Local :reddit-logo: is bursting with them right now due to some college swimmer or something. So so so so many "I support trans people / think they deserve a place in society / have a trans friend BUT (transphobia)"
Seen someone talking about Micheal Phelps' natural biological advantages and that seems to shut them up, but other dunks would be appreciated
DO NOT I repeat DO NOT engage with them in the free marketplace of ideas
Apply any of the following questions as appropriate.
Who are your five favorite women athletes, and why do you admire these athletes?
How long have you been a fan of women’s collegiate swimming?
Since you care so much about promoting women’s sports, do you also support Megan Rapinoe and the rest of team USA’s fight for higher compensation? (You can point out that the women’s soccer teams in the US generate more money than the men’s)
Do you think that the trans takeover of women’s sports will include the most popular women’s sport, women’s gymnastics, where the undisputed GOAT is 4’8 Simone Biles, and the most recent all around champion is 5’0 Suni Lee?
If you are concerned about cis women and girls missing out on scholarship opportunities, isn’t a better solution to make colleges and universities tuition free?
Do you also take up the fight to defend women’s sports in any of the biannual Reddit threads about how Serena Williams lost to a low ranked pro men’s tennis player and therefore, no one should know who she is or admire her athletic ability?
Trans men wouldn’t have a significant advantage in men’s gymnastics because men’s gymnastics doesn’t include the balance beam and uneven bars events replacing them with (imo less interesting) strength events like pommel horse and still rings and the less challenging single bar.
I can sort of see how these events might be dangerous for men (cis or post t trans) and other taller people with larger muscles, but the Olympics also doesn’t include men’s rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming. Presumably just because men would be worse at it than women, and we can’t have that.
I think gymnastics are important to bring up in these conversations because sports that include flexibility, grace, and balance challenge the notion that all of athleticism is about cultivating strength, lateral speed, power, and other traits associated with higher testosterone and larger bodies. Obviously people of any gender can possess or improve any of these physical attributes, but so often transphobes don’t recognize that men aren’t actually physically superior to women in all areas of athleticism. Pointing this out really cuts away at their arguments. Because ultimately, most are misogynists who believe that as men, they are inherently superior to women.
You can always point out that their particular form of transphobia is also inherently racist because targeting hormone levels in some bid to "equality" has ended up barring cis women of African ethnicity from competing due to their naturally higher levels of some hormones.
It's almost like these things don't need to be determined in some systemic way, but analized fairly and on a case by case basis.
Yeah a 250lb cis guy putting on a wig and trying to compete in women's sports as a joke isn't cool, but you don't prevent that by also barring trans women from competing. Those two scenarios are totally different, but it's telling that a lot of the people who ask this Roganesque question see them as the same.
It's one of those "why do you lie about beating your wife" type questions because they always frame it as the first case and if you defend that instance it's used to discredit anything else you say.
Shit, remember the conspiracy about Michelle Obama's "manly" arms? Yeah if any liberal starts handwringing about trans women being too "manly" to compete against cis women then I know exactly where to take the conversation next. Conservatives will just take the mask of at that point so at least you know who you're dealing with.
I had this conversation with my mom recently, who's a lib but also a 50 year old upper middle class white woman so it's not surprising she picked up some brain worms.
Basically, her entire viewpoint revolved around her ignorance of the fact that T blockers exist. Once I explained that to her, and talked about the studies of trans military members (which are some of the best info on how exactly transitioning effects athletic performance we have) which show that trans women's performance becomes comparable to cis women's after about a year of hormones, she admitted that she really didn't know anything about the issue beyond her knee-jerk reaction and conceded that I was probably right.
Now if you're arguing someone who you don't have a good enough rapport with that they can admit they were wrong, they won't do it. But that doesn't mean you can't get the ideas in their head and maybe when they're having a self-reflective moment they'll remember them and realize they were wrong retroactively.
Thanks for the Tblocker bit, I knew the rule was 1 year on it but didn't know the reasoning
There really is no winning with these people to be honest. They are ignorant of the science and really don't care to fix that.
This is a huge focus of US conservative media right now, so if these folks are digesting that the best option might be to just ignore them. You're up against dozens of hours of filth being spewed at them daily.
If someone is upset they likely already have a perception that an advantage is being gained. It might be worth addressing that but, honestly, some folks are going to be advantaged so it's better to just address that case directly imo.
They often take for given that sports have an equal playing field, and they don't. Break down this false foundation by, for example, asking if particularly tall people should be banned from basketball. If not, aren't we allowing tall people to compete with an unfair advantage?
If they would ban tall people then they aren't necessarily transphobic they are just really into the sport being "equal". There's not much to say here aside from "I don't care if sports are equal that's part of the reason they're interesting."
Like we don't watch fucking coin flip guessing competitions. (Rock paper scissors tournaments are fun)
yeah the obvious conclusion is that men and women should compete in the same leagues. watch how much chuds "care about protecting women's sports" when you suggest that men should have to compete with them too.
You know that there's no such thing as men's leagues in professional sports. MLB, NFL and NBA all allow women.
Blanket abolishment of gendered divisions in sports is still bad i think bad . You really want to have mixed gender combat sports for example? In a lot of sports it makes sense for no gender split (and already doesnt exist officially) but in a lot it would be very dangerous for the people involve. Also sadly under capitalism a shitton of women athletes would see their incomes and sponsorships be destroyed. No former top 1000 or whatever female tennis player will have a great time being in the 4k+ of totall ranks and never winning any tournament
combat sports are a perfect case. fighters are already segregated by weight class. I don't see how gender categories make it any safer than that. And under capitalism most women's sports leagues are already treated as second-class, even among the best female atheletes. I think affirming that no woman could ever beat a man at the professional level contributes to that.
“why do you care about high school girls sports so much? are you a sex pervert?”
“name the best (girl in said sport) right now if you care so much”
I Love telling them that since they're (usually) men of science, they should do an experiment. hit the gym and take a baseline, then get on T blockers and estrogen for a year and train as hard as they can, then report back. It usually pisses them off a lot but trying to sit there and try to use logic goes nowhere.
Well if you are talking high level sports, you can point to the fact that the IOC (the Olympics) is accepting of trans athletes IIRC.
Yeah, they generally don't seem to care because there are still bIoLoGiCaL dIfFeReNcEs and think the IoC is wrong
This may not apply to the people you deal with, but in my life I happen to know a bunch of transphobes. They also all happen to believe the earth is < 10k years old and evolution is a lie. So when they spout bullshit about "sCiEnCe" I can't but laugh. I'm sure people who think God literally flooded the entire world and brought 2 of every animal on a boat reallu have a good grasp on science w/r/t trans folks. It doesn't help change their minds, but I does help me be able to deal with them.
Don't dox yourself with comments like these
Dozen or so breadcrumbs like this on your account an you could probably be found pretty easy
That only matters if you care. I do not care one bit if people stalk me so much that they can dox me. I can't be easily hurt under capitalism. I'm not going to make it easy for anyone and I don't think anyone would care enough to stalk me to that extent but if they do then have at it.
Sometimes, possibly due to situation or person, you don't want to have this conversation.
You can preemptively derail the argument by making it about technological advantage in sports, rather than the usual transphobic screed. A ski jumper using their puffy coat to catch more air, a swimmer using a particularly aerodynamic cap, the make and model of a relayist's sneakers - simple things to bring up that can reorient the whole conversation. Why don't the Olympics provide standardized equipment? Or just do everything in the nud like ye Greeks of olde? Bonus points if you can subtly suggest that proximity to money is usually the actual deciding factor in competition.
Most transphobes aren't prepared for this, and most politically disengaged folks are just as willing to follow this line of thought as they are the transphobe's.
These people rarely care about sport, let alone women's sports (where these arguments are often focused). I just ignore them and don't engage.
(CW: misogyny) It's a Family Guy guy clip with the usual :cringe: boomer humor, but it shows what shitty men really thinks about women's sport. The venn diagram of "people who hate trans athlete" and "people who support women's sport" is 🔵 🔴
“Unattractive” WNBA players are definitely attractive to other sapphics lol.
Haha I had this same argument with my dad last night. What I learned is
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Conservatives don't realize that trans athletes need to have been on HRT for like a year (I actually don't know the rule but there are rules). They think this girl is literally just if Michael Phelps said "I'm trans" one day and suddenly he can compete against women.
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They do not realize there are also trans men athletes.
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They cannot name any of the trans women athletes who aren't winning a ton of medals. Of course if Lia Thomas was coming in 4th and 5th place no one would care.
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You can say "I think Michael Phelps should be banned from swimming due to his biological differences" to really get the mask to come off. You can also bring up the African women who could not compete due to their testosterone levels in the Olympics if you want some racism with your transphobia
Of course if Lia Thomas was coming in 4th and 5th place no one would care.
Lia herself only won the one race, but of course chuds never talk about her record as a whole. Her last swim meet had her coming in eighth, all in all her collegiate record both pre and post transition is about what you'd expect for a top-tier athlete that doesn't completely dominate the way outliers like Phelps do - one big win, lots of top ten finishes.
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So so so so many “I support trans people / think they deserve a place in society / have a trans friend BUT (transphobia)”
Ask them what they actually mean when they say they "support trans people". When pressed, it just amounts to addressing them by their preferred pronouns or tolerating their presence from a distance. "They deserve a place in society" means they are offering them an alternate designation in addition to (but below) cisgendered people, in a perpetually othered state.
“They deserve a place in society” means they are offering them an alternate designation in addition to (but below) cisgendered people, in a perpetually othered state.
I think that's a really powerful observation to explain to well-meaning people what exactly it is they're suggesting. A place in society simply means undeserving of random acts of violent persecution, but that's an absurdly low bar, even by :amerikkka: standards.
