“It is a complicated issue. It is truly a complicated issue, with a wide range of views, truly a wide range of views,” Jean-Pierre said. “There is no ‘yes or no’ answer to this, it is complicated. There is a rule that the Department of Education [DOE] has put forward, and we’re going to let that process move forward, and again, we want to make sure that while we establish guardrails with this rule, we also prevent discrimination, as well, against transgender kids. But again, a complicated issue with a wide range of views, and we respect that.”
“Absolutely no reason for the Biden admin to do this,” New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “It is indefensible and embarrassing. The admin can still walk this back, and they should. It’s a disgrace.”
“Honestly, this move by Biden to push a rule on trans kids in sports is not only a backwards betrayal, it [forces] us to have to spend our time dealing with god d*** sports instead of criminal bans on our healthcare,” Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and LGBTQ+ advocate, wrote. “He could have just done nothing. This is legitimizing transphobia.”
The mOsT PrOgReSsIvE Administration in History™ 
“A complicated issue with a wide range of views, and we respect that” Fuck off out of here with that “centrist” nonsense. There’s nothing complicated about it, and it’s not an issue unless you want to turn it into one and want to appeal to people’s emotions like Republicans are doing. It was only a matter of time before they’d start throwing trans people under the bus. I guess with the coming elections it’s as good a time as ever.
Just in case anyone from other instances are stopping by, this is how liberal democracy leads to fascism. You have a right wing party that wants to criminalize being trans while tacitly supporting physical violence and extermination. The only viable opposition party can’t even use decisive language about the validity and existence of trans people among cis people. Because it might hurt their polling.
Now the strongest, political position from the “left” is “it’s complicated.” So when the right starts being very clear about violence and carrying it out through official state entities, the new left position will be even more to the right. Because they already gave up on “Trans people should participate in the things cis people do.” So it’s not even about trans people living a normal life. Historically, by the time we get there, it doesn’t matter what the left position is anymore. Because the right has taken over and are putting people in camps.
This is why it’s so very annoying to hear about harm reduction and voting the lesser evil. That’s not how it works. One hand washes the other. The lesser evil just leads to greater evil getting strong anyways. It doesn’t stop it or bide you time. The only lesser evil is violent revolution, which is only evil if you don’t understand what’s at stake here.
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I’m one of those people from other instances stopping by that hasn’t thought a lot about this issue.
It’s a shame that US politics seems to be so boolean. As in, the only acceptable position for a political party is the polar opposite of their opposition.
What if an issue is genuinely complicated and cannot be resolved by a three word statement of position? Can there be no discussion around that?
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What if an issue is genuinely complicated and cannot be resolved by a three word statement of position? Can there be no discussion around that?
That’s fine if it’s an issue that is worthy of debate.
We’re talking here specifically about the rights and survival of human beings, and in that kind of case, no. There is no room for debate. There is no complexity. You either support people’s right to live, or you don’t. There fundamentally cannot be a grey area here; any response that includes the words “yes, but” automatically cedes ground to fascists.
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The people pushing for the changes to high school sports policy have also been calling for the extermination of trans people from the earth. We’re not the ones making it sound nuts. Talk to the Republican base.
ahh yes, let me politely debate the merits of my own existence. the truth definitely lies in between the extremes of “let me live my life” and “exterminate the slurs”
We’ve discussed and solved it a hundred times already, and the solution is the same every time.If you haven’t thought a lot about this issue, then you may not be aware that the issue is nothing but complete transphobia. It is not “complicated” the science is actually very clear and the only reason to be against trans people in sports is bigotry and claiming its “complicated” is supporting that bigotry
that hasn’t thought a lot about this issue
Yeah, we can tell.
Now now, be nice
It’s not complicated because the issue is complicated. It’s complicated because the spokesperson for the leader of the Democratic party has to be careful with what she says. It’s complicated because saying yes pisses of the alleged moderate majority who disagree with saying yes. It’s complicated because saying no pisses off the progressive and shits on the pro LGBTQIA+ image of the party. You can’t strip away the politics of the situation or do a thought experiment where cows are spheres and there’s no friction. The situation and answer can only be understood in the actual context within which it exists, along with the historical moment and broader context.
It is not complicated because letting trans teens play on the same team as cis teens is a deeply complicated issue that cannot be resolved with a slogan.
And I just explained that it’s not boolean. It’s not 1 and 0, it’s just 0. And the minute someone tries to suggest 1 instead, the people more concerned that people might have the wrong opinions about complexity show up. We’re trying to make the discussion more nuanced and complicated, it’s the moderates and adults in the room stopping us.
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What if an issue is genuinely complicated
This one isn’t complicated, liberal. Anybody who demands inspecting the genitals of highschool girls because his daughter’s team lost an amateur soccer match (which is what this boils down to and what is already happening out there) is a pervert who needs to be hunted down with the full force of the law. Trans women in sports are not a competive issue anywhere. There is not a single sport were we are a relevant force, and in fact our presence is not an issue at all anywhere unless we’re talking absolute edge cases like medically untransitioned trans women in full contact martial arts, which do not even apply in this case because we are talking motherfucking school sports. You do not base political discourse on edge cases not even relevant to the topic in question when the reasoning they’re brought up in the first place is a full-fledged plan for our outright genocide. Wake up and smell the Zyklon B, liberal. This is what has been going on this year, a concerted, nationwide effort to eradicate us starting with gender affirming care for minors and sports bans that is backed by the entire Republikan party and a gigantic propaganda budget that has made my people public enemy number one for the most fanaticised part of the base of your country’s fascist party.
TheUSA has already been consistently among the nations with the most transphobic murders worldwide for years. Florida and Texas are at the point where they are openly making lists of my siblings. If you still think this is complicated, you can walk into a buzzsaw for all i care.
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Kids can be up to a year older than their classmates due to the way kindergarten start date cutoffs work. These kids who arbitrarily end up older tend to outperform their peers, because a 7.9 year old is stronger and faster than a 7 year old. This is a real difference - the NHL did a study on this and found that their players disproportionately have early-year birthdays due to how this effect lines up with hockey camps.
Do you care? Of course not, nobody cares about the competitive fairness of kids’ sports, the point is just to get them to exercise and have a hobby. We can verify that nobody takes this seriously by looking at high school sports, where suddenly a four year age gap is acceptable.
Okay, so why does this suddenly matter when it’s what team a trans kid should be on?
Trans people matter, sports don’t.
Wholeheartedly agree, I have yet to see this take in person
What stands out to me is that the people worrying the most about trans people in womens’ sports are the same ones who were making fun of womens’ sports specifically right up until they realized they could use it to attack trans people.
The way I always interpreted it was that any artificial environment necessitates artificial constraints which will always ‘sample’ from a ‘population’. Sports are an artificial environment actively ensured to be such for some purpose. Whether that be entertainment, social bonding, profit, etc.
The sampling can have methods of organizing, say in a simple ordering of individuals based on skill with certain qualities. Think weight classes in boxing and the ranking of within them. It doesn’t need to be so, and it seems that it tends to be the case to make it easier to conceptualize the relationships between the people who participate.
Of course in such an artificial environment certain traits like physical strength, coordination, flexibility, endurance, or whatever, in isolation or combination determine the likelihood one may succeed according to the artificial constraints. Are we to be surprised individuals who have been the primary enjoyers and participants, i.e. men, perform ‘better’? It’s what would be expected if the conflict of interest of fascicle chauvinism is accounted for rather than ignored for reasons of self-interest.
What I never understood was, say there are participants of some group in some sport who are overwhelmingly unlikely to win. This would be true for the participants, what about the coaches? If you open up the artificial environment from some small scale to something bigger, say at the level of winning teams, where are the differences then? In the case of owners of teams, where the amount of risk or investment the owner wants to take is then the primary metric? As you move further and further away from the artificial environment to the real world, the differences matter less and less.
Sure, my wife is not as tall as me, if I am around I’ll help grab something on top of the fridge. That isn’t the only environment she finds herself in. We have a step stool she uses to get stuff, she can rearrange things to bring it lower, or find some alternative item. There are any number of solutions or strategies one can take outside of an artificially constrained environment.
It’s really as though these individuals want to hate women and trans people, or any marginalized group, then find the environments which may be hostile, make them actively hostile, and then when their plan succeeds and they have oppressed or disadvantaged these groups enough they claim victory due to their perceived superiority.
There’s a quote from Catch-22 I think of when this sports talk comes up:
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
Think weight classes in boxing and the ranking of within them. It doesn’t need to be so
Yeah like Street Fighter. Which of course the Gamer™ types have no problem with when they play with a girl character… But put a trans woman in there an all of a sudden they explode.
Wait SF has weight classes? Haven’t played 6 yet so idk if that’s new or not
Yeah, zoners and grapplers
Oh, I thought you meant like actual weight classifications for characters. My brain takes things literally a lot.
Exercise can be good for your health, but sports its literally just a game at the end of the day.
I remember reading that when Utah did their ban on trans athletes in school sports, there was exactly one trans girl playing in a girls’ sport in the whole state. Exactly one. Statewide legislature passing laws focused on one person, a child.
All this scrutiny and transphobia is directed at literal children, many of whom might be the only trans athlete out of millions. Transphobia is such a disgusting thing to me, not only because of the chauvinism and bigotry, but because it’s just so senseless. Trans people are already rare enough as it is and also one of the most vulnerable populations in regards to poverty, assault, unemployment, etc. I’ve seen some statistics saying that only around 1,000 people in America initiate HRT per year. That should give an idea of just how rare and vulnerable trans people are. And now there’s a senseless cultural panic just to whip up a few more eyeballs on the spectacle?
Death to America
Gotta love all the liberals coming in here telling us why it’s “complicated”, while pointing out they support trans right. No, you don’t support trans rights. Because if you did, you wouldn’t undermine those rights by parroting the same talking points as conservatives; talking points that are based on willfully ignoring facts, and even the lack of evidence that this is an issue that exists in the first place. It also gets tiring seeing those same people act like they know how trans people’s bodies work, and not even acknowledge the fact that trans people go through biological changes if they can get gender affirming care, and are very comparable to their cis counterparts. The medical science on it is right there, and trans people’s own experiences are living proof as well. But it’s easier forming bullshit “opinions” instead, especially if you have a certain agenda (conservatives), or just don’t care about said minority as much as you think you do.
But they’re unscratched liberals! You won’t like them when they’re scratched!
Punch a fascist, and a liberal gives you a lecture on civility and violence, while downplaying civilian casualties of US drone strikes.
Every asterisk is a failure
It’s really not complicated. If trans people are the athletic super soldiers they’re made out to be we need to encourage them to compete in sports to make them less of a snooze-fest.
adding this to the long list of reasons im not voting for biden again when libs ask. my go-to is always “that fucker still owes me $600!”
Joe Biden owes me $600 and I don’t even fuckin live there
So, you think voting for a Republican or not voting is going to get the job done?
no, democrats have demonstrated repeatedly that they are unwilling to do anything. you would be a fool to vote for them over and over again after seeing their incompetence and unwillingness to even slightly push back against the reactionary policies being enacted under biden
The Democratic Party has room for improvement, sure, but it’s also the only party with room for improvement. On this issue, not voting is the same as voting for a Republican. That surely won’t get you any improvement.
no, not voting is just not voting. voting for the republican party is voting for the republican party. and from where im standing, the difference between dems and republicans is negligible. the dems arent offering any “improvement”
The Republicans are salivating over the prospect of you not voting. Exactly what they want.
further exploiting and oppressing the working class is exactly what the republicans want. and the dems are united w them in that
Thise two parties are nothing alike.
the dems are salivating over the prospect of useful idiots like you voting for them election after election after decades of failing to deliver on any of their promises because “it’s complicated.” Exactly what they want.
The dems also. The less voters they less they have to spend on marketing. Imagine if they proposed one popular thing. They would have the election in the bag. That is all it would take, one broadly popular position. They are so opposed to democracy that people generally being in favor of a thing is not reason enough for them to enact a policy. They would rather spend donation money proping up GOP candidates than legalizing weed nationally or whatever.
The Democratic party doubled Trump’s deportation numbers, gave the police record funding and has now ceded trans rights to the right
There is no room for improvement and no point in voting in national elections, we warned you motherfuckers but you didn’t listen, now eat shit dem
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Actually since the democrats are republicans, by not voting for democrats I’m voting for democrats
I hear the same thing from both parties, therefore not-voting must be the same as voting for both parties, which counts as voter fraud.
So you think that rewarding the Democrats for having the only standard be “Our senile, racist, rapist, corrupt, reactionary war criminal doesn’t have an orange spray tan” is going to “get the job done”? Or just the entire party being the polite, norms-respecting Republicans.
I think it’s the only party that does not vilify LGBTQ people, so I’ll keep voting for them for that reason and many others.
You’re right. They are more of the Uvalde Cops to the Republicans school shooter. Even when they nominally have power they wont even rhetorically fight back, let alone use that power, to defend LGBTQ people in any way.
I understand your frustration, but not voting or voting for a Republican will just make matter worse. There’s surely room for improvement among Democrats, but it’s also the only party with room for improvement.
No one here is voting Republican. The fact that you’re including that as a possibility is a massive indication that you don’t understand what we’re on about.
There’s room for improvement? Are you sure? What are you basing that on? It must be vibes cause it sure as fuck doesn’t follow with the transphobic statements of
brandon’s handlers.No, ignoring the extremely limited efficacy and right-wing bias of electoralism, their entire point is just being the “Not Republican Party”. As long as they can only offer that and nothing else, and still be electorally competitive, they never have to improve and will actively fight against improvement. Additionally, they actually do more to aid the Republicans and right-wing agenda as long as they are really ineffective and out-of-touch and in people’s minds voting for them is the only real opposition the Republicans, while constantly capitulating to Republicans on issues like trans rights. But ultimately, this is why the Republicans are much more responsive to what their base wants, since even if they are reactionary, and can somewhat generate the culture war issues, they are the only party offering a positive agenda. (Positive in the sense of a politics of making changes and advancing agendas rather than just saying that the other party is worse. Not saying their agenda is good, obviously)
So, yes, there is some times, particularly on close elections or local elections where you can get improvement by voting Democrat over some Q-anon or MAGA psycho. But you also have to admit, especially with Federal elections, not voting for Democrats is not really making things worse or doing less “harm mitigation” than voting for a Biden, or whatever right-wing bigot the Democrats throw up next. Especially if, even on things like LGBTQ rights, they immediately capitulate and take the Republican position, just with more polite rhetoric.
There’s plenty of room for improvement to be very diplomatic about it. But you seem to mistake room for improvement with actual improvement. Who cares if the democrats could theoretically do better when they patiently and consistently don’t? What good is this void of unrealised improvement doing anybody?
Either you believe that the mere existence of room for improvement is a material gold, which makes no sense. Or you believe that there exists a mechanism for getting the democrats to realise that improvement, a way of pursuing then left. How this is going to work remains a mystery and believing that the democrats will improve tomorrow seems more like a coping mechanism than anything that is likely to actually happen.
the only party that does not vilify LGBTQ people
might wanna check the OP you’re posting on before you.trot that take out there chief
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Sure. Some might think that. But there is still lightyears between those two parties when it comes to LGBTQ priorities. Republicans are just hoping your frustration will cause you to stay home on election day.
Republicans are just hoping your frustration will cause you to stay home on election day.
This is literally about the Democrats being worthless craven shitheads as usual. I’m writing in Hillary again in 2024, fuck you.
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Which LGBTQ priorities? When Biden talks about the rights of queer people, the only thing he brings up is gay marriage when the GOP openly talks about ending the right of trans people to exist as ourselves in public, whi9ch if you knew anything about our lifes and how we need to lead them you’d recognize as openly genocidal. Biden is a coward who doesn’t even dare to say the word trans in public while DeSantis and Abbot are already making lists of trans people. What he has done instead is this shit we’re discussing here, when he could’ve opened up planned parenthood clinics on federal land to guarantee access to free abortion and gender affirming care in red states, could’ve stepped in when Florida "legalized abducting trans kids out of state for forced conversion therapy*, could’ve coordinated the isolated efforts of some democrats on the state level to create asylum states for trans people etc. etc.
Instead, he is tiptoeing around the “complicated issue” if people like me should have basic human rights.
No they’re not. You have conservative think tanks with a detailed plan about how they’re going to make being trans illegal in the US and you have literally nothing from the leader of the Democrats who is supposedly different in their priorities with queer folk. There hasn’t been any serious attempt at pushback against states criminalizing and going after trans youth. And in the context of years and years of conservative laws across the country eroding our right to exist, they release a statement like this. There is no difference between these people. They just want to be able to call themselves allies because they think it builds character for themselves. Allies cannot dictate our liberation and allies will just as quickly silence their support of us when it becomes a little uncomfortable while we are still here and we still have to live in this shitty country.
But tell me how it’s all according to keikaku and that the Dems are actually totally on our side guys, just ignore the last 70 years of history.
What thread do you think you’re posting on you dumb fuck?
Since I was eighteen, I have voted for a third party even when its chances were hopeless, if the main parties were unsatisfactory; or, in absence of a third choice, voted for the lesser of two evils.
I could vote, but the election in which I could vote was a farce.
I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.
This Administration is dominated and directed by wealth and for the accumulation of wealth. Corporate wealth profits as never before in history. We turn over the national resources to private profit and have few funds left for education, health or housing. We let men take wealth which is not theirs; if the seizure is “legal” we call it high profits and the profiteers help decide what is legal. If the theft is “illegal” the thief can fight it out in court, with excellent chances to win if he receives the accolade of the right newspapers.
Gambling on the stock market is increasing and all prices are rising. It costs three times his salary to elect a Senator and many millions to elect a President. This money comes from the very corporations which today are the government. This in a real democracy would be enough to turn the party responsible out of power. Yet this we cannot do.
I have no advice for others in this election. Are you voting Democratic? Well and good; all I ask is why? Are you voting for Biden and his smooth team of bright ghost writers? Again, why? Will your helpless vote either way support or restore democracy to America?
Is the refusal to vote in this phony election a counsel of despair? No, it is dogged hope. It is hope that if millions of voters refrain from voting in 2024 because of their own accord and not because of a sly wink from Putin, this might make the American people ask how much longer this dumb farce can proceed without even a whimper of protest. Yet if we protest, off the nation goes to Russia and China.
Fifty-five American philanthropists are asking China “to face manfully the doubts and promptings of their conscience.” Can not these do-gooders face their own consciences? Can they not see that American culture is rotting away: our honesty, our human sympathy; our literature, save what we import from abroad? Our manners are gone and the one thing we want is to be rich–to show off. Success is measured by income.
University education is for income, not culture, and is partially supported by private industry. We are not training poets or musicians, but engineers. Business is built on successful lying called advertising. We want money in vast amount, no matter how we get it. So we have it, and what then?
Is the answer the election of 2024? We can make a sick man President and set him to a job which would strain a man in robust health. So he dies, and what do we get to lead us? We remain in the same mess. I will be no party to it and that will make little difference. You will take large part and bravely march to the polls, and that also will make no difference.
Stop running Russia and giving Chinese advice when we cannot rule ourselves decently. Stop yelling about a democracy we do not have. Democracy is dead in the United States. Yet there is still nothing to replace real democracy. Drop the chains, then, that bind our brains. Drive the money-changers from the seats of the Cabinet and the halls of Congress. Call back some faint spirit of Jefferson and Lincoln, and when again we can hold a fair election on real issues, let’s vote, and not till then. Is this impossible? Then democracy in America is impossible.
web
Voting for Democrats means you are actually voting for Republicans because Democrats do whatever Republicans want, serve the same class, and are themselves Republicans. So not voting is actually harm reduction. Voting just helps Republicans.
What is the job that needs to get done?
yes, if the democrats won’t earn our votes, we’ll withhold them. it’s not like a democrat in office meaningfully slows down the pace of fascism.
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Withhold and help the Republicans.
the democrats are helping the republicans far better than I ever could.
But again, a complicated issue with a wide range of views, and we respect that.
You don’t have to though.
In fact there should be no respect for the views of bigots
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You are a bigot. You are inventing a set of standards for fairness that stops exactly at “trans or cis”. How is it fair that one woman could be groomed and trained from birth by rich parents to be the best swimmer she can is allowed to compete against a poor woman raised with less nutrition who was self trained? Why drawn the line at trans or cis and not literally anywhere else?
You’re allowed to be born a gigantic thick-boned brick shithouse and compete against guys/girls born way fucking smaller than you but someone born with a vagina isn’t allowed to compete explicitly against somebody born with a dick as the only stated reason and you DON’T think it’s fueled by bigotry? You’re only fooling yourself. If discriminating against trans people made sense, you’d also being chomping at the bit to descriminate by height, weight, net worth, nutrition, etc. etc. You’d have 18 different leagues for one sport all neatly segregated and you could only compete with people who look exactly like you.
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Estrogen does the opposite of steroids you fucking moron
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If you think that i have some bad news for you…
I am conducting a scientific test of their claims
and 
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Yes, they are. Especially you
“Hey, African Americans are fine and all… I… I just don’t want them living next door to me alright?”
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But you know… you don’t have to be one, right?
You’d be way cooler.
Okay, so democrats may not be harm reduction, but they’ll… checks notes …look the other way as others cause harm?
Oh nice this is on /all/ now. I’d just like to say that anyone that supports democrats after this deserves to be hit by a truck. That is all.
Eat shit, I genuinely hope physical harm comes to you.
On a tangential note, arm lgbt people.
It is a complicated issue tho. Some transphobes deserve re-education camps, while others need to get the wall.
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“fast release power vs endurance” sounds like a rebrand of the “fast twitch muscles” bs
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Whatever one says about the state trans issue, fast and slow twitch muscle fibers are real categories of muscle. One is for short burst and the other for sustained exertion. Humans lean towards slow twitch and chimps towards fast twitch, which is part of why they can rip us apart.
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Absolutely, though you will never be engaging 100% one and 0% the other and there are differences between individuals (due to hormones, etc.). Isometric exercises like planks are mainly slow twitch and bursts of exertion like in burpees or sprints or powerlifting are more short twitch.
You will always be training both, but you can lean one way or the other.
I really enjoy the fact that humans, spindly and fragile as we are, found our physical advantages in “being kinda slow” and “being really sweaty”
We’re basically biological Terminators that can walk at things to death
In
speak calling something “complicated” is just an excuse to take the reactionary positionThe issue of whether or not Joe Biden should be beaten to death with a rusty shovel is ‘complicated’
There is no ‘yes or no’ answer to this, it is complicated - maybe he should just be shot, or have an anvil dropped on his head instead
Personally I advocate he be thrown in the
When we get that emoji?
yesterday
Dunno, whyesseff has been going sicko mode and adding tons the last little bit.
no more half measures walter
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