Transgender and sports

[Al-O-Meter]

What's the extra privilege to which you refer? Please be specific.

To start, there is the privilege that is the topic of this thread in moving from the men's division to compete against biological women where the competition isn't as fast and having an army of supporters who will call your detractors bigots. It goes far beyond that. Identifying as LGBT makes you a Title VII protected class which includes a raft of federally enforced legal privileges including being much harder to fire from a job. If you are a straight, white, male who is a bad person to a baker and that baker refuses to make you a cake then you're out of luck. If you are the same bad person to a baker but identify as LGBT, the baker cannot refuse your business without risking a lawsuit and if the legal fees weren't bad enough there will be an army along shortly to cancel your business by calling you a bigot in online reviews.

 

[One Brow]

To start, there is the privilege that is the topic of this thread in moving from the men's division to compete against biological women

You toss around "biological" a lot for someone who shows large misunderstandings of biology.

It's a privilege to compete against other members of your gender? If so, that's a privilege possessed by well over 90% of the population, and is in no way an "extra" privilege. I asked what the extra privilege was, and you responded with an ordinary one just about everyone has. Can you name an extra privilege or not?

where the competition isn't as fast and having an army of supporters who will call your detractors bigots.

It's a privilege to compete against people whose bodies are less athletically developed than your own? In every other situation in sports, we *celebrate* this privilege. We don't condemn Lebron James for his athleticism, Gobert for his height, Mitchell for his speed, etc., even though the competition isn't as athletic/tall/fast. Further, there's every reason to believe that they had many of these advantages *from birth*. Why should one set of athletic advantages granted from birth be lauded, and the other condemned?

It goes far beyond that. Identifying as LGBT makes you a Title VII protected class which includes a raft of federally enforced legal privileges including being much harder to fire from a job.

Complete and utter nonsense. It's just as easy to fire an LGBT person as any other person. You just have to document the reasons, like you would for any other person. What you can't fire them for is merely being LGBT.

If you are a straight, white, male who is a bad person to a baker and that baker refuses to make you a cake then you're out of luck. If you are the same bad person to a baker but identify as LGBT, the baker cannot refuse your business without risking a lawsuit and if the legal fees weren't bad enough there will be an army along shortly to cancel your business by calling you a bigot in online reviews.

If person A a bad person to the baker, and the baker serves other LGBT patrons who aren't bad people, then not only does the baker have a ready-made defense, but also they can counter-sue person A for damages from the false claim, knowing any jury would be filled with people like you, who feel aggrieved and want to take LGBT people down a peg or two.

 

[gandalfe]

I found this interesting, if not completely on-topic:

 

[Eminence]

Did anyone have a more detailed article on the Olympics rules changes than the Bloomberg one?

 

[Gameface]

I agree with all of that post, except for "increase".

I think you listing a bunch of posters and then collectively calling them all bigots was... unproductive.

I think many of the posters on that list did not qualify for that label.

I greatly appreciate your perspective and I also greatly appreciate your advocacy.

I also know you well enough (as a jazzfanz poster) to know that you wouldn't want me to pull any punches or hold back any criticism even when you are the subject of it.

Taking fence sitters and telling them that they are your enemy is a mistake, imho. Especially on an issue like this, which as I expressed, is new and complicated and confusing for many people. As people work through how they feel about this issue is I want to provide them a landing place that allows them to recognize the legitimacy of a transgender person existing but doesn't demand that they like it and become an advocate for it.

 

[gandalfe]

I think you listing a bunch of posters and then collectively calling them all bigots was... unproductive.

I think many of the posters on that list did not qualify for that label.

I greatly appreciate your perspective and I also greatly appreciate your advocacy.

I also know you well enough (as a jazzfanz poster) to know that you wouldn't want me to pull any punches or hold back any criticism even when you are the subject of it.

Taking fence sitters and telling them that they are your enemy is a mistake, imho. Especially on an issue like this, which as I expressed, is new and complicated and confusing for many people. As people work through how they feel about this issue is I want to provide them a landing place that allows them to recognize the legitimacy of a transgender person existing but doesn't demand that they like it and become an advocate for it.

I agree with you, generally, but this doesn't seem like fencesitting to me (admittedly, this was posted after One Brow's call out, so an argument can be made that it was motivated by a perception of vitriol by OB):

Call Thomas by whatever pronoun you want but Lia is a biological male pretending to be a biological female. Lia's charade may be motivated by wanting what is presented to the world to match some interior feeling but it is still a charade and Lia Thomas is still a biological male even when wearing a dress.

 

[Gameface]

I agree with you, generally, but this doesn't seem like fencesitting to me (admittedly, this was posted after One Brow's call out, so an argument can be made that it was motivated by a perception of vitriol by OB):

One person said that. I said that many posters on that list didn't deserve to be labeled as bigots... I didn't say that none of them did.

 

[One Brow]

I think you listing a bunch of posters and then collectively calling them all bigots was... unproductive.

Possibly. I find it unlikely that it pushed anyone where they were not already going.

I think many of the posters on that list did not qualify for that label.

I greatly appreciate your perspective and I also greatly appreciate your advocacy.

I also know you well enough (as a jazzfanz poster) to know that you wouldn't want me to pull any punches or hold back any criticism even when you are the subject of it.

Of course. If anything, you're being too nice about this criticism right now, compared to what I guess your feeling.

Taking fence sitters and telling them that they are your enemy is a mistake, imho. Especially on an issue like this, which as I expressed, is new and complicated and confusing for many people. As people work through how they feel about this issue is I want to provide them a landing place that allows them to recognize the legitimacy of a transgender person existing but doesn't demand that they like it and become an advocate for it.

I don't recall encouraging anyone else to advocate, and insincere advocacy wouldn't be helpful anyhow.

While I respect your position that people need time, the truth is that people are suffering, especially those who, unlike our children, are not safe enough to even be out. While I like the courage and persuasiveness of King, I find his Letter from a Biringham Jail sufficient that I can not agree to use your tactics.

 

[gandalfe]

One person said that. I said that many posters on that list didn't deserve to be labeled as bigots... I didn't say that none of them did.

Well said. (Altho I was about to say "Well said, sir" and realized I didn't know if sir was the correct honorific, and so was going to do "sir/ma'am/other," and then thought that would be kind of ****ish, and then considered "gentlebeing" instead, and then thought that sounded mocking. The hardest thing about this stuff for me is trying to figure out what people want to be called - but the other side of that is that 90+% stick with traditional gender identity, so I would hope that if I get it wrong in a case or two people would be understanding if I try to correct myself in the future. If not, then they're either going thru some stuff, or just are jerks anyway, and in either case there's nothing I can do about that. To continue the longest parenthetical of the night, I will just refer to Neil Gaiman's quote: "I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile.")

 

[One Brow]

Well said. (Altho I was about to say "Well said, sir" and realized I didn't know if sir was the correct honorific,

No one expects perfection, and there is nothing wrong with an honest error. Gameface has been fairly clear he's a man. I actually put my pronouns (he/him/his) in my Zoom name.

 

[Gameface]

Possibly. I find it unlikely that it pushed anyone where they were not already going.


Of course. If anything, you're being too nice about this criticism right now, compared to what I guess your feeling.


I don't recall encouraging anyone else to advocate, and insincere advocacy wouldn't be helpful anyhow.

While I respect your position that people need time, the truth is that people are suffering, especially those who, unlike our children, are not safe enough to even be out. While I like the courage and persuasiveness of King, I find his Letter from a Biringham Jail sufficient that I can not agree to use your tactics.

I'm not being too nice about how I'm feeling. At least not to you. I'm attempting to be too nice to other people so that maybe they won't hold their tongue when someone they know is talking about the evil and destruction that transgender people are causing to our society with a wink and a nod towards how it wouldn't be a bad thing if they all just died or went away.

I'm not being too nice to you at all. I would never pay you such an insult.

 

[gandalfe]

No one expects perfection, and there is nothing wrong with an honest error. Gameface has been fairly clear he's a man. I actually put my pronouns (he/him/his) in my Zoom name.

I have it in my email sig now, mostly because I just moved offices a few weeks ago, so I had to update it anyway. As I tried explaining to someone else, it's not like I actually care what I'm called, but if it makes just 1 person who DOES care feel less self-conscious about putting it in THEIR .sig, well, that seems like a good use of my time. (Even if it's just 1% of the reason they feel comfortable, or 0.1%, whatever, doesn't matter.)

To be honest, my preferred pronoun is actually "you," as I'd rather people talk to me than about me.