“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.
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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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.
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.
that hasn’t thought a lot about this issue
Yeah, we can tell.
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
Statewide legislature passing laws focused on one person, a child.
Imagine all the hours spent. Utah has 104 legislators between their house and senate. If the bill was discussed on the floor for 10 minutes in each chamber, that’s 17 hours of human effort wasted. Now add in hours of deliberation in committee. Hours put in by staffers, by experts, by consultants, by lobbyists. That’s hundreds, if not over a thousand, hours spent on a ruining a JV sport for a single trans girl. What a ridiculous and disgusting waste.
I’ve seen some statistics saying that only around 1,000 people in America initiate HRT per year.
Can I get a source on that? Can’t find one myself but I live in the gay city so it might just seem like more
Found a summary of a 2015 John Hopkins study.
Estimates vary widely but it is believed that between 3,000 and 9,000 Americans undergo sex reassignment surgery each year. Transition medical care can include hormone replacement therapy, mastectomy, plastic surgery, psychotherapy and more.
It doesn’t seem like there’s a good central source on numbers like this. John Hopkins is a respected medical institution and even they’re saying “estimates vary widely” and “It’s believed.” I think part of it is this isn’t recorded in census data and perhaps most trans people who get HRT or GRS are kinda private about it? No idea, but it’s still so absurd to me that reactionaries have decided trans people are their mortal enemy now. Trans people are incredibly rare and they’re much poorer and more vulnerable than cis people.
That’s srs which only like 1-2 percent of trans people get/are able to get
Maybe 1-2% of Amerikan trans people, where you have to pay out of pocket for a surgery that somehow costs four times as much as you’d pay in Europe.
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.”
And Hillary Clinton says the Democrats focus too much on trans issues. Still have no idea what the hell she’s talking about. Have heard more about gay marriage than anything explicitly trans.
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Ironically cracker island doesn’t have anything like this. I suspect that’s mainly because school sports aren’t professionalised as for-profit enterprises like the horror show in america though and would exist if that were the case.
do not cede ground to the right. for god’s sakes, do not cede ground to the right.
No, its really not."It is a complicated issue. It is truly a complicated issue, with a wide range of views, truly a wide range of views… There is no ‘yes or no’ answer to this, it is complicated.”
I read this in Stephen Merchant’s voice
Libs get the wall too.
Okay, so democrats may not be harm reduction, but they’ll… checks notes …look the other way as others cause harm?
Ah the abortion playbook
Give blockers to all the kids so they have equal playing field
Clearly we need to ban all sports until we can figure out and resolve what the fuck is wrong with Americans.
What if we need to ban all Amerikans until we know what the fuck is wrong with sports?
This also works
Wow! I love having my continued existence being labelled “complicated” by people in high elected offices.
The only reason why anyone cares is because everyone thinks their little Johnny is going to get a sports scholarship, and somehow a trans athlete is taking that away from them. It’s yet again another false zero sum situation, where we have yet again pitted groups against each other instead of asking why a college athletic scholarship is the difference between succeeding and failing in this broken system.
If you took the money aspect out of all of this, it just leave only the true transphobes. Like, does anyone get pissed if a trans person gets a perfect score on the SATs? No. Because we all love meritocracy (supposedly). So, this is the only place where transphobia is being tolerated.
EDIT: There will always be transphobes, but I’m saying the people that are reachable (maybe), this is the stupid argument they reach for, so why not interrogate why that argument is even being treated as an argument instead of being correctly identified as just being transphobia with extra layers. Make college free
