“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™ 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.
do not cede ground to the right. for god’s sakes, do not cede ground to the right.
Trans people matter, sports don’t.
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.”
Libs get the wall too.
I remember reading that when Utah did their ban on trans athletes in school sports, there was exactly one trans girl playing in a girls’ sport in the whole state. Exactly one. Statewide legislature passing laws focused on one person, a child.
All this scrutiny and transphobia is directed at literal children, many of whom might be the only trans athlete out of millions. Transphobia is such a disgusting thing to me, not only because of the chauvinism and bigotry, but because it’s just so senseless. Trans people are already rare enough as it is and also one of the most vulnerable populations in regards to poverty, assault, unemployment, etc. I’ve seen some statistics saying that only around 1,000 people in America initiate HRT per year. That should give an idea of just how rare and vulnerable trans people are. And now there’s a senseless cultural panic just to whip up a few more eyeballs on the spectacle?
Death to America
I’ve seen some statistics saying that only around 1,000 people in America initiate HRT per year.
Can I get a source on that? Can’t find one myself but I live in the gay city so it might just seem like more
Found a summary of a 2015 John Hopkins study.
Estimates vary widely but it is believed that between 3,000 and 9,000 Americans undergo sex reassignment surgery each year. Transition medical care can include hormone replacement therapy, mastectomy, plastic surgery, psychotherapy and more.
It doesn’t seem like there’s a good central source on numbers like this. John Hopkins is a respected medical institution and even they’re saying “estimates vary widely” and “It’s believed.” I think part of it is this isn’t recorded in census data and perhaps most trans people who get HRT or GRS are kinda private about it? No idea, but it’s still so absurd to me that reactionaries have decided trans people are their mortal enemy now. Trans people are incredibly rare and they’re much poorer and more vulnerable than cis people.
That’s srs which only like 1-2 percent of trans people get/are able to get
Okay, so democrats may not be harm reduction, but they’ll… checks notes …look the other way as others cause harm?
