As children across the U.S. head back to classes and practices for fall sports, four more states are expecting their K-12 schools to keep transgender girls off their girls teams.
Kansas, North Dakota and Wyoming had new laws in place restricting transgender athletes before classes resumed, and a Missouri law takes effect at the end of this month, bringing the number of states with restrictions to 23.
Are there professional high school teams I don’t know about? Or are these laws specifically to keep kids from having fun playing sports with zero stakes?
Unfortunately, it’s not zero stakes with high school athletes looking to get scholarships and schools making money and funding from football. To say nothing of parental egos. If only it were as easy to sweep under the rug by claiming it isn’t worth caring about.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, too. So much of life is nearly divided up into make and female without thinking about what constitutes an advantage. Maybe basketball needs to be divided into two leagues for over and under 6’6". Perhaps hockey should be split by bone density. Or whatever, but my point is gender is a big dividing line for our society and we are attacking that line. It’s going to be messy.
I predict the eventual result is to no longer have gendered competitions at all. Which in some ways is good but would likely result in much lower participation by women in certain sports.
I support trans rights and IDGAF about sports, but I don’t see any clean way out of this mess. Something fundamental is going to have to change to answer this issue.
Maybe basketball needs to be divided into two leagues for over and under 6’6". Perhaps hockey should be split by bone density. Or whatever,
Maybe not split, but we should take this into account for scoring purposes. In powerlifting, your height (and thus weight) is the main determining factor in how much you can lift. We account for this by using weight classes, but that has the problem of either dividing up everyone so finely that many weight categories in local competitions only comprise of one athlete, or grouping too many people together that competition is no longer fair. There’s also the Wilk score (getting replaced last I heard due to some drama. Not sure what they use now), which calculates an overall score based on your exact weight and allows comparisons across weight classes.
So for other sports, we could have something similar to this Wilk score. In basketball for example, it could determine how much each basket is worth for each team based on the composition of the team. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it’s probably a lot better than dividing across gender lines, and would open up competition to people who enjoy the game but aren’t insanely tall.
Are there really zero stakes? Does the work a child does in K-12 not impact their opportunities post K-12?
Sex has been a long-standing issue in organized sport. The IOC has their own challenges with it, even.
Club sports, as opposed to organized sports, are more of the “for fun / zero stakes” type of sport IMO.
I wish the issue was more black and white, but holy cow is it a tough one when you dig your heels in.
It’s not zero stakes. Just put college scholarships aside for a second. Athletes put everything they have into their game. They make TONS of sacrifices to excel and win. Why don’t you ask the girls how they feel about competing against a trans girl? You and I have no skin in the game, so our opinions don’t matter much. Right? That’s the core message of DEI, that it’s our job to listen. So listen to the millions of girls who would be impacted by the decision.
If you think millions of girls in the US are impacted by trans people you’ve bought more propaganda you think. Much closer to dozens than millions but probably more accurately hundreds. I’m more inclined to protect the girls who would become suicidal because they’re being told they don’t belong in public but you do you.
I meant the non-trans girls who compete in sports. I think there are only about 1000 trans girls, but that number could be wrong. Both numbers are guesses. The point was that there are a lot of girls that could be impacted and they should have an active voice in the decision.
I know what you meant and there aren’t millions of cis girls impacted by trans girls. That number is a massive inflation to make the impact seem more worrisome. It’s called fear mongering.
That wasn’t my intent and I think you realize that but are still choosing to ignore the actual point, so you win.
the millions of girls who would be impacted by the decision.
I honestly don’t think there are that many trans people. Most of these states likely don’t even have a single trans highschool student in the entire state. Trans people are a minority of a minority. I feel like it should almost be a case by case basis.
I meant the non-trans girls who compete in sports. I think there are only about 1000 trans girls, but that number could be wrong. Both numbers are guesses. The point was that there are a lot of girls that could be impacted and they should have an active voice in the decision.
The latter.
are these laws specifically to keep kids from having fun playing sports with zero stakes?
these are laws specifically to oppress trans people and put a wedge between them and “the rest” by fearmongering and othering, from as early as they can possibly manage.
Even with big stakes, trans women in sports is not a “problem” it never has been, if it was they would be winning a lot more medals, I’ll tell you that. But they aren’t, because they don’t have any advantages over cis women just by virtue of being trans (if anything, they have significant disadvantages like being the target of so much hate).
This is 100% motivated by bigotry under the guise of “think of the children!!1”
Is it just winning that you call a problem? It seems unfair to an Olympic hopeful woman to be held out of the Olympics because a man who transitioned is better than you.
Here is the rub. It’s not the fact one’s sex is male that is the advantage. It’s male puberty. If a person never goes through a male puberty regardless of their chromasomal makeup you don’t get any of the advantages in sport that cis men have.
Trans people and the medical systems which have studied trans adults and kids and reached a level of confident diagnosis are fighting so which puberty one ultimately experiences is an option and not something you are forced to experience because people around you do nothing.
Most athletes are in their early twenties. If we managed to actually let medical and social service professionals facilitate trans kids in a handful of years you basically solve this problem.
Can’t believe you’re being downvoted a lot. Any trans woman person on medication for long enough will just simply not have the muscle mass they had before. It’s basic science.
I mean if people were really that concerned, which I imagine they aren’t and just want to discriminate, you could just ensure they took medication for several years above a certain amount using blood tests. Not sure if they do currently, but they should probably do that for testosterone too.
Then it gets even weirder because sports aren’t defined by gender anymore but by hormones, but maybe that actually makes more sense? As that affects what muscle you can build?
That doesn’t surprise me (though I can’t actually see any downvotes on kbin which I should, not that I don’t believe you, it’s just odd), people get so defensive of “muh gender” as if other people being trans is somehow an attack on their cis identity (an attack they’re making up of course, it’s projection). Reality has never mattered to them, they just want to punch down at someone to feel big.
If only they’d focus that energy on the people selling them these lies to distract them from the real threats society faces…
But that’s why divide and conquer is so effective - keep people low and powerless, then give them someone even more powerless to take their aggression out on, distraction achieved!
The real question is whether they’re stopping this dude from competing on the girls teams.
As a trans person, sports are inherently unequal, unfair and some people do have biological advantages. If Micheal Phelps can use his freak lungs and webbed feet in the fucking OLYMPICS why can’t a young trans girl compete at a goddamn h.s meet? People only seem to care when it’s a trans person, but rules can impact cis people as well. Plenty of born cis women have excess testosterone and have even been banned from sporting events in the past, ntm the right’s best answer to this perceived problem? introducing genital inspections. Let’s get real, sports are just fucking games. They shouldn’t be taken any more seriously.
Exactly. This whole gd screaming match over what constitutes being a woman has zero basis in science.
If the transphobes would just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up, that’d be good.
The very same people screaming about trans women and girls in women’s sports were the ones happy that the US Women’s Soccer Team lost the World Cup. They can’t even decide whether or not Women’s Sports is a good thing.
Hey Progressives, let’s waste ALL our time and political capital on something that affects a dozen or so people in the entire country, and not push for real change that could affect literally millions of people in this country.
This is how the Left constantly loses support. No ill will to any group, but for fucks sakes pick and choose your battles here. If you showed even 1/2 as much effort in this issue, as you do in getting people universal healthcare or parental leave or a ton of other topics that affect everyone, we’d actually have some of these things already.
People are going to claim We CaN FoCuS oN MoRe ThAn OnE ThInG, but history shows otherwise. The Left in the US can’t focus on anything long enough to get it passed, and then they’ll jump to the new “atrocity” for a few months. Contrast that with how the Right focuses in on a handful of issues and they do it over years and decades. The Left doesn’t have that kind of attention span.
I fully get that on a site like this, my post is going to fall on deaf ears. It’s not that I wish bad things to anyone but focus on the masses first. You have to, or you will erode your support.
Hey Progressives, let’s waste ALL our time and political capital on something that affects a dozen or so people in the entire country, and not push for real change that could affect literally millions of people in this country.
Funny how the laws targeting trans highschool athletes… well under 1000 people total in the US… are passed by conservatives. Why do conservatives care so much about passing laws against such a small group? Why are conservatives spending nearly all of their political capital and goodwill on oppressing an incredibly vulnerable ~1-2% of the population?
Can you even name a single solution proposed by conservatives for problems like housing, healthcare, or climate change? I can name dozens from democrats and progressives alike.
Your comment is essentially one big gaslighting shit show. You chucklefucks wonder why the adults in the room are sick of your shit and are calling you clowns to your faces like you fucking deserve. It’s cause you’re fucking clowns.
They do that because they know they can push Progressives into some very awkward positions.
They are pushing progressives into the corner. Painting them as being out of touch with the pain felt by regular folks. The pain felt by the masses and instead focus in on some teeny, tiny, exceedingly small fringe group.
And it works!
This highschool thing is just the latest issue. A couple of years ago Democrats were wasting countless hours and effort trying to help DACA people.
Literally days before that topic hit the airwaves no one had heard of DACA and then all of a sudden they see Dems trying all these things to protect them. They’d try to get them healthcare. They’d trying to get them schooling.
I’d hear rumblings at my lunchroom at work from people who would busting their ass to pay for their kids schooling and they’d hear that Dems were trying to get these non-citizen free school. When you put it that way, the general public WILL agree that Dems are out of touch with regular folks.
Then some time before DAC or after DACA was the whole crisis at the border bullshit. Again, the GOP was able to successfully paint Democrats as caring more about foreigners than for the American people. It’s a bad look to have when the American people are the ones who keep you in power.
Republicans are masters at finding ways to make Democrats look bad on topics that make Dems look like they don’t support middle America and it’s values.
Stop the nonsense.
When a plane is losing altitude, the warning message doesn’t say to help your neighbor put on a breathing mask first. No. It says to put on your OWN mask first before you can help anyone else. Dems are constantly trying to help their neighbor all while they themselves lose key support amongst the people that can keep them in power.
They do that because they know they can push Progressives into some very awkward positions.
They are pushing progressives into the corner. Painting them as being out of touch with the pain felt by regular folks. The pain felt by the masses and instead focus in on some teeny, tiny, exceedingly small fringe group.
And it works!
Ah. Got it. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know conservatives don’t actually want me dead, they just want to make the dems look bad and make everyone feel better! /s
You know dems don’t just focus on this like conservatives right? This is not the flex you think it is.
Republicans are masters at finding ways to make Democrats look bad on topics that make Dems look like they don’t support middle America and it’s values.
To the uneducated and religious South? You bet. And that’s it. That’s all they do outside of enrich themselves and their owners.
There are no solutions to be found with conservatives, just messaging and hate. They attack minorities and then spout how dems “hate you” because they show compassion and try to protect vulnerable groups. Imagine how the opioid crisis (which is utterly raping middle America) could be handled if conservatives spent a tenth of that energy on fixing it instead of attacking trans people, immigrants, and minorities.
You can say the messaging is off, but it’s “poor messaging” vs “literal, honest to God fascists”. There’s no comparison. This’ll be my last reply, you have nothing of substance to say.
The 50 are NOT more important than the 50,000,000.
Get over yourself.
You help the masses first with common, widespread problems. Those are the people who can in return get you reelected and help you grow the movement to help others. The 10 people here or the 20 people there or the 60 people over there don’t. They don’t move the needle when it comes to national support. They don’t have the numbers to keep you in power and they only breed resentment when the masses see one political party waste all its time, money and energy trying to help them at the expense of the suffering masses.
You are selfish to put the needs of the teeny, tiny, fringe ahead of the millions who represent the masses.
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Hey, the corporations have spent tens of billions of dollars over decades to make damned sure the American public focuses exclusively on the most obscure and irrelevant issues. It’s very invalidating to all that effort to point out that issues that affect less than 0.5% of the population are very obvious wedges to ensure that the blue-hair city libs and good ol’ boy hicks are unable to ever come together to advocate for their shared material self interest.
Yeah they’re just 12 people they deserve to die right? Might as well just let it happen. /s
Not playing a sport will make them DIE???
On the flip side, some 50,000 people die in the US because they do not have health insurance, and almost a million go into bankruptcy because of medical costs and millions more are affected by obnoxious medical bills.
Have some focus, for fucks sakes.
It’s not just sport though is it? It doesn’t stop there. It’s constant laws upon laws that discriminate against them, and sport is just one of them. So yes, this issue does need focusing on, because yes, people will die from it.
I also agree that free healthcare should be a focus for the US, but that’s a much more contentious issue with health insurers lobbying hard to keep it how it is, and their money talks.
It’s not “oh we’re focusing on this issue and therefore can’t do any other ones”, it’s “we’re also interested in this issue, here is our stance we will try to make happen”. If politics only focused on one issue at a time nothing would ever get done.
I appreciate you sharing your perspective even though you knew you were going to be attacked. I don’t completely agree with everything you said, but I do agree that the amount of energy and capital spent on this issue is disproportionate to its impact. It seems to have become a rage bait topic, meant to sow division and discord.
I’m more than willing to post the unpopular opinion. I’m probably little older than the average Lemming and with that I’ve seen these scumbag Republicans years after year, election after election play the Left like a fiddle. They push them to react (overreact) to one pseudo emergency after another. You’d think the Dems would have learned their lesson, but that’s the infuriating part - they fall for it Every. Single. Time.
Asi mentioned to someone else, when it wasn’t these Trans athletes, it was the DACA kids. Then it wasn’t the DACA kids, it was the crisis at the border. Before that was some other made up bullshit that affects such a miniscule percent of people. You can call me cold and uncaring, that’s fine, but that’s not my point. My point is that you can’t help these smaller groups if you don’t have enough political power. And you don’t gain more political power if yiu don’t help the masses. The big ticket items. The policies that give literally millions universal Healthcare, or insert some other Think Big movement. Those millions helped are the ones who might reward you with more votes and thus more power in the next election cycle. The 50 fringe people here or the 200 fringe folks there, won’t. They just won’t. I’m not saying to turn their backs in them, but help the masses before you look after the tiny minorities.
Lastly every time the Left jumps to action to help the endangered spotted pigeon, they are seen as being out of touch with common folk’s problems. The Right is already good at fostering a “down home” image (as fake as it is), that it doesn’t help when the Left willingly takes these actions to benefit the few and not the many. Food for thought: the GOP has somehow cultivated an image of Teump that resonates with coal miners, and construction workers, and hunters, and other pickup driving blue collar jobs in small town America. This is a man who is (arguably) a billionaire,who wears exceedingly expensive suits, shits in a gold toilet and is from deep Blue NYC one of the biggest cities in the entire world. Stop feeding into the notion that Democrats are ivory tower elitists who only care about obscure shit and have turned their back on average Joe’s.
I’ve said enough. Commence the downvotes!
No downvotes from me since you make a lot of sense. I feel compelled to type a long response since you spent so much time on yours, but I would essentially just be repeating and agreeing with what you have already said. Idealism is nice, but not when it gets in the way of actual progress. As they say, we can’t let perfect get in the way of good enough.
While I could write an essay I think this is the thing you need to see because the annotations and chain of research is the rabbithole needed to understand something pivotal about the no-minority-left-behind tactic at play.
Progressives aren’t the ones trying to make it illegal to be trans or arrest parents for supporting their trans child. Why should we sit on our asses and watch people’s rights be stripped away because you don’t think it’s enough people to protect? You feel the same way about murder? “They only murdered a dozen people, we have bigger things to worry about.”
