Happens to be
No don’t ask those people, ask the experts!
Lia Thomas, a 22-year-old senior on the Penn women’s swim team, holds the fastest swim times in the country among NCAA women in two freestyle events. She also happens to be a trans woman.
Happens to be? That’s ridiculous; being trans is something no one “happens” to be. It’s something you do, not something that happens to you.
Her success has put her in the center of a national debate on trans women’s right to play sports.
No, the debate is about men’s “right” to play women’s sports. There is no such right. It’s women who have the right: the right to have women’s sports.
Michael Phelps, Caitlyn Jenner, and Jordan Peterson are being asked to weigh in on an issue that they haven’t worked on in any substantial way.
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My recommendation is that those having conversations about trans people — whether at home, in the news, on the deck of a swimming pool, or in a state legislature — consult experts with a known track record in what they are talking about. There are many fantastic voices to choose from.
Veronica Ivy has done a stellar job addressing inexpert arguments about unfair advantages in sports.
“Veronica Ivy” is Rhys McKinnon, a massive bully of a man who stole prizes from women in cycling races. He’s not the guy to consult on this subject.
The true conversation has nothing to do with testosterone or science, and everything to do with fear — specifically, people’s fear about their own gender identity and fear of people who don’t have a gender identity that’s easy to read.
Nope. Next question?
“The true conversation has … everything to do with fear — specifically, people’s fear about their own gender identity and fear of people who don’t have a gender identity that’s easy to read.”
How many counterexamples would it take to falsify that assertion?
If one is to be free to choose one’s own sex (‘gender’ being a word best kept IMHO for the exclusive use of grammarians) then there should be nothing logically in the way of choosing one’s own species. Both are products of molecular biology.
So if, independent of the sexual apparatus they were born with, people can choose to be males of the species Homo sapiens or females of it, according to preference, why stop there? They should by that reasoning be free to choose to be males or females of whatever is their preferred species.
I would recommend that they choose to be trans-cattle, and especially trans-bulls. It is only fitting after all, as they are up to their necks in bullshit already.
Haha. You’ve covered the “bull” part. As for the “shit” part, I saw this on Ovarit this week: “I’ve read nurses saying that you can smell the feces when you walk into the room with a post op TIM. I’ve never been that close to one, but it’s a horrifying thought.”
I’d argue that declaring oneself a woman without evident is defacto declaring that you’re not Homo sapiens sapiens but going back to pan narrans. So species change is possible!
“… consult experts with a known track record …”
Rhys McKinnon has a bunch of known track records, that’s part of the problem.
Lia Thomas is trans? Never would’ve guessed.
What motive would Caitlyn Jenner have to lie about this? When a former athlete who is a trans woman opposes trans women in women’s sports, I think that’s an opinion worth listening to, regardless of the other stupid stuff Jenner has done.
Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner’s opinion is worth listening to because his opinion on this matter aligns with reason and sense. Ditto several other trans-identified males who have expressed reasonable opinions on the matter. It is great that some trans-identified males have made these statements. Debbie Hayton has written intelligently on the matter, for example.
On the other hand, several other trans-identified males have expressed opposing opinions. One set are all the men who have taken high ranks in women’s competitions in the last several years.
I do think it is worth noting that trans-identified males are not of uniform opinion on the matter, including former or current athletes. There are those who assume all TiMs must obviously be on the “let transwomen play women’s sports” side of the issue, and showing that there are dissenters is useful.
Beyond that, I don’t see anything that recommends listening to Jenner’s opinion other than I more or less agree with him on this one matter.
“My recommendation is …”
Who is writing this dreck?
Okay, then — who are the experts on the other side, the ones who DON’T think transwomen should play in women’s sports? It’s no use recommending consulting people who “know what they’re talking about” and then throwing out names which all have the same point of view. You might as well recommend people who don’t know what they’re talking about but promote the party line. It’s not a conversation: it’s proselytizing.
Sastra, why, that’s because having the right opinion is what makes an expert qualified!
Jenner didn’t have to compete against women to win. Clearly he doesn’t understand the pain and grief of a TiM forced for all his adult life to play sports with people who could beat him. He doesn’t know the potentially lethal grief of not being in the top 500 male athletes, while all the time seeing all those women clocking times lower than his. It isn’t fair! Just…not fair…not fair at all.
A lot of people saying yes to trans rights without contemplating the issue really don’t know that the “right” of trans to play sports isn’t really that at all; it is a “right” to play elite sports they don’t qualify for in men’s divisions, and having a huge advantage so they nearly always win. TRTW – the right to win. Just for the record, they could be a frog and probably still beat me up. I was never particularly strong and now that I’m in my 60s, I can barely imagine beating up a frog (not that I’d want to).