Did progressives handle the Lia Thomas incident well?

[VBM]

Anyone who’s seen my posts on the issue knows that I wasn’t supportive of Lia Thomas being able to compete in the female division because her going through male puberty put her at a massive biological advantage, and I don’t think that making Lia Thomas feel better about herself is more important than ensuring fairness for the rest of the women competing. Not only do I think that progressives were in the wrong on this issue, I also think that they handled it so poorly that it caused a lot of damage to the movement and made the nation shift to the right on trans issues. It was a real “the emperor has no clothes” moment, and it may have honestly caused irreversible damage to the trans rights movement. Progressives hardly even tried to address people’s concerns about the fairness of Thomas competing. They either just handwaved it away or insinuated that only bigots would have an issue with Thomas competing.

[Ferguson97]

To answer your question, whether or not Thomas may have had a biological advantage is irrelevant for a number of reasons, least of all that gifted athletes will naturally possess a biological advantage over most other people.

There's a cisgender female South African runner who produces more testosterone naturally than has been deemed typical of other cisgender women. Should she be forced to compete on the men's team?

Not only do I think that progressives were in the wrong on this issue, I also think that they handled it so poorly that it caused a lot of damage to the movement and made the nation shift to the right on trans issues. It was a real “the emperor has no clothes” moment, and it may have honestly caused irreversible damage to the trans rights movement.

This isn't specific to transgender issues, but I really dislike the whole reactionary "look what you made me do" framing of their arguments.

[VBM]

To answer your question, whether or not Thomas may have had a biological advantage is irrelevant for a number of reasons, least of all that gifted athletes will naturally possess a biological advantage over most other people.

There's a cisgender female South African runner who produces more testosterone naturally than has been deemed typical of other cisgender women. Should she be forced to compete on the men's team?

Not only do I think that progressives were in the wrong on this issue, I also think that they handled it so poorly that it caused a lot of damage to the movement and made the nation shift to the right on trans issues. It was a real “the emperor has no clothes” moment, and it may have honestly caused irreversible damage to the trans rights movement.

This isn't specific to transgender issues, but I really dislike the whole reactionary "look what you made me do" framing of their arguments.

Would you support abolishing male and female divisions altogether and just have everyone compete in the same division regardless of sex?

[ingemann]

Yes, of course they handled it the worst possible way. Sports is one of the single most unimportant things in this world, but at the same time it’s also a place where gender differences are the most obvious and absurdity of treating Lia Thomas as just another woman was equally obvious.

[progressive85]

I think one can believe Lia Thomas is a woman (or a trans woman) and completely respect her as a woman, and also at the same time not feel it is right for someone that went through male puberty to compete alongside other people that did not go through male puberty.

I'm not saying this because I like saying it.  I abhor the anti-trans movement and feel it is dangerous to trans children - and I firmly 100% believe in every trans girl's right to not have to go through the male puberty that Lia Thomas had to go through.  I'm sure Lia Thomas would have wanted to go through a normal female puberty as well.

I want to make the case also that any cisgender woman that took testosterone for a number of years should also be excluded from sports.

So I don't see this as a "trans issue" as much as a testosterone issue.  Male puberty does certain things to the bone structure of the body that cannot be changed.

So yes I am a progressive but this is about sports and we already have discrimination in sports.  There are plenty of women that can play football and do it better than many men can.  Yet they are not in the NFL.  The reason is because sports are about physical strength, which is related to puberty and secondary sex characteristics.

Now, if it was the Miss America pageant, I'll fully support Lia Thomas' right to compete at Miss America.  Or Dylan (I forget the last name).

[7,052,770]

Lia Thomas should not have been allowed to participate, but what's even dumber is how the NCAA has fixed the rule that allowed her to play, but we still have red avatars complaining about her.

Jesus Christ, take the W when you have it!

[Perlen vor den Schweinen]

No one handled it well except for Thomas herself (and those who supported her).

[VBM]

I’m curious to know who are the 2 people who voted for option three and why

[John Dule]

To answer your question, whether or not Thomas may have had a biological advantage is irrelevant for a number of reasons, least of all that gifted athletes will naturally possess a biological advantage over most other people.

There's a cisgender female South African runner who produces more testosterone naturally than has been deemed typical of other cisgender women. Should she be forced to compete on the men's team?

Not only do I think that progressives were in the wrong on this issue, I also think that they handled it so poorly that it caused a lot of damage to the movement and made the nation shift to the right on trans issues. It was a real “the emperor has no clothes” moment, and it may have honestly caused irreversible damage to the trans rights movement.

This isn't specific to transgender issues, but I really dislike the whole reactionary "look what you made me do" framing of their arguments.

Your insistence on playing dumb when it comes to this issue is becoming genuinely pathetic.

[Ferguson97]

To answer your question, whether or not Thomas may have had a biological advantage is irrelevant for a number of reasons, least of all that gifted athletes will naturally possess a biological advantage over most other people.

There's a cisgender female South African runner who produces more testosterone naturally than has been deemed typical of other cisgender women. Should she be forced to compete on the men's team?

Not only do I think that progressives were in the wrong on this issue, I also think that they handled it so poorly that it caused a lot of damage to the movement and made the nation shift to the right on trans issues. It was a real “the emperor has no clothes” moment, and it may have honestly caused irreversible damage to the trans rights movement.

This isn't specific to transgender issues, but I really dislike the whole reactionary "look what you made me do" framing of their arguments.

Your insistence on playing dumb when it comes to this issue is becoming genuinely pathetic.

I don't know why you continue to plug your fingers in your ears on this issue.

In previous interactions, you've all but said that you think there is essentially a conspiracy among the AAP, AMA et al. to lie to the public about the impacts of gender-affirming care, so why should anyone take what you have to say on this subject seriously?

[John Dule]

To answer your question, whether or not Thomas may have had a biological advantage is irrelevant for a number of reasons, least of all that gifted athletes will naturally possess a biological advantage over most other people.

There's a cisgender female South African runner who produces more testosterone naturally than has been deemed typical of other cisgender women. Should she be forced to compete on the men's team?

Not only do I think that progressives were in the wrong on this issue, I also think that they handled it so poorly that it caused a lot of damage to the movement and made the nation shift to the right on trans issues. It was a real “the emperor has no clothes” moment, and it may have honestly caused irreversible damage to the trans rights movement.

This isn't specific to transgender issues, but I really dislike the whole reactionary "look what you made me do" framing of their arguments.

Your insistence on playing dumb when it comes to this issue is becoming genuinely pathetic.

I don't know why you continue to plug your fingers in your ears on this issue.

In previous interactions, you've all but said that you think there is essentially a conspiracy among the AAP, AMA et al. to lie to the public about the impacts of gender-affirming care, so why should anyone take what you have to say on this subject seriously?

I never said any such thing. You're aware of this, which is why you hedged your comment with "all but." Pathetic and sad.

[HisGrace]

To answer your question, whether or not Thomas may have had a biological advantage is irrelevant for a number of reasons, least of all that gifted athletes will naturally possess a biological advantage over most other people.

There's a cisgender female South African runner who produces more testosterone naturally than has been deemed typical of other cisgender women. Should she be forced to compete on the men's team?

Not only do I think that progressives were in the wrong on this issue, I also think that they handled it so poorly that it caused a lot of damage to the movement and made the nation shift to the right on trans issues. It was a real “the emperor has no clothes” moment, and it may have honestly caused irreversible damage to the trans rights movement.

This isn't specific to transgender issues, but I really dislike the whole reactionary "look what you made me do" framing of their arguments.

Would you support abolishing male and female divisions altogether and just have everyone compete in the same division regardless of sex?

Interesting that Ferguson replied to Dule right away but just left this sitting here.

[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.

[Alben Barkley]

“The emperor has no clothes” is the greatest analogy for this whole thing imaginable, and I for one always want to be the kid who calls the Emperor out in the story, not the fools who blindly applaud the Emperor for making an idiot of himself. Even if that goes against what my “side” wants. I go with what I think is right first and foremost. That this often happens to align with progressive thought speaks well of them to me. But I blindly follow nothing and nobody.

[Alben Barkley]

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.

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.

[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.

[7,052,770]

The idea that Lia Thomas was a "watershed moment" is laughable. Nobody cares about college women's swimming, not before her year, not during it, and not after it.

The NCAA had years before made rules that were designed to make it very hard for transwomen to participate as women. Thomas was able to meet the rules, and then the NCAA changed the rules to align with FINA so that we'll never have a situation like hers again. (We could possibly have one with a transwoman who never went through male puberty at all on some future day, and we'll see how that goes.)

Ultimately, Thomas was a random blip that would be totally forgotten if not for the culture warriors (or in the case of this particular forum, Democrats) who won't just be happy that their side won and keep bringing it up anyway even though it's a dead issue.

[7,052,770]

Also this paragraph may be true up in Washington, but you just don't grasp what it's like in the red states. The amount of rage and hatred at the mere idea that some people are trans (not just talking about "tangible negative impacts") is shocking, even coming from people who are otherwise very nice, reasonable, and calm about things. Case in point, every red state banning all types of gender-affirming care for people under 18 with 100% unanimity from Republican legislators and no backlash from the voters at all, as well as the rhetoric now casually used by most Republican politicians. They're even starting to move on to adults and probably will have by this time next year.

I feel like a broken record and one of those " posters" for harping on this issue so much, but I think all of you blue-staters just don't understand how bad it's gotten in the Deep South on this issue. The bold sentence simply is not true for tens of millions of Republican Americans.

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.

[7,052,770]

I'm going to be "that guy" and make three consecutive posts because I want to take exception with this paragraph in particular:

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. 

We didn't say that no transwoman would ever compete with women. I mean, how could we. We all remember Renee Richards competing in tennis in the 1970s (!).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9e_Richards
And Lia Thomas wasn't the first since her either. There have always been a few around, and usually they do pretty well if they weren't able to do the blockers-into-hormones path.

What we said was "no one will ever transition simply because they want to win," and despite some Republican smears, that continues to be true.

We're on the same side here - I think the NCAA make the right call by not allowing others in Thomas's situation to compete in the future. I'm just taking my W instead of continuing to fight a battle my side already won.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I think what happened here is that the median American believes something along the lines of "transgender people aren't really the gender they identify as, but should generally be treated as they identify to a certain point".

This situation was one where people felt that the "certain point" had been reached.  There are two conflicting beliefs that many people have (that they aren't "really" that gender, but that they should generally be treated as it nonetheless).  In this specific context, the former seems to have won in the minds of many Americans.

[SWE]

This is one of those issues where caring about this issue intensely one way or the other makes you look like an unhinged freak, and it was the anti-trans people who paid an electoral tax for being insane. This would have been a fair question to ask in October 2022, but now we know the answer is a pretty definitive yes

[darklordoftech]

I’ve never heard a single Democrat mention her at all.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I think what happened here is that the median American believes something along the lines of "transgender people aren't really the gender they identify as, but should generally be treated as they identify to a certain point".

This situation was one where people felt that the "certain point" had been reached.  There are two conflicting beliefs that many people have (that they aren't "really" that gender, but that they should generally be treated as it nonetheless).  In this specific context, the former seems to have won in the minds of many Americans.

Americans would be unlikely to align completely with one side and all their stances in their totality. We were bound to have a case like this.