Yes. There are lots of fringe topics that don’t affect many voters or that don’t matter at all that politicians routinely refuse to engage in. Extremist groups make up these topics all the time. Off the top of my head: did Obama share a “long form birth certificate”? (Whatever that even is.)
Good politicians don’t engage with these. They recognize them for what they are, nasty click-bait.
Especially with an extremist troll like Kirk.
Yes, as I’ve said, what I strongly object to was him describing Kirk as a “fundamentally decent” person. (From memory, may not be exact quote). Treating a racist hatemonger as though he was a suitable person to engage in “civil conversation” was unacceptable and dangerous.
That’s fine, but that’s not how refusing to acknowledge that trans women may have an unfair advantage in some sports teams to me. This is a 30-70 issue within the democratic party.
It would be more akin to Obama insisting that even if he wasn’t born in the United States it shouldn’t matter because worrying about that is ethnocentric.
Again, 70% of Democratic voters disagree with you on this issue. You can’t just insist that this is a settled issue and that anyone who disagrees with you is a transphobe.
He did that, but it read to me as much the same way that you might tell a Republican, "the policy you’re supporting would hurt minorities disproportionately, and because I know you aren’t a racist, I don’t understand why you can’t engage with that*. He wasn’t actually saying that he was fundamentally decent, he was putting him in a position where to disagree with Newsom he would have to accept the framing that he isn’t fundamentally decent.
Actually, pulling up the quote, he goes even further than that: he says that Kirk has a “kind of decency” that is “inherent in him” but immediately calls him out for not expressing decency on this issue:
He shouldn’t have said Kirk has any kind of decency.
Your post is an assertion without evidence. You are, of course, welcome to your opinion, but you shouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t persuade anyone.
I am not insisting “it’s a settled issue” i don’t think you even know my position, which is not, “we should require every female team to accept every trans woman”.
But arguing the point is like arguing over whether Black men are more commonly convicted of violent crimes than White men. Even if it’s true (and I’m not claiming it is, i haven’t actually done that research) the point of bringing it up is inherently racist. The issue is complicated, and the only people who choose to bring it up are racists. And if a politician were asked about it in a short-form event, like a public debate, I’d expect him to refuse to engage, not to say, “well, it’s true, but we have to remember blah blah blah.”
So if somebody presented your position as their position during a debate would you consider them transphobic because they didn’t change the topic instead of answering the question?
I don’t think anyone is refusing to acknowledge that they may have an advantage. But “Unfair” is not the given you think it is, and I don’t know how to get through to you. If trans women are women competing in women’s sports, how is it unfair? It’s only if they’re not women, or not “really” women, that it’s inherently unfair.
Obviously, it’s a more nuanced and complicated issue than this, but Newsom has revealed his position, which is the same as yours, which is probably why you don’t understand the potential problems with it.
i would not present any position on the topic at all in a public debate. I would point out that it’s a bad question to ask and move on.
If someone asked you about the crime rate of Black men in a public debate, what would you say?
What do you think Gavin Newsom would say?
I don’t agree with that, and I’m not sure how to get through to you either. Trans women are women and should be treated as such in any social context. The segregation of [competitive] sports by sex is not due to social differences, so it isn’t a social context.
Yes, it absolutely is. Women and men have a large amount of overlap, and if it were really about biological ability, we would divide people by ability groups, not by sex. But I’m being drawn into a discussion of the issues: they don’t matter for this thread. What matters for this thread is that Newsom is evincing your position, and the Trans community by and large disagrees.
Really, whenever people appeal to biology, that’s a threat to trans people, who have been told over and over that they are not what they are because of biology. So it’s a really fraught issue, with lots of nuance, and wading in without being sensitive to that is guaranteed to lose a politician support.
Fwiw, Obama was not a popular primary candidate with my gay friends.
Were you the one who called Newsom’s statement out as “calculated”? Doesn’t refusing to share your true opinion on a topic strike you as far more “calculated” than just being honest?
The truth?
That to the extent that there is a higher rate of crime among black men it stems from socioeconomic factors, that poverty leads to crime and because of the history and continued legacy of racism in this country black people are more likely to be impacted by poverty and thus by the factors that lead to crime, and that as a society we have a responsibility to address the root cause of these factors and lift people out of poverty?
Well, I would hope he answers it truthfully, rather than either giving some kind of racist response or weaseling out of answering a question that should be an easy layup which would make him look disengenuous and cowardly.
I didn’t use that word. You must be thinking of someone else.
Anyway, if it comes down to Newsom v Vance, i expect the trans community to vote for Newsom. But they aren’t going to be enthusiastic about him. They aren’t going to work for him in the primary. And his statements on the issue are one reason that he’s “disliked among engaged Democrats”.
Oh, and i think any politician who just answers the questions presented to him in a public debate is going to lose a lot of elections. His enemies will come after him with all sorts of poisonous questions.
And when did you stop beating your wife?
It’s a losing strategy. Newsom is a better politician than that. He chose to engage because he cared more about getting some votes from among Kirk’s followers than about the trans community. 
And in fact Newsom signed a bill protecting trans athletes.
Here is the transcript-
Here are a few subtle Newsom trolling of Kirk-
And not believe crazy. For you, it’s interesting…By the way, where does that end? And sincerely, to be able to debate anybody at any time, anywhere, and in that environment, you can say it’s just confidence or it’s just absolutely… I mean, narcissism. What is it? I hope it’s not the other…And you make a point proud of that. To the point you never went to community college.
Them Kirk asks-
But would you do something like that? Would you say no men in female sports?
Then Newsom replies- and this is important- Newsom has always said a trans person is the sex that identify with. So when Newsom answers-
Well, I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair.
Newsom is trolling Kirk by saying sure, it is unfair for MEN to be in women’s sports. Well, of course it is, but a trranswoman is a woman, not a man.
Let me step back, say completely fair on the issue of fairness. I completely agree. So that’s easy to call out, the unfairness of that. There’s also a humility and a grace that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety, and depression. And the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with as well. So both things I can hold in my hand. How can we address this issue with the decency that I think is inherent in you, but not always expressed on the issue? No, I get At the same time, deal with the unfairness.
I could go on, but it is a 1 hour and ten minute podcast, and people are taking one line out of context.
Does anyone here think Men should compete in woman’s sports? That is where Newsom troll the fuck out of Kirk. Yeah, of course, men should not . But that is not saying transwomen should not.
And yeah, the issue of transwomen in womens sports is an issue of fairness- it is perfectly fair for them to compete as they are…women. But it is an issue where even Progressive parents who are pushing their Little Olivia to compete in High School sports to worry about all sorts of things- transwomen, parents who can afford pro coaches, and other stuff. That does not make them transphobic. It just makes them parents.
Yes, and that is why he later clarified his position.
Newsome used act like he was pro-trans, signing bills and touting them. Then he started vetoing them, despite them having full support from his Democratic legislature. We even found out he’d been trying to discourage such bills.
If you really think he’s pro-trans, then he was willing to screw over Californians to try and win a presidential election. Why would that be somebody we’d want?
The differences matter. A podcast he makes himself isn’t Fox News. He is in charge of who he brings on. He chooses to agree with them. Going on Fox is finding people where they are. A new podcast is very much not. It’s telling us who he is, or at least wants us to think he is. And that guy supports transphobic shit and thinks the worst MAGA people are respectable.
This affects his trolling. Going after Trump while treating Trump-lites as okay. That’s not what AOC does. She comes off as actually authentic, while he’s just going after the guy he seems to think it’s politically okay to go after.
Pulling back on something to make things better isn’t the same as supporting bills that would make things worse. Not supporting Medicaid for All is not trying to stop something that already exists. Neither was saying civil unions are good. But supporting trans sports bans? That’s a reversion. It’s going the wrong way.
Obama is polished, but also famously comes off as authentic. Slick means not authentic. His ambition led him to veto bills that his own state party were for, because screw Californians, he needs to be president.
It’s also a combination thing. He gets less slack because of the other things. You can overlook thing sometimes if other things make him better. But all of these things, including other ones like just being from California, all lean against him.
The people who support him seem to just want to overlook all of it, which then makes the opposition more fervent. The harder the supporters go, the harder the opposition goes.
I didn’t start this thread angry. But I got there from reading the people who were trying to ignore everything, or trying the “purity test” counterargument. The people who are like “yeah, he’s good and everyone else is bad for not liking him.”
That just makes the opposition worse.
As has been before, Newsom has not vetoed any pro-trans bills. Yes, he was accused of vetoing a couple, but I have cited who that bill was bad and why his veto was proper.
He signed a bill protecting trans athletes. By no means does Newsom support trans sports bans. he just says he recognizes the fairness concerns. And he says having Men in womens sports is not fair. And by that he means cis-males, not transwomen.