The ACLU is telling whoppers
Oh ACLU. You are so fucked up.
Nobody is trying to “keep trans youth out of sports.” The issue is BOYS who identify as trans competing against girls. Boys should compete with other boys whether they identify as trans or not. That’s the issue, as of course you know.
And women who say that – the way I just did – are “actually” fighting for women’s rights in sport, while you are trying to sabotage them.
Nobody is “cast out of the category of ‘woman'”; men are not in the category of “woman” in the first place.
You don’t get to tell women that we have to pretend that some men are women because they say they are. You don’t get to force us to deny what we know, you don’t get to force us to step aside, you don’t get to force us to shut up, you don’t get to tell us we’ve been displaced by the new and more exciting version of women that is performed by men.
What’s the source of that dopy statement? I found this one from last August in the Raleigh [North Carolina] News and Observer:
Advocates of transgender rights reject concerns about bathrooms and locker rooms.
“Instead, we recognize the harm to all women and girls that will flow from allowing some women and girls to be denied opportunities to participate and cast out of the category of ‘woman’ for failing to meet standards driven by stereotypes and fear,” they said in a statement
But…we were told it came from “groups that actually fight for women’s rights in sports.” That sounds like, you know, feminist groups. But the groups turn out to be those that advocate for transgender rights – which is not the same thing at all. In fact as we see from this very story, they can be in tension with women’s rights. So, in short, the ACLU flat-out lied in this particular tweet.
The girls who theoretically stand to be “cast out of the category ‘woman'” over stereotypes are tomboys, but nobody is talking about them. Instead, they are talking about boys who are actually trying to gain admission to the category ‘woman’ through the use of stereotypes of appearance and presentation (along with plain assertion).
All women and girls are harmed when transwomen are not permitted to participate in women’s sports.
That’s bold.
Also, the only “stereotype” at play is “all girls and women are female.”
How long must all this born-male-but-wanting-to-compete-as-a-female bullshit go for before enough people yell ‘enough’ and call it for what it patently is..?
One of the most discouraging aspects of the trans madness is how it’s destroying organizations I used to trust.
I think that actual human rights in America have never been under greater threat. But in the case of trans madness, ACLU is working against human rights, not for them. I can’t really donate to the ACLU anymore so long as they’re working towards harm to women and children.
Planned Parenthood has long been very important in America as a provider of not just reproductive services but health care in general. And now I don’t feel okay donating to them anymore either, because they are peddling cross-gender hormones to young people. (I mean, I guess chemical castration is one way to provide birth control, but really there are more humane ways).
Stereotype- and fear-driven standards like the possession of ovaries.
Papito #4 — I also used to donate to PP, ACLU and NOW. No more of my money goes to those organizations since they have become anti-woman and anti-reality. But I guess with billionaires like Pritzker on their side, they don’t care about real women anymore.
How can the ACLU of all organizations declare that athletes should be segregated according to their stated “gender identity”? The ACLU aren’t declaring that all males should be allowed to compete in women’s sports — they are declaring that only males who state that they feel in possession of a feminine “gender identity” should be allowed to compete with females in sports. How can a legal civil rights organization take the stance that any kind of self-assessed, self-declared identity characteristic should be the sole basis by which we sort and segregate athletes in competitive sports? Why not some other self-declared identity characterisitic? Why not favourite colour? Introverts vs. Extroverts? Taylor Swift fans vs. Kanye fans? Even if you truly believe that people’s stated gender identities are sacrosanct and important and “valid” or whateverthefuck, how does that get you to the part where it’s a necessary civil right for athletes to be sorted and separated based on them? How is it a crucial component of the world’s civil rights that members of an Olympic volleyball team can be of mixed biological sex but absolutely must all share the same preferred pronouns? Because in order for women’s and men’s sports to continue to exist as separate categories, that is exactly what we’re demanding — uniform pronouns; mixed sexes and mixed everything else.
It’s stupid and backwards even from a trans rights perspective. If gender is nothing but a feeling inside one’s own head and is completely separate from someone’s biological body — which is all that trans activists scream about all day and all night: the body I was born into doesn’t define my gender, they say — shouldn’t the ACLU be arguing that an athlete’s gender identity is completely irrelevant to their sports career? Shouldn’t the ACLU be fighting to let male-bodied people with feminine-gender-identity-feelz compete proudly and without prejudice against any other male-bodied people, regardless of gender, on the basis that their gender identity has nothing whatsoever to do with the sexed body they happen to have been born in and happen to be using in the physical competition we call sports? After all, “the body I was born into doesn’t define my gender identity” is just another way of saying, “my gender identity isn’t defined by the body I was born into.” You don’t serve a volleyball or sprint 100 metres or throw a discus with your pronouns; you do it with your body.
Of course, the answer to that is obvious: trans activists are in active denial about the bodies they were born in. They claim that their genders are completely separate from their bodies, but all the physical surgeries and hormones give the lie to that: it’s not about freeing everyone’s gender expression from their sexed bodies (that’s feminism, thank you) and it never was: “trans rights” is about men pretending their male bodies are literally female when they plainly, factually aren’t, and guilt-tripping and bullying everyone else into playing along.
This is such a ludicrous, feeble exercise with such obviously negative ramifications — most evidently, to common folk outside of academic feminist circles, in the domain of sports — that I genuinely think it will rapidly collapse once the general public gets a clear, sober look at what trans activists are demanding. The fact that the ACLU has doubled down on it is certain to be a disaster for them very, very soon.
It’s incredible how short-sighted and self-destructive they’re being. I don’t know what’s worse: the foolishness of the eager young virtue signallers the ACLU has brought in at the bottom, or the cowardice of the older people at the top.
Once again Artymorty thank you, this is excellent.
I can’t believe it’s come to the point where we can accurately describe the once-uniquely brave and principled ACLU as “foolish” and “cowardly.” That’s incredible, isn’t it? Their misguided stance on trans athletes has got me thinking: it’s a good example of how trans activism corrupts everything it touches in a peculiar way; it’s a symbol of how the magnetic poles of social politics are shifting, or have in some ways flipped completely, and many institutions aren’t equipped to adapt to the new orientation. (That’s a sloppy attempt at a metaphor: like how the literal magnetic field on Earth occasionally veers out of kilter and sometimes the poles actually end up swapping so that the South Pole relocates to the arctic and the North Pole ends up down at the antarctic.) The kinds of political movements which they once took for granted as Positive are actually now Negative, and the ACLU and the like either haven’t realized it yet or are only starting to come to terms with the ensuing chaos. Their compasses are spinning wildly and they don’t (yet) know how to correct course.
The skeptic movement is another good example. Several years ago I couldn’t have imagined describing it as cult-like, close-minded and regressive. But the political field warped, the poles shifted and they didn’t adapt. I guess it’s a lot easier to position yourself as the high-minded bearer of truth when your targets are traditionally out of fashion among the liberal progressive elite: astrologers, psychics, Uri Geller and Billy Graham are easy targets because they’re avatars of those people off in the red states or whatever unfashionable hinterland. When the bullshit is calling from inside the house — when it’s coming from Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign — suddenly we discover that the skeptics never had any real principles and were just leaning on their traditional political biases the whole time.
It’s a little more complicated with the ACLU, because their image to me has always been synonymous with apolitical, courageous principles. But at the end of the day they’ve succumbed to the same disease: they thought they had the moral high ground, they thought the moral landscape was easy to discern, and they staked their position according to a superficial reading of it. (i.e., “LGBT” have always been virtuous underdogs, therefore whatever they demand is good, therefore that’s where we’re planting our flag.)
And the shifting of the poles is affecting me, too. More and more I’m finding myself reading from conservative and right-wing outlets… I still find them on the whole abhorrent but I’m seeing shards of reason, and points they’re making that are absolutely superior to the counterpoints on the Left. It’s deeply disorienting. Within a single conservative-penned trans-critical opinion piece — even within a single sentence within such a piece — I can find myself veering from staunch agreement to staunch disagreement. The landscape is a mess. My own compass is spinning, too.
In some ways it’s an interesting time to be alive — we have to truly think for ourselves to navigate through this pole-shift — but it’s also scary. There are real stakes (global warming, etc.) in the balance.
You know what they say about interesting times…
Trans women are being denied entry to sports to the same extent that anyone else is – there are two leagues available, and the league you compete in is determined solely by your sex. Everyone is being denied entry to 50% of the available leagues. Most of us are fine with that, and it is very well justified by science. That some people dislike that they were born to a particular sex can suck it up.
Artymorty, #7 was brilliant. Thank you.
The problem, of course, is that the trans-identified males are not seeking to compete against other males. I can’t think of any instance where a rights organization defended the right of a person to do the exact opposite of what they want to do.
I also don’t know of any instance where a trans-identified male sought to compete on the boys’ team, let alone was denied the opportunity on any basis, although this sounds more likely.
@9 I kind of get what you mean about the poles shifting–I’ve read women writing that they’re turning to, basically, antifeminist media and supporters because they’re the only ones willing to give women concerned about women’s rights any airtime. But I guess I don’t feel like my own personal poles are shifting; it’s clear that the right-wing media don’t actually consider women people any more than the woke lefties do. Although it’s definitely disconcerting to find myself distanced from people/groups/ideologies I would in the past have found common cause with. Which, of course, is exactly what this is all about–fragmenting any potential challenge to those in power. But I myself have no idea what to do about it–it seems to be working exactly as intended.
The technique reminds me a bit of something Trump, and I guess others, do:
Person: I object to your corruption.
Trump: What? You think corruption is bad? Well look at Hillary–she’s corrupt!
Person: Hm, you’re right, I guess she is kind of corrupt. OK, carry on.
They seem to be incredibly successful with this kind of logical jiu-jitsu.
@11 I recall reading about at least one, a swimmer, but it seems like a different situation because they’re not entering the field with an overwhelming and unbeatable physical advantage.
Yes, this. So much this. The trans lobby is giving the right the chance to put on feminist underwear (on their heads, of course), and pretend to care about women, but they no more care about women than they care about the extinction of gorillas or the plight of the poor laborer.
Re #12, “I recall reading about at least one, a swimmer, but it seems like a different situation because they’re not entering the field with an overwhelming and unbeatable physical advantage.”
To be clear, I was envisioning a boy denied a spot on a boys’ team because he identified as a girl, and he had to make a case for it. Is that the kind of situation you’ve heard about?
It occurred to me that the crazy nomenclature we have had to adopt is nonetheless unclear.
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@14 no, I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention–the example I was thinking of was of a girl who believes she was a boy, who requested and was granted a spot on the boys’ team (I believe–don’t remember the details).