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.
I don’t know if you’re falling for it or this is just how you feel, but Newsom was talking to Charlie Kirk who popularized the “groomers” line, calls June “groomer month” all the time and constantly talks about executing “groomers”. Newsom softballed it to make it seem like Kirk just cares about sports, and repeatedly dog whistled a lot about how much he agrees with Kirk keeping it ambiguous about what exactly he agrees with.
Maybe you believe Newsom is deep down a good guy and he’s just doing this to shill for right wing votes, and once you give him power he’ll be normal. But right now all he’s doing is telling his audience of out of touch liberals that the “I don’t want to see a black pilot on my plane” guy is the kind of sensible conservative Democrats should be bipartisan with.
IMO based on how he talks and the trans bills he’s vetoed as governor, Newsom is the type of liberal that likes the idea of being the big guy protecting “these poor people” from dirty rednecks, but is also extremely suspicious that all this gender shit is some kind of Tiktok trend that might get out of hand if he lets trans people have it too easy.
I think it’s completely nuts that after the last 20 years and especially the last 12 years, Democrats still seem to think that compromising with the right will flip republicans voters. Gavin, my guy, they think you’re literally the reincarnation of Stalin. You could gargle Trump’s nuts and they’d still hate you
We’re not trying to flip Republican voters. We’re trying to get low-information voters to vote for us. The undecided, unaffiliated, etc. They just come out and vote based on feels.
And how’s that working out?
Need to pick a candidate who’s already quite conservative. Nobody believed that Harris was that because she ran on a liberal platform in 2020
I think it’s completely nuts that after the last 20 years and especially the last 12 years, Democrats still seem to think that compromising with the right will flip republicans voters.
No they don’t. They know it won’t and don’t care. They just love moving to the right for its own sake.
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I’ve never seen people care this much about Micheal Phelps biological atheletic advantage. That alone tells me that this argument is disingenuous and a way to be transphobic in a public way.
There are actual verified cases of olympic tier athletes winning because of their biological make-up. And yet the only time biological advantage is brought up is to shill tranphobic talking points. You don’t even have to be trans to be accused of being trans. These same people claiming to be advocates of women’s sport are the same people who will falsely accuse biological women of being biological men
Many sports are divided in a women’s and an open competition. In the open competition any genetic advantage goes (hence the name open), whereas the women’s competition is restricted to people with a specific trait. In such a context I think it’s totally valid to restrict the women’s competition to “born with vagina”. Transgender (both M->F and F->M) can continue to compete in the open section.
Sports that are instead divided in a men’s and women’s section are more problematic, because they may completely block transgender people from competing at all levels, which is very exclusionary. I don’t see a particularly good solution for these sports, apart from changing sections to “open” vs “women’s “.
Finally, I do not see a role for genetic testing (born with vagina, but XY for instance). People make life decisions based on the gender they believe they are. Takebacks based on genetic tests that could occur in far advanced stage of an athlete’s career is completely unfair.
But what advantage do women without a vagina have versus one that does? What if they didn’t go through cis puberty? How do we knows trans woman have an innate advantage instead of being effectively handicapped by their hormone treatment? This is my entire point. People want to ban Trans women specifically because of a reactionary feeling of “its not fair” while having zero evidence. There are like 2 cases where a trans athlete outperformed their cis peers. Yet the way some people (not you specifically) act you’d think trans women are sweeping every sports competition.
In my opinion, it comes down more to being exclusionary towards trans woman. More-so then it ever was about “protecting women’s sports”. I don’t think that everyone that wants to bar trans women thinks this way. But people like Charlie Kirk 100% do and will abuse that at every turn. This is the same man that calls June “Groomer month”.
That’s a fair point. To my understanding the science is not clear if transition started pre-puberty, though I think it is pretty clear if transition happened after puberty. You are also absolutely right that in practice the problem (if you consider it as such) concerns very few cases. I think my only point was that having an open (instead of a men’s) section would circumvent both the possible exclusion of transgender people, and the controversy of those born as men, participating in women’s competition.
I’ve never seen people care this much about Micheal Phelps biological atheletic advantage.
Have you ever seen Michael Phelps compete against a league of teenagers?
Or a regional swim meet in Idaho?
All trans women/trans athletes should be banned from sports competition because 2 happened to out-perform their cis peers? What a pathetically reactionary argument. This comment right here perfectly exemplifies the transphobic mindset.
Here’s an idea: why don’t you post actual peer-reviewed studies and evidence of trans athletes outperforming their peers on average due to being trans? Oh wait, you can’t. Because there’s literally zero empirical evidence of that being the case.
And the fact that you pivoted so quickly away from Phelps for some reactionary anecdote says it all.
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All trans women/trans athletes should be banned from sports competition
The fuck bullshit is this?
you pivoted so quickly away from Phelps
The fuck bullshit is this?
Did you respond to the wrong comment? Literally my previous comment, the one you responded to, is about Phelps.
Edit: also
don’t you post actual peer-reviewed studies
Sealion.
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You’re all playing right into their hands.
Correct. Ask any of these people “defending” women’s sports to name a dozen non-male athletes. Ridicule them upon failure to do so.
I agree with you
As someone with trans family, and that works around parents (but has no kids myself), and is very liberal personally –
From what I can tell, Gavin is speaking to how the average parent feels. They are accepting of trans people, but have some hesitations and those are coming out through this example, for one. And I mean the more liberal parents
You either need to get out there and speak to these people and work to help them get over these feelings, or you need to accept how they feel and the… yes I’m spinning this phrase… boundary they are requesting and then work within that to change their minds
Raging at them and damning candidates over it without working to actually change it is just like the Palestine voters and Kamala all over again (at least at a superficial level)
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
such an obviously stupid hill to die on
The Left in the US would so much rather die on the hill of perceived moral superiority than achieve any of their goals. And, thus, here we are.
That’s part of why trump got elected lol. Rather than trying to fix the issues while retaining some level of government, some people were like “let’s have a brutal authoritarian dictatorship and change things for the worse. That will show democrats!” Meanwhile nobody votes in the primaries or their local elections
It’s asinine, and that’s why we need a new Left in the US: a Left of people who actually want to build a society in which the highest possible health and well being is achieved for the largest possible number of people, and who are willing and able to learn and adapt, to find the most effective methods for achieving said society, even if it means compromising and being pragmatic. A Left that is measured by results, rather than performative social justice advocacy.
I find it so hard to have good messaging on this topic because we first have to convince half this country that helping others is a virtue not a weakness. How do we convince a deeply selfish population that helping neighbors and keeping our nation healthy and educated are not “communist plots to make everyone poor” but just basics of a successful society. I can argue politics all day but once someone thinks empathy is a weakness or a sin, I just don’t know what to say anymore. We need a fundamental societal shift and that has to start locally I think.
We should worry about the Right after we get the Left into some semblance of coherence and rationality. Liberals and Leftists should be natural allies against the fascists. Instead we got the Leftists knifing the Liberals in the back this election.
That might be fixable. Compromise between Left and Liberals is plausible. The Right, on the other hand, is not at all tethered to reality. There is no reasoning or compromise with them. They are in full-on batshit wackadoodle land. Addressing them will require something a lot more radical than “convincing”.
We should worry about the Right after we get the Left into some semblance of coherence and rationality.
So you’re going to punch left until they agree with your bigotry and never get around to punching right.
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It is a significant challenge. We absolutely do need to change the culture, and I think that is best achieved at the local level. I think it’s a dead end trying to change the culture from the top down, I think we will have much more success building from the bottom up. But, that will require being heavily involved in our communities. That is a tricky proposition for many of us, because some of us live in pretty conservative, even reactionary communities. There’s no easy answers here.
One possibility is for leftists to all move to the same state or states, to concentrate our power, to make us less diffuse and spread out. That’s a pretty drastic plan, and probably not feasible for a lot of people, but it’s one possibility, I suppose.
And centrists will accept any policy as long as it’s to their right.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
You say that to anyone to your left who doesn’t jump with joy at the latest betrayal of marginalized groups.
I say that to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
You arrogantly say it to anyone to your left.
That’s not true. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop. Just stop.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
That would be an argument worth discussing if the Nazis weren’t also trying to ban puberty blockers and frothing at the mouth claiming the trans agenda is coming for their kids. But no, right now, that’s a garbage bad faith argument, because it already has an obvious answer. That’s how they poison the discussion.
Gavin Newsom is not a Nazi.
If he’s capitulating to Nazis, that makes him complicit. Sorry if he had other good qualities, but he’s bending the knee.
He’s not capitulating. His position is supported by the vast majority. It’s likely what he actually believes.
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.
Have you ever watched women’s sport vs. men’s…? Like cmon lmao.
Have you seen how big some NFL guys can get?? Imagine putting one of those guys in a women’s league? Put an NBA all-star in the women’s league? Imagine Mike Tyson in his prime fighting a woman. People would be hospitalized every minute
This crazy shit is what turned everyone off of Democrats this time around. All for like the maybe 10 trans athletes this would even apply to
Sports are a pathetic institution when they’re more about competition than fun.
Life is competitive enough.
That’s your opinion, which I completely respect. But a lot of people make a living from sports and allow themselves to pull their families out of poverty because of it. Are you going to take that away from them because there’s a double digit number of trans people that this even applies to?
You sound like you don’t watch professional sports enough in a way to understand what I’m saying, which is fine but also why I’m trying to make this point
Yeah, we should totally focus on something so vanishingly rare and trivial it almost doesn’t exist instead of the myriad of real world, life and death problems.
That’s how you lose elections. You just say “x issue is not that important” and wonder why voters who think it’s important don’t vote for you
Yeah I’m not touching this with a ten foot pole. This is so low priority.
Iz-rah-el who’s iz-rah-el?
The way I view it is they claim to believe in a free market. I don’t know of any leagues off the top of my head that aren’t companies. If one company chooses to do it one way and it is actually bad for business, another company would replace them if it was actually an issue. But being that it isn’t that big of a deal, no rival companies have surfaced to replace them.
Well I assume when talking from a government perspective, the conversation is going to inevitably become about highschool sports and whatnot. Where I still definitely don’t want to touch this with a 10 foot pole!
The government runs schools that have teams, so it can control this
Sounds like someone is preparing for Presidential run for office.
Speaking as a Californian, unfortunately, he probably is.
The guy who ruined San Francisco got the credentials to ruin California. Now he’s gearing up to ruin what’s left of the country
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.
Member when the neoliberals tried to pretend this douche would be the next presidential pick?
Yeah, that’s why he’s doing this. Throwing vulnerable minorities under the bus for no gain whatsoever is how you show democratic leadership that you’re on their side.
