Good point.
Right, Democrats need to be fully supportive of LBGT+ rights. That doesnt mean we have to let some MAGA blogger argue us into making a mistake on some non-central issue. They tried this with “If a man just declares he is a woman minutes before demanding to use the womens rest room, is that his right?”
Like abortion “A woman has the right to choose” doesnt mean a woman can have an abortion after birth, like some asshole MAGAs have claimed.
You notice what you did there, right? You said “there should be no controversy and the line should not be male puberty” but then you gave three examples that we should all uncontroversially agree are fair and all three involve people who indeed did not go through male puberty. You’ve very strongly made the case for male puberty being the dividing line.
Indeed. This is of course one to be answered “that’s Not. How. This. Works. and you know better”. No one gets thrown under any bus.
The candidate have to be ready to avoid getting cornered or bullied into answering in a way that concedes ill intended premises.
Exactly. Say something like, “I’m actually concerned with real day-to-day issues, not bizarre hypotheticals that don’t happen in real life.”
…2004 Newsom isn’t 2026 Newsom. And while I applaud what he did back then, and I welcome any pushback on the anti-trans agenda, Newsom isn’t some “paragon” on trans rights. He certainly hasn’t, IMHO, done more for LGBT rights than any politician alive. If in the American context this were to be true, then that’s a damning indictment on the American political system (not that it needed any more).
What’s needed from 2026 Newsom is more than what he did back then. Not just him. All of them need to step up. We shouldn’t even be having this debate. Trans women are women. They have every right to play sports as much as everyone else. And Newsom and everyone else should be saying that explicitly.
So when do you start fighting?
Because it isn’t just the Republicans that are the problem. It’s the entire media/social-media ecosystem.
It isn’t going to get any better than this.
This is a fight that will get nasty. Over in the UK, Polanski is the last real line in the sand on trans rights. Reform will be the worst. Labour have already capitulated, and the Conservatives aren’t any better. And the attacks on him from not only the other political parties AND the media as well are some of the most vitriolic I’ve seen in a long time. And it has gotten very vitriolic.
This is the very situation the Dems are trying to avoid.
I don’t think they can afford to do so.
The odds are against you anyway. So why not say and do the right thing instead? Is it going to get nasty? Sure. But MAGA is a fascist, corrupt, fundamentally evil movement driven by billionaire oligarchs that is never, ever going to stop. The world has changed, and we are never ever going back. The choices are either fight or appease.
And I think staying silent on things like trans rights (and let’s be clear here: this isn’t the ONLY thing that “centrists” globally are trying not to talk about) and hoping to fix it when you get voted in ignores the fundamental reality that many of the Dem establishment really don’t care about trans rights in the first place.
There is a lack of trust here. Because the marginalised vote is taken for granted.
Why should we trust that this strategy is best and will get the Dems elected?
That’s what I don’t get. The Dems managed to lose the House, the Senate, the Executive, they’ve lost the Supremes for a generation. Maybe this isn’t a great strategy?
Perhaps, and this is a wild idea, I know, but maybe just try doing the right thing? Everybody in this thread agrees that trans rights are human rights. But I don’t understand why anyone would suggest we don’t fight for them. It’s not as if not fighting for them has worked in the past.
…MAGA literally spent millions of dollars on a disinformation/propaganda campaign. 215 million on anti-trans advertisements. Who knows how much on the more dark stuff on social. Then we’ve got the podcasts.
Who would have guessed that if you spend millions on targeted, focused disinformation/propaganda, it would have an impact?
Which is why its important *not to be silent. Which is why I don’t understand your strategy. It doesn’t make any sense. If MAGA has spent millions of dollars on advertising suggesting Black people shouldn’t be allowed to vote, and if the Democrats didn’t say anything in response, and if that resulted in a shift in the public discourse, would you still back that strategy?
Or do you just let the disinformation/propaganda win?
The Labour party is a really good cautionary example of how useless this strategy is. They went all in on rolling back trans rights, trying to lure over Tory voters, and all it got them was fourth place in the polls, and a real shot at handing the country over to Reform in the next election.
Ok, so we are in agreement that depending on the sport (obviously we should always say “depending on the sport” because not every sport even splits cis men and cis women), whether or not one went through male puberty is a good division? Cool, cool.
…no we are not.
…then I guess I don’t know what point you were trying to make by giving four examples (three of which we would all agree should play sports on women’s teams and one of which we would all agree probably has an unfair advantage) where the dividing line is whether they underwent male puberty or not.
Eta: I guess actually you were quoting Molloy there, so I don’t know what point they were trying to make with these four examples, I guess.
…we don’t all agree on that.
Because as is pointed out in the example you missed, the dividing line here isn’t male puberty.
That was my point. That there shouldn’t be a red line. I have no larger point beyond that.
…so you disagree with the person you quoted?
As opposed to
Seems like that’s exactly what the dividing line is.
But giving three examples that we agree are fine and one that we agree isn’t (maybe not you, apparently, but me and the person you quoted) where the dividing line works perfectly doesn’t support that point in any way.
…there were five examples that I quoted. You are only quoting three. Why is that?
Not that it matters because these are all hypotheticals used to make a specific point, and we should not use cherry-picked examples as examples to take away human rights.
It was five examples, not four and not three. And that fifth example explained why there shouldn’t be a red line.
It also speaks to the larger point of the availability of trans-affirming care. And you can’t talk about “red-lines” when people are actively attempting to (and in many cases, succeeding) remove the pathways to bypassing those redlines.
If you can guarantee every kid in America has access to trans-affirming care that gives them the access to the healthcare they need, then perhaps it would be reasonable to discuss what “red lines” there should be, sport-by-sport, in the future.
But right now? That isn’t reasonable. Because trans kids can’t get the healthcare they need. So that needs to be the starting point.
I want to make it clear- I personally do not think that anyone here is a bigot, and that believing that trans people can be restricted from some sports is not a bigoted belief. Lots of Liberals think that might be okay. But in the Frontrunners for President thread- Newsom, who in trolled the fuck out of that moron Charlie Kirk in an interview and right here in this thread-
But Newsom did say later that the issue is a nuanced and difficult issue. But for that one interview with Kirk, Newsom has been labeled here and elsewhere as a trans hating bigot.
However, that issue is divisive, delicate, and even hard core liberal disagree. Personally, I dont care about trans athletes in sports- since to me, they are all people.
There is no agreement, here even among people who usually agree.
Sure, they might- maybe. But then should we say really tall people cant play basketball as they have an unfair advantage?
And so here we have two posters of generally like mind on LGBT+ rights, disagreeing on this issue.
That is why we say= "The Democrats stand behind the rights of LGBT+ people. " No reason to bring up issues that are comparatively minor compared to “should LGBT+ people be allowed to live” which some MAGAs think the answer is “no”.
There is no “human right” to a competitive advantage.
But some humans nevertheless have one.
Can you articulate the difference between the advantage of a trans woman in girls’ sports vs a tall woman in basketball? Nobody objects to the latter. Objections to the former seem to boil down to “trans women are really men,” which isn’t about sports at all: it’s disbelieving in the whole category, all evidence to the contrary.
Frankly, being good at sports is very poor compensation for having to navigate the world we provide to trans people, and it reminds me of the arguments people made that we would pretend to be gay for the advantages it brought, which is just as ridiculous as it sounds.
Of course that’s true. Which is why upthread I recommended that Democrats, when asked for their policy, mention the particular rules-for-participation that have been issued by various sports.
Even though, as seems to be the case, the sports’ rules are something of a work-in-progress, they DO prevent the ugly right-wing position that ‘no trans people may participate.’ Participation rules cover not only gender issues but issues of drug-testing, etc., and can act as a counter to unrestrained bigotry.
Recalling that this thread is about ‘what Democrats should say and do,’ I am concerned that BB’s position as articulated in that last post (that NOTHING should be said about who participates in sports until such time as all trans people can be free of all laws) is a loser for Democrats. And this is because how clearly the issue of fairness is at work in the question of participation by trans-girls and trans-women.
The very fact that there are no cases of trans-boys and trans-men being denied the chance to play in mens’ sports, tells us that this is about competitive advantage. It’s reasonable and smart for Democrats to say that the rules imposed by various sports to guard against unfair advantage, are the rules we should follow.
And then those Democrats should also say that trans people are people and should get the same rights as everyone else. Which is to say, they should be subjected to the same rules and laws as everyone else. There must be no infringement on their rights of employment, use of public facilities, etc.
(Transition for minors is separate from that. I think Democrats would be wise to state that they follow the recommendations of genuinely-reputable professional bodies, on that one.)
…I’m not claiming there is a “human right to a competitive advantage”. I’m talking about healthcare.
…I’m arguing that Democrats should be loudly standing up for the right for trans kids to access the healthcare they need. Is that something you disagree with?
No; it’s because this is about persecuting women as well as trans women, the crusade agaisnt trans women lets them persecute cis women as well. This has very little to do with sports.