Did progressives handle the Lia Thomas incident well?

[GeneralMacArthur]

No.  The LGBTQ movement was doing fantastic because it was based on this fundamental argument of "it doesn't affect you, so why should you care?"  If you want to have gay sex, or marry someone of the same sex, that doesn't impact anybody else, so it was easy (and accurate) to cast most of the opposition as moralizers who wanted to police the lives of other people.  This ran aground of the societal movement towards a philosophy of "do what you want, as long as it's not hurting anyone else why should they care?"

After Obergefell and the joyous aftermath, the movement was slowly taken over by trans activists who started demanding societal changes that did actively require participation from everyone else.  And that's when people started getting uncomfortable, but these societal changes were generally pretty small, and trans/non-binary people were so rare that it was very unlikely someone would actually be impacted by them on a day-to-day basis anyway... so everyone kinda went along with it and rolled their eyes at the slippery-slope scenarios conservatives fantasized about.

Lia Thomas was a watershed movement because for those impacted (and, more importantly, everyone else who could empathize with her opponents and imagine themselves in their shoes) it was a significant impact.  And one that most people (now close to 70% are willing to say so) viewed as unfair and a step too far.  The American public was willing to put forth the mental effort required to call Bruce Jenner "Caitlyn" and use feminine pronouns on the rare occasions they discussed her... even if they didn't seriously believe that Jenner was a woman.  They are simply not willing to allow a biologically male athlete to compete with women and be lauded as a great female athlete for defeating them.

If your daughter loses out on her chance for glory because a man competed as a woman and beat her, that's affects you in a big way.  That's very far from the "it doesn't affect you, so why should you care?" argument that won gay marriage (which is a completely separate issue that should never have been grouped into the same acronym as trans issues in the first place).

Lia Thomas was also a watershed because it was the first time one of the Republican boogeymen had come true.  Republicans kept saying "what happens when a man competes as a woman and beats all the women" and the Democrats used to say, oh that will never happen stop making crap up.  You'll notice they don't say that anymore.  Conservatives used to use the boogeyman of men dressing up as women to sneak into girls bathrooms and rape them, but that never actually happened so they don't bring it up that much anymore.  If all their lurid fantasies were like that, they wouldn't have any credibility.  But this is one conservative prophecy that did come true.

I think the disconnect from activists is that they see the issue as very polarized where you're either fully supportive of whatever the "trans rights" issue of the day is, or you're Pat Robertson.  When in reality most Americans in 2023 are happy to let other people exist however they want, identify however they want, and do whatever they want with their own lives -- they just draw a blurry line when that identity requires active participation from the rest of society, and a much harder line when that identity has tangible negative impacts on others.  That's the backlash you're seeing.  And accusing those people of wanting "trans genocide" or being "transphobic" or "being upset about trans people existing" just alienates and offends them and makes them not take you seriously.  Because they're perfectly fine with trans people existing and generally living their lives however they want.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Careful there GMac, you’re going to replace me as the site’s most infamous “transphobe” if you keep talking like that! Lol

I agree with every word, of course, but it will fall on deaf ears among those who really need to hear it. You “deadnaming” Jenner and referring to “men” competing with women is what they will zoom in on and tear you apart for.

Man it’s cultlike behavior, it really is. And I hate cults, on the left and the right.

I didn't deadname Jenner, I used she/her pronouns when referring to her and will continue to do so.

"The American public was willing to put forth the mental effort required to call Bruce Jenner "Caitlyn" and use feminine pronouns on the rare occasions they discussed her."

To be clear, this sentence is not me calling Caitlyn Jenner "Bruce", it's referring to a historical event when a person then named Bruce Jenner asked everyone to begin referring to him as Caitlyn and using she/her pronouns, which I and everyone else have done since that moment.

I want to be clear about this because I think intentionally using the wrong pronouns or the wrong name and so forth for someone is an asshole thing to do, and conservatives love to gleefully do these kinds of things to antagonize liberals even when they're discussing issues that lots of liberals otherwise agree with them on.  Which of course just contributes to the polarization.