I think most commenters here are missing the point.
There is a more extreme reaction to transgender people as opposed to gay or lesbian people, because of issues like sports and bathrooms. And that hits at people’s sense of injustice. For example if you have a young daughter, a lot of people will hate the idea of a person with a penis going into the women’s room and being around there little girl. Or if that daughter grows up and joins a sports team, the idea of somebody who is hormonally male and thus naturally more muscular competing against your daughter is unpleasant.
Put differently, I think a lot of people we now classify as ‘transphobic’ don’t actually have much problem with trans people themselves. Rather, with how the efforts to ensure trans people receive the full treatment of their chosen gender can affect the rest of society.
For me personally, I don’t know what the answer is. I generally don’t care which bathroom you use as long as you wash your hands. I have no problem with anyone presenting themselves to the world as whatever they wish, if it makes you happier than by all means. At the same time though, I don’t think it’s transphobic to point out that somebody who is largely or entirely biologically male will have a natural competitive advantage in the field of sports.
So while I certainly don’t want to exclude anybody, I think there is at least a little justification for restricting some women’s sports to those who are genetically female.I think that one thing you and other centrists are missing is that any kind of regulation isn’t just a regulation on trans women, it’s a regulation on ALL women. It won’t be just trans women that will be put in a position of constantly having their genitals checked.
Be it for bathrooms, sports, whatever, you’re opening us up to a world where anyone that fancies themselves an authority will feel empowered to sexually assault any women they want. That’s what’s at stake here. This is a women’s issue, not just a trans issue. Hell, even men will end up getting harassed in bathrooms.
Meanwhile, actual trans people are going to by and large steer clear of segregated contact sports like they’ve always done, feeling the pain of exclusion and marginalization while deserving none of it.
I think I’ve heard there are a lot of genetically male, but born female people in sports. I wonder if the same people are against those people playing in sports.
Idk how many transphobic people just care about specific issues. There’s a lot of “groomer” rhetoric, hate, and general disgust. It’s easy to get people to hate what they don’t understand; and a lot of media is trying their hardest to cultivate hate against trans people to create an out-group, so they can control the in-group.
create an out-group so they can control the in-group
That’s not just the media. It’s basically everyone in power. Media, politics, government, corporations… Everyone.
It applies to the Democrats too. Especially in the 2016 election, they managed to successfully make Republicans the out-group. But I believe that was hugely damaging to the country, it created a lot more division when what is really needed is unity to focus on the issues that most people can agree on.
Because here’s the cold truth- there is a body of policies that probably 80% of Americans would agree on. Things like efficient government, ending government corruption, reducing corporate control over government and elections, reducing income inequality, etc.
To quote Dylan Ratigan’s famous rant, the United States is being extracted. And I think most people would like to stop that extraction.
But no major candidate stands for that. Bernie did, but the DNC iced him out because their wealthy corporate donors didn’t want Bernie.And that in my opinion is why Trump won. Harris certainly didn’t push any major message of radical reform, just a bunch of the usual ‘help the middle class’ talk. Trump may be terrifying, but he does push a message of radical reform and changing the system.
To write that off and say half the country is racist or misogynist is to avoid learning from this situation.
I don’t think anyone really cares about sports or bathrooms when it comes down to it It’s all about the patriarchy. Not a single person I’ve met has mentioned a woman who became a man going into a men’s restroom as a problem. Or them entering mens sports outside of the dimly vieled “oh well they could get hurt and a man needs to protect them from making their own decisions”
It all comes back to people thinking men have to take care of women because they can’t take care of themselves without assistance.
It is a reflection of how weak the people who think such are. And projecting and trying to control others lives because they don’t believe they can take care of themselves.
If you believe in people having freedom, stop trying to fucking chain them to your ideals. (Not aimed at you specifically)
I’m going to get all sorts of fun responses for trying to empathize with those with whom I disagree (instead of just writing “dumb bigots”) but here goes:
First, remember that even gay marriage is fairly new to America, it’s been around for less time than the MCU.
There are a lot of folks who almost have mental whiplash, gay marriage went from illegal to “you could get fired for being vocally uncomfortable about it” in fairly quick order.
Now, to make things even more wild for those folks, mainstream culture is pretty insistent that gender isn’t even a thing anymore. Add in some pretty wild news stories/videos*, worries for their kids and the notion that the Left refuses to say there might be any issues whatsoever and you can kinda see where a backlash could crop up.
- eg: trans women being reassigned to women’s prisons and then assaulting the women etc, a 6"2, 220lb woman practically murdering her handball oppoisition, some fairly sketchy research practices by some of the authorities (WPATH) on the subject etc.
Can we compromise? No trans people in sports and trans people have their own unique prison or cell block and young teens can take puberty blockers and estrogen so they don’t need to try to pay 150,000 in facial feminization plastic surgery at 18 or 19, money of which they can only get quickly from sex work and not going to school? Sound like a good compromise?
I don’t know what the answers are!
A lot of this stuff is mostly at the state level which seems almost reasonable.
I imagine the big actual fight on this would come down to when are parents able to over-ride their kids wishes and vice versa. It’s a shitty battle for trans kids; if you don’t let them access medicine early, it puts them on a brutal path as you pointed out. But I also can’t imagine conservatives would be chill letting their kids alter their sex at such a young age. (From the parents’ perspective, what if this is just some teenage drama with lifelong repercussions?)
We don’t let kids get tattoos (and thank Christ for that, otherwise I’d probably have Wolverine fighting the Zerg on my chest or something) this seems bigger.
I dunno, like most real world issues, it’s tricky. And at the fun intersection of children and a rapidly changing perspective of gender, well damn, there are going to be some ugly fights.
mainstream culture
Talk to any random person on the street and they don’t fucking care about identity politics.
Extremists are not the mainstream no matter how much they shout about it.
No, most people aren’t going out of their way to hurt trans people, but those loud extremists are creating a negative connotation in some people’s minds. That’s no different from racism.
Extremists on both sides are a problem, so when you say “those loud extremists” a reasonable person would have no idea who you’re talking about. I think you’re correct in either instance, but I doubt that’s what you where going for.
Oh. My bad. I thought a reasonable person would assume I meant the loud extremists that match the topic of this post.
There’s a reason conservatives campaign against “woke.” And most conservatives I know socially called the election a win against woke, even if they couldn’t exactly name a woke policy that Harris proposed.
Harris explicitly didn’t play identity politics, and I applaud her for it. I think the left is starting to realise even people who agree with them dislike being told what to think … one can dream right.
I like your dream and fully agree on Harris.
Sadly (though I am admittedly a pessimist and would love to be wrong) I think the Left elites/party brass are coming to that realization on identity politics. But I dont think mainstream/cultural Left is and unfortunately, I think Right and centre Right curious voters view the political and cultural Left as the same.
Which I don’t get because they’re all about rape as a jail punishment
You were doing reasonably well, until you diverted to pure transphobia in the last paragraph
The listing of the news/videos they may have seen?
Not the list, but the way you described them, as if these were things that actually happen…
This is part of the thing. If we on the Left can’t have an honest discussion about things that do happen, then it is incredibly hard for anyone not already “on side” to take us seriously.
trans women being reassigned to women’s prisons and then assaulting the women etc https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/09/26/americas-growing-row-over-policies-for-transgender-prisoners “Tremaine Carroll, a transferred inmate serving 25 years to life for violent crimes, was charged with raping two women in ccwf and faces trial soon; Carroll denies the charges. In 2022 an inmate moved to Rikers Island women’s prison in New York received a seven-year sentence for attempted rape.”
This is a tricky issue, trans women in men’s prisons are also at risk. But to straight up deny these things happen and deny the existence of non transphobic concerns, well, that’s hard to take seriously.
a 6"2, 220lb woman practically murdering her handball oppoisition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SJYdXj7Kac&ab_channel=WilsonB9000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Mouncey
Murder was hyperbole, probably inappropriate. But damn, she is just so much bigger than her entire team and everyone on the opposition in all of those clips. (She also dominates in Aussie rules football.)
some fairly sketchy research practices by some of the authorities (WPATH) on the subject https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/06/27/research-into-trans-medicine-has-been-manipulated
The whole article is discomforting and worth reading. But, while WPATH (what is supposed to, and claims to be and independent science based organization) was creating their guidelines: “But an email in October 2020 from WPATH figures, including its incoming president at the time, Walter Bouman, to the working group on guidelines, made clear what sort of science WPATH did (and did not) want published. Research must be “thoroughly scrutinised and reviewed to ensure that publication does not negatively affect the provision of transgender health care in the broadest sense,” it stated. Mr Bouman and one other coauthor of that email have been named to a World Health Organisation advisory board tasked with developing best practices for transgender medicine.”
Again, I’m generally on board with trans rights etc but to say there aren’t issues just makes it that much harder to take us at face value.
This is a tricky issue, trans women in men’s prisons are also at risk
“Also at risk”
The fact that you equate cherry picked single instance anecdotes as comparable to entrenched violence and discrimination against trans folk as being somehow comparable is the part that makes it transphobia.
Murder was hyperbole
It was, yeah. Despite her “murdering” the opposition, from the very article you linked, Australia finished 5th.
There are 7 players on a handball team. She scored 23 goals across 6 games, for an average of just under 4 goals per game (3.83 to be specific).
The total goals scored by Australia in those games was 160, which works out to an average of 3.81 per Australian player across those 6 games. Her “murdering” of her opponents consisted of having a 0.02% higher average than her team mates.
The fact that you parrot lines like “murdering” and look at videos designed to make it look open and shut, whilst not bothering to investigate the reality of the situation is what makes it transphobic.
The whole article is discomforting and worth reading. But, while WPATH (what is supposed to, and claims to be and independent science based organization) was creating their guidelines:
An article posted on the economist, who has Helen Joyce, a vocally transphobic journalist as one of their senior staff. Linking to an article that has been mostly circulated on various transphobic websites, calling out WPATH for being biased and getting in the way of evidence based research? Whilst defending the Cass review, which has been widely called out by many international medical bodies for its own bias and inconsistent approach to evidence.
The fact that you’re worried about WPATH as the real issue here is telling…
You are misunderstanding.
Most reasonable, casual folks, who aren’t up on who Helen Joyce is or other trans poli sco lore, these are all fairly reasonable takes. The Economist is generally regarded as one of the most reputable papers around and for good reason.
I’ve also not presented my beliefs, just “here’s some pretty mainstream concerns.” I made that pretty clear in my opening statement (and pointed out that pretty much this exactly would happen.)
You’ve clearly encountered these arguments before (definitely didn’t watch the video which is fucking sympathetic). I’m not making these arguments.
I’m saying that reasonable people, who read one of the most reputable papers in the world can in fact have reservations on some trans issues. I can disagree with them but it’s not just bigotry.
Yes, they’re designed to seem that way.
Which is why I earlier stated that my issue wasn’t with listing them, but specifically, the way you presented them.
I’ve also not presented my beliefs
You used the word “murdering” to describe a transgender woman playing sports with other women, despite her playing at a level comparable to them.
You absolutely presented your beliefs.
U are literally denying objective reality at best it weakens ur arguments at worse it makes u look like a grifter.
Bruh check out the guys post history, read their comment history, they arent exactly a trans ally
I don’t recall posting about trans anything, can you refresh my memory?
Edit: Oh, it’s you! Are you making this assumption because I disagree with you and condemn the advocating of violence on republicans and democrats?!?
This aligns with what I have heard from folks I know in that world. Fear motivated by exaggerating one off and isolated incidents. The information silos in the conservative world (especially news) is frightening.
Hating gays isn’t cool anymore and will get backlash even from conservatives.
Trans people are the new gays in this sense
I would love for you to be right. If you’re in the US, though, voter data doesn’t seem to support that.
It would be amazing to live in a country where half the populace agreed that my son has the right to simply exist in peace but I don’t think we do anymore.
That’s a good point. And political movements like trans exclusionary LGB are there to piggy back off of.
Homophobia is illegal in Romania
That doesnt stop every single person i know that isnt from the capital be openly homophobic
I figure racism will stick around long after transphobia is out of style.
Because no middle class white kid ever sat their parents down and said “mom, dad… I’m black”
It’s who their owners say to hate, so they hate them. Could be anyone and for no or any reason. They’re cultists and they do, say, hate, and fear who they’re told to.
Fear, control, indoctrination, tribalism, double standards, poor mortal character, hypocrisy, and because it ‘makes them feel icky’ and so they have to be loud and obvious about it so that they’re community sides with them and doesn’t suspect that they’re (allegedly) total closet cases.
Because conservatives are mostly dumb, and dumb people don’t understand things and won’t make an effort to understand things, and people fear what they don’t understand. Very simple A-to-C.
After it became less acceptable to explicitly hate the gays in public they needed a new target. There’s a lot of people who like being riled up with hatred, who are fearful and need a bogeyman, etc. It’s either human nature or something deeply embedded in our culture. Eventually they will move on and find a new target to focus their hate on.
Not that it really matters as a legitimate cause to dislike trans people, but the 2023 Nashville shooting at a school was done by a trans person.
We have a lot of LGBTI people in our climbing group
I have never had an issue with any of them
But the people trying to be hyper masculine? Yep…
I feel like it’s because they never left high school. A lot of them are simply trying the same thing that worked when they are a kid. Everyone else grows up
Trans people give conservatives feelings in their pants and scare and confuse them. They lash out in fear, hatred, and self-loathing.
Because fascists need a ~scary other~ to scapegoat to erode everyone’s rights.
Uneducated people in rural areas struggle very much with understanding their experiences of others, and have very strange ideas about how the world works. I told my grandmother I wanted to move to Chicago - she’s convinced I’m going to get gang murdered. (She would be horrified if I told her about wandering around LA on foot)
The idea that there are options other than cisgender heterosexual people is threatening to their understanding of their world. Many have not thought about their gender or sexuality; it’s assumed that you’ll get married to the opposite sex, get gender appropriate jobs, have kids, and go to church on Sunday. That’s what life is in Anadarko or Siloam Springs. Many also struggle with unaddressed trauma from the opioid/fent crisis, or military service - so they think the appropriate response to anguish about your body should just be to just cope with it.
Many of these men are secretly bisexual. Many, many, many heterosexually married men seek out sexual encounters with gay men on the side. They would never want to be in a relationship with a man or someone they perceived as a strange, mentally defective man - for many of them that would also assault their understandings of a relationship as more of a property thing. They feel guilty about porn usage, especially the Christian ones, but externalize it as hatred.
The woman are miserable and are committed to making everyone else miserable as well. You gain power in those communities by policing others, especially young women. They are threatened by the idea that they weren’t locked into compulsive heterosexuality and performative femininity. There was a possibility that they could have graduated college, or not had children.
They get the program though. They’re proper Puritans. If life is suffering then the only joy to be had is in watching other people. And what better target than those who are defying our most basic sociological roles? These are the same people who host gender reveal parties - it matters to them. So it must matter to everyone else.
That’s my guess as a trans man at least, obviously I’m biased.
Because most people don’t actually know any trans people, and find unfamiliar things to be weird and scary.
But also because terrible people have weaponized those feelings for personal political gain. Most people probably wouldn’t give a fuck, even if they found them weird, if talking heads weren’t stoking the flames of bigotry.
Cause they were told to.
I’m pretty sure they just think it’s icky.
