Stopping by because of the latest in cruelty disguised as "concern" in Utah.

https://www.axios.com/2024/01/31/utah-governor-sign-bill-bathroom-transgender-access

The Utah state "legislature" passed a bill that restricts restroom access to trans people with the possibility of jail time. All in the name of "protecting women."

The reason I'm bringing this up is because of how often I keep hearing those same arguments on this board. Here's one with some of the worst.

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2465928,2465928#msg-2465928

I and anybody have posted on here multiple times about how all these are based on misinformation, cruelty and panic. We even provided sources while several posters just repeat the same misinformation louder. Here are some more sources that I emailed to Susan.

https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/four-myths-about-trans-athletes-debunked

https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/transgender-exclusion-sports

https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-real-threat-to-womens-sports-isnt-transgender-athletes-its-underfunding-and-lack-of-resources

https://now.org/blog/debate-about-trans-girls-and-women-in-school-sports-spreads-transphobia-and-bigotry-through-the-false-lens-of-fairness/

All of these point out that physical differences are minor while the constant call to ban trans athletes is justification for anti-trans laws.

We tried to tell you all, but all we got was infantilizing, love bombing, and gloating over "winning" a perceived debate match.

Why do I care? Because the woman I love is trans and I'm tired of dealing with all the cis-straight tantrums over people like her existing. You're not "defending women and women's sports," you're just spreading hate and trying to hide from accountability. I live, cook, sleep, and love with one of the people summer and Lot's Wife call a threat when they haven't met trans people. And don't think I forgot about Rubicon and Done & Done's gloating and jeering in the thread linked above.

Meanwhile, we just want to watch animated shows, game, and cuddle. We've been together long enough to watch all of "One Piece" together and I want us together longer.

We could have had a life where we didn't have to worry about laws targeting LGBTQ+ folks (I'm a cis bisexual male, so that hate fucks me over too) and all the cis-straights had to do was treat trans and nonbinary folks with basic decency. But no, instead we get shit like the above law and the thread below.

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2506848

It's almost like the anti-trans laws are just being made to target people for superficial reasons while doing harm instead of good.

In advance,

"It's a complicated issue," -cut the crap. One side is advocating discrimination while the other wants trans people to be treated like people. Quit hiding behind ignorance and rectify the ignorance.

"transgender nonsense" - see my rant on time wasters under "it's a phase."

"Defending women's sports" -as I said multiple times, you're only defending cissexism (the idea that trans people don't exist and are just cis) and the Mormon bullshit about gender. I thought leaving that was part of leaving Mormonism.

"Athletes got us Title XI, it should be cis athletes only"- translation: 'fuck them, I got mine!"

"It's a phase"- see my rant on time wasters under "transgender nonsense."

"difference of opinion"- excuse me? Advocating for discrimination based on a moral panic and outdated science is a "different opinion?" This is civil rights, not the ending of "Game of Thrones!"

"You have to let things go"- again, excuse me? People want to pass laws restrcting rights of people like my girlfriend and her friends, that's not something I can forgive.

summer, Lot's Wife, Rubicon, Done & Done- don't bother posting on this thread.

anybody- thanks for continuing to care. Don't ever lose that.

May I add that it took almost two weeks for Nex Benedict’s death to become national news.

My god, that's tragic. Beaten to death at school. We have monsters among us.

Yes. Nex should have been allowed to grow up, not beaten to death. I don't want to ever meet anyone who would defend doing that.

So thinking trans-women have an athletic advantage over cis-women is the same thing as defending violence against trans-people?

You live in a very simple world.

The police determined that the fight, if you can call it that, was not related to the death. I do not expect a retraction.

Of course you don’t, because the police are infallible.

Beth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> May I add that it took almost two weeks for Nex Benedict’s death to become national news.

I read about that case. Teachers across the country are discussing it. IMO it's not as clear-cut as it appears at first glance. I think it needs to be thoroughly investigated. If the local police can't do a fair job of it, then perhaps Federal authorities need to be brought in.

> summer, Lot's Wife, Rubicon, Done & Done- don't
> bother posting on this thread.

Go start your own board, ookami. Then you can decide who can post and who cannot.

> I live, cook, sleep, and love with
> one of the people summer and Lot's Wife call a
> threat when they haven't met trans people.

How do you know whom summer and I know?

as far as I know, women do their business in stalls, out of sight of others in the bathroom designated for women.

slowly there's been a change to any gender restrooms, including in some schools; that's progress that will eventually benefit most everyone Except extremists.

It's a horrible law designed by horrible people in a horrible state. Why would anyone expect anything else?

Megan Rapinoe on trans women in sport — objections to their presence is a smokescreen for normalizing oppression.

“We as a country are trying to legislate away people’s full humanity,” she told Time magazine in an interview.

“It’s particularly frustrating when women’s sports is weaponized. Oh, now we care about fairness? Now we care about women’s sports? That’s total [BS]. And show me all the trans people who are nefariously taking advantage of being trans in sports. It’s just not happening,” said Rapinoe…

<<SNIP>>

“ Rapinoe advocates a more inclusive approach to sports, saying that she would “absolutely” welcome a transgender woman onto the USWNT.

“‘You’re taking a “real” woman’s place,’ that’s the part of the argument that’s still extremely transphobic,” Rapinoe told Time. “I see trans women as real women. What you’re saying automatically in the argument – you’re sort of telling on yourself already – is you don’t believe these people are women. Therefore, they’re taking the other spot. I don’t feel that way.”

Rapinoe added: “The most amazing thing about sports is that you play and you’re playing with other people, and you’re having fun and you’re being physically active.

“We’re putting this all through the lens of competition and winning. But we’re talking about people’s lives. That’s where we have to start.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/10/sport/megan-rapinoe-trans-rights-us-soccer-spt-intl/index.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2024 09:13PM by Beth.

“N.Y. County Order Targets Transgender Women and Girls in Sports”

“ A new ban in Long Island’s Nassau County prohibits girls’ and women’s teams with transgender athletes from competing at public facilities, the latest effort in a nationwide push to limit participation in women’s sports.

“ A county on Long Island, N.Y., is making more than 100 facilities off limits to athletic organizations that allow transgender girls and women to compete on teams that match their gender identity, staking out a position in the nationwide debate over how and when transgender athletes can participate in women’s sports.

“Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and a Republican, signed an executive order on Thursday requiring any sports league or organization that wants to use a county parks department facility to “expressly designate” its teams as male, female or coed based on members’ assigned sex at birth.

“The policy takes effect immediately and does not require legislative approval. The governor, the New York attorney general and the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the ban was illegal and suggested legal action could be imminent.

“The move was the latest in a series of efforts by officials across the country to bar transgender athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity, particularly in girls’ and women’s sports. In the past several years, more than 20 states have passed laws restricting transgender athletes from playing school sports on teams that do not match the sex they were assigned at birth, according to ESPN.”

<<SNIP>>

“ Gov. Kathy Hochul, in a statement to The New York Times on Thursday, accused Mr. Blakeman of “bullying trans kids.”

“There is nothing lower than trying to score cheap political points by putting a target on the backs of some of our state’s most vulnerable children,” she said. “We’re proud New York has some of the nation’s strongest protections for the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community, and my Administration is committed to enforcing these laws.”

<<SNIP>>

“When Mr. Blakeman was asked at the news conference how many transgender athletes competed in Nassau County, he said he did not know. He said that fewer than 1 percent of the county’s residents identified as transgender, without citing a source, and that he was not sure how many, if any, competed at county facilities.

“Instead, he referred to transgender girls who competed on women’s teams outside New York in his remarks, saying that he wanted to “get ahead of the curve here in Nassau County.”

“As Mr. Blakeman signed the order, a small group of protesters gathered outside the county executive and legislative building where the news conference was taking place, chanting, “Trans kids are our kids.”

“Juli Grey-Owens, the executive director of Gender Equality New York, a group that took part in the protest, said that in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, which have a combined population of around 2.9 million, there were about 17,000 transgender people.

“The bigger question, Ms. Grey-Owens said, was how many transgender athletes were even involved in local women’s and girls’ sports.

“Every time that question is asked, they come back with no answer,” she said. “Because they have a solution looking for a problem.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/nyregion/nassau-county-trans-ban.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Xk0.yuhJ.yNg8YecZTa45&smid=url-share

Well, ookami, I don't care what you think. How do you like that? I am still opposed to having trans women participate in women's sports, and if anything, my attitude about that has grown more restrictive.

Shouldn't it be OK to acknowledge that there are complexities to life that don't have clear cut answers?

It seems clear to me that the anti-trans crowd specifically picks bathrooms and sports precisely for the associated, legitimate concerns, so that they can leverage them and amplify them into illegitimate hostilities. That the concerns have been maliciously weaponized doesn't mean that they aren't valid.

If Mr. Tyson were to finally admit that his feminine voice is a product of his feminine mind and he wanted to enter the women's ring, he'd leave a trail of very broken women on his way to the championship. Even at his age. And there would be many cold minded activists seen shrugging their shoulders and heard mumbling something about the cost of equality.

Trans women are women, and trans men are men, but trans women are not cis women and trans men are not cis men.

There will be differences, and dismissing that reality leads to absurdities.

Thank you.

I hear what you’re saying. You also said “if mr. Tyson…”

People are setting these “if” traps of the extremist hypotheticals. Has Mike Tyson come out as trans? Serious question.

These are scare tactics and panic-inducing arguments not based on the reality on the ground.

It's not a trap of any sort. Hyperbole and hypothesis are often used to make a point.

Here is the "reality on the ground":

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7930971/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205132404.htm#:~:text=But%20even%20with%20roughly%20uniform,with%20time%20and%20with%20purpose.

Biological sex sometimes makes a huge difference.

You’re wrong. You used an example of a GOAT and possibly the most brutal sport. This guy bit off a piece Evander Holyfield’s ear, for Pete’s sake! But I ‘ll play. We have to address certain questions.

1. Is Mike Tyson on HRT?
2. Has he lost muscle and bone mass?
3. Is boxing a sport that tests for hormone levels, esp within the context of doping? Pretty sure it is.


If we’re talking about kids, are they intersex? On hormone blockers? Pre- or post-pubescent?

Using Mike Tyson and boxing is like turning the tenor of the conversation up to 11.

Your questions are specific to the example and irrelevant to the point.

There are differences between trans and cis, and denying that reality gives your foes all the fuel they need to exploit, amplify and weaponize that lack of integrity.

Both of your articles do not address trans people, so they’re irrelevant to this discussion.

Where are the studies on trans people?

Circling back to HRT, trans women who take HRT do so to bring their bodies inline with their gender identity — IOW to redistribute fat and LOSE muscle mass. Androgen blockers reduce testosterone production thereby reducing muscle mass and the ability to increase it. Estrogen makes you build fat and reduces bone density.

What metric are we going to use to exclude trans people that does not prevent cis gender athletes from competing?

Do trans women have to take hormones to be considered women?

I fail to understand why HRT is relevant.

I already explained why many trans people take HRT, and to ask that question is to fundamentally misunderstand what it is to be trans.

ETA: It’s not that you need to be on HRT to be trans. definitionally, a transgender person is someone whose gender identity does not comport with the gender they were assigned at birth. As a consequence, many transgender people seek out HRT to bring their bodies inline with their gender identity. If you are asking whether a trans person should be allowed to compete in a sport, and you are arguing along biological lines, you have to address whether they are on HRT, because HRT affects biology.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2024 12:16AM by Beth.

Humberto Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Your questions are specific to the example and
> irrelevant to the point.
>
> There are differences between trans and cis, and
> denying that reality gives your foes all the fuel
> they need to exploit, amplify and weaponize that
> lack of integrity.


Show me where I said there is no difference. That’s why I brought up HRT, because HRT causes CHANGES in the BODY.

*** im tapping out for a few because my cat is harassing me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2024 12:21AM by Beth.

the Negro Leagues.

Women wanted to play sports, tried to join men’s teams bc that’s all their was, and men were like nope, the ladies might get an owie. Discrimination. Good times.

Maybe the reason we sex segregate sports is not to protect women, but to protect men’s egos.

Beth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>> Women wanted to play sports, tried to join men’s teams bc that’s all their was, and men were like nope, the ladies might get an owie. Discrimination. Good times.

> Maybe the reason we sex segregate sports is not to protect women, but to protect men’s egos.

Beth, I think it depends on the sport. Where there is physical contact, it could be quite dangerous for most women, depending.

When I was in high school, Title IX came through, and a bunch of my friends and I advocated for a girl's track team (the boys already had one.) I received my initial training in the javelin from one of the boys, and he was quite nice about it -- they all were. But if I would have tried to compete with them, I never would have made the team. OTOH, on the girl's side, I was one of the top one or two throwers depending on the year, and my team won the county championship every year I was on it (we had a lot of fine athletes.) Title IX is about equitable access to sports at the school level for girls and women. And it's more than just getting a team and the chance to compete, it's also about being able to compete fairly. Title IX allowed me and my friends access to the same level of healthy after-school activities that the boys had.

Point taken w/r/t cis gender competition.

I didn't say you, specifically, said that. I was only reiterating my point.

It is being said, both in word and deed, in society at large.

Putting Lia Thomas in a pool with cis women was a very public act interpreted by many as a dismissal of the realities of the differences between cis and trans women. The concerns with this act are real and expressed by many who competed with her. To deny that there are legitimate concerns with scenarios like this, as ookami does, is to deny a reality.

My point isn't about sports specifically, or bathrooms specifically, or HRT at all. It's that there are some differences generally between cis people and trans people that get denied by some, giving bigots something to latch onto
and exploit. Integrity recognizes reality, good or bad, and deals with it.

From where I sit, I'll never have to personally worry about any of these differences. They are edge cases. None of them matter in my life contexts. The trans women and men that I interface with are just women and men.

But it's these edge cases and how they're handled that are driving the societal conversion and providing the bigots the toeholds they need to demonize and discriminate, and the people who put Lia Thomas in the water did more harm to trans acceptance than good. Not because I say so, but because the reverberating societal conversation says so.

The weightlifter Laurel Hubbard was ranked 219 in the world when she retired from competition as a man in 2001. She took 15 or so years off and returned to the sport as a nearly middle-aged woman and rose to a rank of number seven in the world.

The swimmer Lia Thomas was ranked 554 among men in the United States in the 200m. After her transition, she ranked fifth among women. Before her transition she was ranked 65th in the 500m as a man, and after she ranked first as a woman. The numbers speak for themselves.

ookami vacillates between saying that science proves his point until presented with science he does not like, in which case he furiously tells us that sports is above science and the discussion is really about inclusion. Then he produces as evidence papers that are explicitly labeled and distributed as talking points, advocacy pieces, as if propaganda were argument.

Are people using sports as a cudgel against trans-people? Absolutely. Does that put people like me in an awkward position? Yes. But that doesn't change the fact that having been through adolescence as a man gives a trans-woman advantages that cis-women do not enjoy.

Watch what happens when trans-women are allowed to compete against cis-women in MMA. The discussion will return to reality in about one round.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2024 11:43PM by Lot's Wife.

“Watch what happens when trans-women are allowed to compete against cis-women in MMA. This discussion will return to reality in about one round.“

Is this in the works?

There is discussion of it.

My kid said that trans women are already competing in MMA and trans women in sports is nothing new.

Okay, my kid says that trans women have always been competing because of Air Bud rules, but the freaking out is new (past 5-10 years). She also says it’s political. We always need a boogeyman.

> Okay, my kid says that trans women have always
> been competing because of Air Bud rules, but the
> freaking out is new (past 5-10 years).

I'd love to see your daughter's sources on past trans-women in fighting sports.


---------------
> She also says it’s political. We always need a boogeyman.

She is correct. We live in a time of great opposition to trans-people, and sports is one of the issues that the bigots use in their war.

My point is simply that motive is not the same thing as factual accuracy; the fact that anti-trans people adduce 20 arguments does not mean that all 20 are incorrect.

“ I'd love to see your daughter's sources on past trans-women in fighting sports.”

Sorry I missed this. She just rattled off the names of the two women you found. She talks about this stuff all day in affinity groups. She sent me a Wikipedia article of transgender people in sports. Likely you already found it, but here it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_people_in_sports

Through 2022 there had been two trans-women in MMA. The first one was Fallen Fox in 2014. The second was Alana McLaughlin in 2021, who competed in MMA only once.

Theirs were small events. I cannot find any mention of other trans-women who have fought in MMA although I suspect there may well be some at the local level. The big organizations are considering the matter and encountering opposition from exactly where one would expect.

I've said this before and will say it again: trans-people should have every sporting opportunity that other people have. But that should not be at the expense of cis-women.

So, your point about MMA is moot.

How so?

You wrote, “Watch what happens when trans-women are allowed to compete against cis-women in MMA. This discussion will return to reality in about one round.“

That’s been the case since 2014. Both competitors’ hormone levels, etc. fell within the guidelines for the sport. All is well. No one cancelled Christmas.

So you are arguing that two instances prove your case?

Would it change anything if I added the details--like the fact that Fallen Fox sent her opponent to the hospital in 58 seconds? I didn't include such facts because they are anecdotal and cannot be interpreted as statistically significant.

But two trans-women's having competed in MMA over a decade hardly vindicates your position that there will be no problem if hundreds of them do.

Again, you can't point to what I admit are statistically dubious anecdotes as statistically significant evidence that you are right.

“Fallen Fox sent her opponent to the hospital in 58 seconds”

MMA is a brutal fucking sport, my dear.

That's why I didn't offer those details in my initial post. I never considered them relevant.

Well why bring them up now?

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So you are arguing that two instances prove your
> case?
>


1. You said when trans women are in MMA, shit will hit the fan
2. Trans women have been in MMA for 10 years
3. Your case made no sense - you didn’t bother to Google is trans women were in MMA before you said that.

You have no point, except for the one on the top of your head :P

Do you know any counter examples of transgender women who have not gone on to dominate their sport? Is two people winning a statistical norm? Prove the link that trans women athletes outperform cis women athletes.

I have been explicit about the need for data, as opposed to anecdote, in this discussion. But that problem cuts both ways--as the article you linked indicates.

Okay, so the two women you mentioned could be statistical outliers and not a sound basis for excluding trans women from the sport?

You mean Hubbard and Thomas?

Well, anecdote comes a lot closer to statistical significance if its magnitude is huge than if it is small--and Hubbard's and Thomas's improvements are surely extreme.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2024 01:15AM by Lot's Wife.

Parts don't make you what you are.

What's the difference between a trans girl who got treatment at young age and cis girl with CAIS?

Not a lot for all practical purposes.

What we are really talking about is human perception.

Suppose we were talking about white people with black ancestry.

Shhh! Big Taboo! Good thing to use as a "threat" against someone to get at them, right?

It's the same thing.

Trans people are not the problem. Other people who can't accept that sexuality lies in the human brain and is not a matter of anatomy or chromosomes are the problem. It's only a problem because of the three letter word "s - e - x" and anything dealing with sex is "bad."


There are only a small number of gender variant people as a percentage of the population. There's no "threat." Fourteen year old boys aren't going to spend weeks and months pretending to be girls just so they can go to the girl's locker room. Lot easier to sneak in and hide a wireless camera.

We've seen this before -- pick a small minority, demonize them, use them to whip up fear and hysteria, and then "eliminate" them.

That's the real story here.

Is it possible to agree with what you say here and still think it was a bad idea to put Lia Thomas in a pool with cis women?

What's disturbing in this thread--and in fact in much of ookami's fucking* bullshit* rants--is the binary nature of the thinking. ookami feels strongly, so he is correct and anyone who disagrees is evil. Get in line or else.





*I had an earlier post deleted from this thread for profanity. My hope here is that if I restrict my bad language precisely to the terms ookami has used, I will avoid hostile fire from the mods who evidently allow some posters to use language others may not.

LOL LW. The mods made the correct call. You swore AT someone. HUGE difference. No one is picking on you. Get down off the cross, someone may need the wood.

And ookami has not cursed at me in the past?

LOL

Then you should have reported it. My point stands.

I did. In fact I reported it six or seven times as the curses multiplied. In one case the post was taken down, but the fact remains that many of ookami's posts, including personal attacks that violate the board's rules, are still up.

There are two standards here whether you care to admit it or not.

Bullshit. You violated the rules by calling someone a name. The post got pulled because of it. Period. All the "what about"ism you can muster up doesn't change the facts.

And a bad idea to put Michael Phelps in a pool with cis gender men?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2024 12:37AM by Beth.

ookami Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> anybody- thanks for continuing to care. Don't ever
> lose that.

Thanks.

I won't :)