Cyclist and expert
Never mind girls, pay attention to trans girls [who are boys]. Lawyers, Guns & Money:
The right-wing freak out that transgender girls could dominate girls’ sports at the high school level (as if right-wingers care about women’s sports except when it is useful in their culture wars) is so very, very frustrating. Claire Thornton decided to do what few journalists have done–actually talk to transgender girls and their families about it.
Well that’s mind-numbingly obtuse. How about talking to girls about it? Especially girls who have already lost out to boys who call themselves trans and take all their prizes?
Of course there are higher principles [in] play:
Civil rights experts said competitive sports are the latest facet of life targeted by anti-transgender legislation.
“It’s a proxy for them having lost the bathroom war,” said Veronica Ivy, a competitive cyclist and expert on transgender rights whose research on sports demographics has contributed to International Olympic Committee policy.
Ah yes “Veronica Ivy” aka Rachel McKinnon formerly Rhys McKinnon; such a fine, disinterested, thoughtful civil rights expert – one who heaps verbal abuse on women who don’t agree that he is literally a woman in every sense. Also he’s “a competitive cyclist” who competes against women half his size, and – surprise surprise – defeats them, and then snarls at them on Twitter if they refuse to hug him for the photo ops.
Legislators in more than 20 states have introduced bills this year that would ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams in public high schools. Yet in almost every case, sponsors cannot cite a single instance in their own state or region where such participation has caused problems.
The Associated Press reached out to two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring such measures around the country as well as the conservative groups supporting them and found only a few times it’s been an issue among the hundreds of thousands of American teenagers who play high school sports.
In South Carolina, for example, Rep. Ashley Trantham said she knew of no transgender athletes competing in the state and was proposing a ban to prevent possible problems in the future. Otherwise, she said during a recent hearing, “the next generation of female athletes in South Carolina may not have a chance to excel.”
That’s great stuff? Really?
Of course there haven’t been many examples yet: it’s a new thing. It’s a new idea and a new practice, so there hasn’t been time for many examples. Also don’t forget the vicious social pressure – as in the LGM post itself – applied to people who don’t agree that boys can be girls. But yes, if it goes ahead and becomes settled custom then girls will lose out. Laws do often aim to prevent future likelihoods. There are laws against murder even in places where murder is very rare.
The whole stupid smug post doesn’t say one word explaining how boys don’t have physical advantages over girls.
Letting trans athletes compete adversely affects women as a class though, and sends yet another message to women that they don’t count as much as men do.
Some of the comments talk about this is similar to the advantages that Michael Phelps had as a swimmer. Yes, I follow LGM.
Speaking of the matter of hormone levels and athletic performance, it’s moot because someone can trans and not bother with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones at all.
I haven’t looked at LGM today, but this sounds like a Loomis post.
*clicks through to article*
Yup … Loomis. Who is, as you say, mind-numbingly obtuse on any topic outside his narrow area of expertise (labor history). His education posts in particular always devolve into ranting at the comments section.
It’s not only a right wing freak out, there are plenty of lefties against this assault on women and girls. The wrongness of the trans cult movement is so acute that it transcends politics.
It’s the snowball argument (it still snows thus climate change isn’t real) and they shouldn’t be making it. Napkin math is all that’s needed to demonstrate males == far superior average athletic performance.
Trans-politics?
@7 Exactamundo. :)
@Another Random Commenter #4
To be fair to Loomis, he has a legitimate point on those posts (that people should avoid sending their children to “better” schools and instead send them to mre diverse schools). I don’t know if he’ll convince his readers.
And this then suggests a different question for those supporting the transgender ‘girls’: what would a “problem” look like — and what would you do about it?
Let’s say 10% of all championships are won by the 1% of transgender girls on girls’ teams. Is it a problem yet?
50% first place won by transgender girls making up 25% of girls on the girls’ team. Or let’s make it high: half of the girls are transgender, and they win 90% of all awards.
Now remember, Trans girls are just like black girls, tall girls, or girls of any kind. A kind of girl.
When, if ever, would you say:
1.) No transgender girls allowed on girls’ teams.
2.) Transgender girls must artificially lower their natural hormones and possibly wear handicapping equipment so their natural advantage is gone.
3.) Trans girls can play, but we won’t count their wins.
4.) There will be strict quotas for how many Trans girls can be on a team, or participate in a competition.
Why? Justify it to that nervous, sobbing little Trans girl just hoping to be accepted and treated like any other girl.
Bottom line, I think they’re being disingenuous when they say there’s no problem to be solved. There’s no problem to be defined.
‘3.) Trans girls can play, but we won’t count their wins.’
That’s an interesting idea–could be a simple and practical fix in non-contact and non-team sports, under some conditions (except for the fact that there are still teams for track, cycling, etc and a boy getting a place on such a team would keep a girl from participating). But of course it would still be open to the sob stories of boys who feel ‘unfairly excluded’ and ‘treated differently from girls’.
Let boys compete in girls’ competitions, but don’t count their wins
^^ This suggested model is a “solution” that doesn’t solve the fundamental problem: Why should boys compete in the girls’ division at all? There already exists a solution for boys who want to play sports: they can play in the boys’ division. “Where can boys play sports?” has NEVER been a problem. Wailing about, “where can this boy play?” is a ridiculous non-problem
He can play in the boys’ division, that already exists for him. Boys’ sports get the lion’s share of attention and resources, just as it always has been. Historically, girls haven’t had nearly as many opportunities to play sports, and still get fewer resources.
There’s no reason to even raise a question about “how much” of the resources devoted to girls’ sports should be diverted to boys instead. It doesn’t matter if the boys who enter girls’ sports don’t win, or if their wins “don’t count.” Every boy who plays in the girls’ division has stolen the resources that should have gone to a girl. Every single spot occupied by a boy has been stolen from a girl. “Not counting” a boy’s win does nothing to compensate the girl who was robbed of a chance to enter her own competition.
@maddog1129 that’s a fair analysis. Particularly the point that boys’ sports have far more resources to accommodate people than girls’ sports do. (Kind of like making bathrooms ‘men’ and ‘anyone else’ when women already have too little bathroom accommodation.)
A cartoon with an unfortunate but common straw version of the opposition to TIM athletes competing against women:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2021/3/30/2023551/-Cartoon-A-trans-parent-pretense
It supposes that people who reject male participation in female sports are not concerned about women’s rights in other issues related to athletics. Granted there are some people to whom that applies. It doesn’t make the trans issue correct. It’s a form of “whataboutism”. More importantly, it is completely ignorant of the feminist position. Certainly all of the issues mentioned in the cartoon are of concern to me and to most or all of the feminist-supporting people I know.
They consulted McKinnon?? It’s hard to imagine a person with a greater personal stake and hence bias in this. The question is about competitive fairness in sports between female and male participants, so they ask a male participant that wants to compete against females.
Gee I wonder which side McKinnon will be on.
The ‘nervous, sobbing little Trans girl just hoping to be accepted and treated like any other girl.’
How often do we see ‘her?’ Again and again, its big middle-aged, bearded men.
The right-wing anti trans stuff really is fueled by homophobia and general craziness. But like a stopped clock they are pointing the right way at the moment.
[…] a comment by maddog on Cyclist and […]
And notice what else they did here. Nervous. Sobbing. Girl. Three words assumed to go together. Thereby establishing that this is, in fact, a girl, and not a stoic, accepting boy who heroically takes whatever comes his way if he can’t bully or bluff his way through it.
Trans ideology is as laden with sexist stereotypes and sexist language as any right wing fundamentalist church.
I imagine the movement wouldn’t have so many backers if they were clearly going into bat for the “nervous, sobbing boys, just hoping to be accepted and treated like girls”. They’ll only really get sympathy in our sexist society if we are to believe they are not just girls, but special and vulnerable ones, otherwise, *actual girls* would be getting sympathy and support too, over the matter that boys are invading all the girl’s spaces.
@14,
Is it just me, or does that Daily Kos cartoon look an awful lot like something Jack Chick would have drawn?