Sports have rules. You can’t use a gun either in non shooting sports. There shouldn’t be a version that allows them.
The racist or the anti-Semite would disagree. They’re wrong, of course - but is the fault for them holding their terrible ideas lie with them, or does it lie with Black and Jewish people for not being persuasive enough in arguing for their own human rights?
Trans people are a very small minority, with inconsistent backing from the political left in general. They don’t have the resources to match the volume of anti-trans hate being put out by the Republicans. Blaming them for the roll back of their civil rights is not only poorly reasoned, it’s deeply fucking gross on an ethical level.
No, I’m pointing out why an argument for it not being bigoted doesn’t hold water.
Drag queens actually are making a mockery of it, often. Trans is totally different.
But somehow,
Richards played professionally from 1977 to 1981 when she retired at age 47. She was ranked as high as 20th overall (in February 1979), and her highest ranking at the end of a year was 22nd (in 1977).
Renée Richards - Wikipedia
Thanks WalterBishop, I appreciate that! Yes, AFAICT, although there are many transgender women who don’t mind being called “transwomen”, it’s generally considered more respectful to use the adjective+noun combo “transgender women”.
As in the example I gave about not calling a married gay man a “gayhusband” (or for that matter, not calling an adoptive mother a “dopmother”), the reasoning is that to insist on using a separate noun like “transwoman” is to intrinsically deny a transgender woman’s right to the identity “woman”.
Even if we disagree about whether it’s ultimately appropriate or desirable for a society to include transgender women in the category “women”, I think that the conventions of respectful discussion require us to use the more respectful term while discussing our disagreement.
And went on to become an ophthalmologist.
Just for clarity, is there objection to trans woman? I want to be clear about my own usage.
@puzzlegal , excellent post! You actually answered a couple things for me. Now I know where the “trans” comes from, and why “cis” makes sense as the counterpoint.
It really highlights the stupidity of the “bathroom crisis”.
It lies with them for holding self-evidently terrible ideas in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary. That men, as a group, are dangerous to women is not a terrible idea. It happens to be the truth. If you want to argue that a subset of males are actually women, and that’s why they need to be allowed into the spaces explicitly set up by women to protect themselves from men, then that’s a case you need to argue because it isn’t self-evident.
Firstly, I never said transgender women need to make the case all by themselves. Secondly, it seems to me that they have a good deal of support among rank and file progressives, who number in the millions. Thirdly, it appears very much as though they enjoy considerable support in tech, Hollywood, and mainstream news media. The idea that the pro-trans side of this argument are helpless little minnows who are just too weak to prevent the right from controlling the conversation seems preposterous to me. And rebutting bad-faith arguments from the likes of Matt Walsh doesn’t take a media juggernaut. It just takes the will to tackle the problem.
Also, to be clear, I’m more blaming the left in general, rather than transgender women in particular, because the left as a group is more powerful than transgender women as a group. However, at a certain point in this propaganda war, one side decided to pretend the argument was over and just dismiss anyone who wasn’t already convinced as bigots and fools. Whichever person, group, or groups made that decision should absolutely take the blame for the right’s success. They really fucked up.
In my experience, there’s no particular objection to “trans women.” It should be rendered as two words, because it’s an adjective + noun combo, the same way you’d describe someone as a “tall woman” and not a “tallwoman.”
At a certain point, after making careful and respectful arguments that are ignored, one gives up on arguing and decides that people who haven’t paid attention aren’t actually arguing in good faith.
I mostly hear “trans women” as well.
At what point did anti-Black racism becomoe “self-evidently” terrible? At what point did it become acceptable to hold people responsible for their anti-Black views, and not blame Black people for not sufficiently promoting their own humanity?
“Millions of progressives” are still outnumbered by the tens of millions who voted for Donald Trump. And raw numbers aren’t the whole story - money (literally) talks in our political system, and trans rights advocates are easily outspent by the massive right wing hate-machine that has vastly deeper pockets than any progressive org, let alone trans rights org, can hope to meet.
And the support of Hollywood and big business is paper thin. Their “support” is entirely conditional on not affecting their bottom line, and will evaporate (and, indeed, is already evaporating) as soon as it becomes apparent that hating trans people will make them more money than supporting them.
It’s really fucking weird that you put more blame on the left for not efficiently fighting bigotry, than you do on the actual bigots for swallowing hateful propaganda.
Right, ‘Black crime rates’ ‘Black test scores’ ‘they have to have affirmative action and DEI’ and lets not forget ‘the Jews run Hollywood, the media, and all the bankers are Jews!’
No evidence to the contrary even gets through.
How is racism “self-evidently terrible” in a way that transphobia is not? Exactly how much evidence is “mountains”? What is the minium amount of evidence required before prejudice becomes unacceptable?
From Wiki it’s Richards’ opinion that had she transitioned at age 22-24 she would have absolutely dominated the female tour. When she transitioned, she was already a couple of decades past her athletic prime.
Ahh, so you’re not going to address this then?
Richards had already accrued the biological advantages of being a man, those didn’t dissipate with her transition.
The clear biological advantages that made her the 20th best female tennis player!
It became self-evidently terrible when the argument was won. If you’re looking for the exact date that happened, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you.
Millions of progressives are still millions of progressives. The pro-trans side of this argument has more than enough resources to make a positive case for why they’re right and the other side is wrong. And that’s the thing that’ll actually get you what you want.
I honestly don’t mean to be rude, but it really sounds to me like you’re just making excuses for not having to try. “Oh, we’re outnumbered!” Tough shit. So was Martin Luther King. “Oh, we haven’t got the money!” Then raise it. Matt Walsh made What Is A Woman? for about $2 million. You don’t need to have Daddy Warbucks on your side to fight back.
The far right are doing what the far right do. If a patient gets an infection and dies because they shouldn’t have to take their antibiotics anymore because taking antibiotics was so 2015, then I’m going to blame the patient. YMMV.
I’m sorry, it’s always so hard to tell whether or not you’re being sarcastic. Could you try simplifying this a little for me?
So, when asked for a definition or explanation of a term you used, you just give another excedingly nebulous phrase that you say you cannot define?
Again, King and the rest NEVER won over anything close to majority of white America’s opinion. It took the passing of laws, that were extremely unpopular in the south, and armed enforcement of those laws for real change to start,
This argument is bullsh*t.
Millions of progressives are vastly outnumbered and out spent. Again, it took the passing of laws and armed enforcement of those laws for real change to happen, ‘the argument to be won’ and it still took a few decades before racism was ‘self evidently terrible’