I know women that do not think so. There are a lot of women that are not happy that their views or concerns are not being considered on the topic. I don't know any women that believe it is at the top of the pile of issues, but it is one high enough up that they have discussed it - especially in situations where they do not believe that they will have social scorn.
Try anyway. I thought it was ridiculous to have to explain the difference between someone who is transgender and someone who cosplays as a cat, but I did so. Presumably its unfair because biological males, even if they've undergone extensive treatments for transitioning, have a physical advantage in that sport. What else makes it unfair? You are posting on a message board with mostly other "biological males". Maybe your impression is skewed? Mixed Views Among Americans on Transgender Issues (gallup.com)
The point isn't that you have to cater to transgender people, it is that decent people should be cognizant that their actions or lack of actions have real viable impacts on other people. It isn't any different that taking into consideration any other series of factors.
There is no honest discourse. This discourse started from people like the libsoftictok account creator that made trans issues magically one of the major issues of our current political climate even though the rate of trans females in things like sports comps has been relatively the same for more than a decade? Why is it an issue now? Because the right wing knows how to use social media algorithms better and spam content better. Why does the right want to do this? The same reason why the right made Jews into a scapegoat or migrants or whatever the flavor of the month "these people are bad for society" group. To distract the commoner who often fits the cultural norms but aren't part of the eltor economy class to feel like they have some connection with the elite class by hating the same groups of people who h leads to those common people feeling as if those elites are on their side even though they are the ones responsible for the vast majority of their economic issues. Also this might sound rude but your nature of constantly talking about how women's rights are in jeopardy if we Carter towards trans people makes it sound like you are really coping hard for past transgressions you might feel guilty about? Because the way you concentrate on women's rights on such a trivial matter in the grand scheme of things seems unnatural. What is effecting women more? Trans people or economic systems?
What about steroid and PED users at the high school level among non-trans athletes? They statistically make up a much larger percentage of male and female athletes than there are trans identifying teens. And of those trans identifying teens they make up an even smaller percentage that compete in athletics compared to teens that use PEDs like steroids. Where is the crackdown on PED using high school athletes? Isn't a male or female athlete on gear more likely to perform better than their peers who aren't on anything? And certainly a male or female athlete on gear would perform better than a competing trans athlete right? Doesn't that give an unfair playing field? I would think if you're truly sticking to your ideals about wanting to protect teen health, you'd want to crack down on PED use among non-trans athletes even if it would harm the economy of the sports industry and the gambling industry that rides the coattails of the sports industry. Sure cracking down on it could ruin the chance of a high school star capitalizing on millions of dollars by being recruited to a professional league and sure it'd taint the image of the various professional sports industries that rake in billions annually off the success of athletes that take PEDs and sure that'd no doubt affect enthusiasm from ethical people that aren't habitual gamblers but contribute to the pot nonetheless, but we have to look out for teens that simply aren't developed enough to understand the consequences of their actions. I mean PED use can cause infertility and lead to an increase in various types of cancer. I tend to think if trans teens could somehow rake in billions of dollars annually for various professional industries like PED using high school athletes do, there'd be a lot less faux concern over their well being. Chances are as Houston sports fans of various franchises from different leagues, we've all cheered for and possibly even profited from a former high school star that was on gear at some point during their development that has played for one of our favorite houston franchises. And again PED abuse is a lot more common than there are even trans identifying teens. Then you gotta think some 30 million Americans in the United States are uninsured and an untold amount of people with healthcare policies that likely wouldn't aid someone considering transitioning. **** our healthcare system is so bad, some diabetics can't even get their routine insulin yet I'm supposed to believe health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are happy to cover the cost of teen transition for low income and middle income households. It all seems like manufactured culture war bullshit meant to target a small demographic of people with practically no government representation to act as a sleight of hand for an already broken healthcare system and deflect attention from all the existing industries that profit by the billions off PED using athletes in professional sports. If you're against trans teens receiving hormone therapy, you should equally be against high school athletes that are on gear and yet... Texas lawmakers halt steroid testing for high school athletes Halted since 2015. Program didn't even last a decade.
Naturally gained advantages. Practicing for a long time. Having athletic parents. Unnaturally gained advantages. Being born with physical advantages of a male, but competing against females. Taking illegal performance enhancing substances. What am I missing?
I'm the resident crazy leftist. Ask me if that is something I believe. Now this goes into the very fundamental issue of what I'm talking about in how the right frames these arguments and how they are winning. You expressing this shows they are winning. Why? Because you aren't a right wing extremist who is typically a moderate who buys into the framing that this is some common sentiment amongst the left when in reality it's one single individual who probably said it or even worse which actually happens often, a right wing troll pretending to be a trans activist saying absurd things like this to stir up hatred of trans people. It shows how social media disseminates information. You did an analogy here. You compared the absurdness of right wingers attributing trans people to people who identity as cats with the absurdness of the "left" saying that breast feeding is discriminatory towards trans women. Now ask yourself how many left wingers actually expressed this thought about breast feeding here and how many right wingers expressed the thought of trans people being like people who identity as cats here and ask yourself which sentiment is more like some one off extreme turned into a meme for an ideology to point at and the sentiment that actually is sincerely held by that ideological group in mass. When you ask yourself these questions hopefully you'll take two meta steps back and realize the absurdness of this discussion in it's entirety.
There doesn't need to be anything else. This is not "presumably" unfair, it is actually unfair. Maybe it is, thanks for pulling that up. It shows that the majority of all people (almost 2/3, despite that not being the official party line of the Democratic Party, which gets a higher percentage of votes) think that people should compete in the category of their birth gender.
It's interesting that you put transgender athletes in the same bucket as athletes who take PEDs (when trans athletes essentially undergo treatment to do the opposite), rather than in the same bucket as athletes who are born with a natural advantage.
Indeed, it does. Though the poll is also pretty binary, and I think if there were more middle ground options available (e.g., allow transgender athletes but with guidelines for qualifying that are broadly acceptable to the athletes who compete), you'd find that people have more nuanced positions than might otherwise be evident in these results.
I'm just tired that people can't take a couple of meta steps back and realize that even engaging in this convo with people who spam anti-trans content daily is doing absolutely nothing for women's rights and is just accomplishing more targeted haarrasment of trans folks If you want to have a sincere conversation of a NICHE problem, that's right, NICHE problem that effects .00001% of the population who's worst outcome in this sense isn't winning first place in a sporting event don't have it with people who spam content about how trans people are ruining society every day for hours. All you are doing is making them feel like they won by making trans people a pariah.
I guess we find each other quite interesting then. It's interesting to me that you put men who compete against women in the same bucket as female athlete's who practice a lot starting at an early age and happened to be born to athletic parents. It kind of seems like you're implying that if a male athlete undergoes treatment then they have lost all advantages of being born as a male. Is the science actually settled on this? If you cannot 100% say ALL advantage has been rendered obsolete, then yes...I put it in the same bucket as using performing enhancement drugs as an unnatural advantage.
No, I don't think you are rude. I prefer blunt and honest discourse. I feel guilty for past transgressions against women? No, not that I can think of. I suppose the closest to that would be that I was unaware of how different and difficult it is to be a woman in this world both historically and currently, and how incredibly pervasive male entitlement is because it is institutional and engrained into society. Speaking in general terms, I never treated women poorly intentionally or even compared to the vast majority of men. So, I don't think it is really an issue of me having committed past transgressions against women. I will say though, that it floors me that women make up half the world, but their opinions and views make up a small portion of policy decisions. When it comes to transgender rights, I am a strong supporter or transgender rights. When it comes to how the issue impacts women, I weigh it in all issues, including economic, religious, etc. What is effecting women more is largely irrelevant, because their opinions on topics - especially topics that directly impact them, should be heard and considered. Economic systems are like everything else, they are systemic of women not having an equal voice and a result of a patriarchy that has subrogated women in an unimaginable number ways. I am also not advocating that trans-women shouldn't compete against biological women.... I am advocating that there needs to be an honest discourse. If society decides that the positioning of trans rights is more important than female competitive sports, then we need to be honest about it and tell women that this is one that they just have to accept. However, we don't do this - we come up with a dozen different excuses. This isn't unique to liberals either, conservatives are doing the same thing in different ways.
Clearly we are both very interesting people! No, I didn't mean to imply that, and I think that's probably not the case. But someone who is taking PEDs is attempting to "unnaturally" gain an advantage over others in the sport. I don't think of a trans person as someone who identifies as transgender as a means to gain a competitive advantage over women. They are who they are, they want to compete, and they are willing to unnaturally transition away from their maleness, as much as is medically and/or financially possible for them, in order to do so. It just seems very different.
I actually appreciate the discussion and I think it is not out of line (except maybe for fchowd whom I have on ignore and only occasionally see his posts) and @FranchiseBlade who just seems a bit bitter. Good to see other people's viewpoints. I may not agree with @rocketsjudoka and @durvasa and, on this one, maybe not fully with @Nook, but it's ok to hear your perspective.
You are missing my entire point. My issue here has absolutely nothing to do with the actual answer of "should trans people play in women's leagues". It has to do with engaging with people who spam anti-trans content daily making them feel assured that their hatred is justifed by having moderates like you engage with them. It doesn't help when you express just stupid nonsense about how trans activism is a blight against women's rights and how trans activists ignore women. It accomplishes nothing besides creating a wedge between two different marginalized groups. The issue is extremely rare. It's rare enough where you as an educated adult should ask basic motive questions like why is this issue is spammed up to the level of discourse that even trump's basic healthcare coverage discourse which is a far more important and common issue? Why is America talking about trans people more than health insurance? Or tax rates for the wealthy? Why? And btw, you've used the rarity argument to dismiss trans activism. Didn't you say that women take p 50% of the population so their rights should be of more concern? Now give me the percentage of the population that lost to a trans athlete in a sports league. Now give me the worst outcomes for those events? Suicide? Family ostracization? No? Who has the worse fallout from having this topic be a national wedge issue equivalent of abortion and migration issues? People like ATW do not care about women's sports. They make statements about trans issues well beyond this issue or child sex operations. People like ATW hide behind pretending they care about women's rights to attack trans people. I know you come from a sincere place but all you are doing here is encouraging posters like ATW to spam more anti-trans content.
I never said that there were more rationale people on the right than the left on this topic. In fact, I am more supportive of the lefts position on this topic and have made no effort to hide this point. Many of the same people that make comparisons of transgendered people to people associating with being a cat or another animal are the same people that did not believe there were homosexuals and were against marriages between different races. Having said that, I will point out absurdities and issues that I have with people on both sides of an issue.
When you say stuff like "both sides" which you explicitly did here you are only empowering people who hate trans people. If you are going to point out absurdities, maybe point out the pregnancy of them or whether it was some rando one off. Without that context you are buying into the right wing framing. They want to you to believe that just as many leftists believe breast feeding is anti-trans as there are people who think trans people are satanic.
I don't think that's true for the majority of people (at least 2/3 of the population) who oppose transgender activism that goes as far as having biological males invade women's changing rooms and compete against biological women against their wishes. The "identifying as an animal" or "identifying as another race" examples are being brought forward to illustrate a point - which is that respecting subjective feelings regarding "identifying as" something is fine, but only up to the point where it infringes upon the rights of others. I think transgender activism that demands these things has gone too far. And I can hardly be against marriages between different races as I am the product of one lol. And I know most gay people actually think transgender activism has gone too far at this point.
