracy. Drop the chains, then, that bind our brains. Drive the money-changers from the seats of the Cabinet and the halls of Congress. Call back some faint spirit of Jefferson and Lincoln, and when again we can hold a fair election on real issues, let’s vote, and not till then. Is this impossible? Then democracy in America is impossible.
web
Just in case anyone from other instances are stopping by, this is how liberal democracy leads to fascism. You have a right wing party that wants to criminalize being trans while tacitly supporting physical violence and extermination. The only viable opposition party can’t even use decisive language about the validity and existence of trans people among cis people. Because it might hurt their polling.
Now the strongest, political position from the “left” is “it’s complicated.” So when the right starts being very clear about violence and carrying it out through official state entities, the new left position will be even more to the right. Because they already gave up on “Trans people should participate in the things cis people do.” So it’s not even about trans people living a normal life. Historically, by the time we get there, it doesn’t matter what the left position is anymore. Because the right has taken over and are putting people in camps.
This is why it’s so very annoying to hear about harm reduction and voting the lesser evil. That’s not how it works. One hand washes the other. The lesser evil just leads to greater evil getting strong anyways. It doesn’t stop it or bide you time. The only lesser evil is violent revolution, which is only evil if you don’t understand what’s at stake here.
I’m one of those people from other instances stopping by that hasn’t thought a lot about this issue.
It’s a shame that US politics seems to be so boolean. As in, the only acceptable position for a political party is the polar opposite of their opposition.
What if an issue is genuinely complicated and cannot be resolved by a three word statement of position? Can there be no discussion around that?
that hasn’t thought a lot about this issue
Yeah, we can tell.
