Be sure to omit the core of the issue
The Guardian frowns on Ron DeSantis for saying that men shouldn’t compete in women’s races.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has issued a proclamation that a resident of his state is the “rightful” holder of the NCAA 500m freestyle title won by trans swimmer Lia Thomas last week.
Trans swimmer? So Thomas isn’t a real swimmer but just identifies as one?
Also, we can do the scare quotes thing too. DeSantis said a resident of his state is the rightful holder of the NCAA 500m freestyle title “won” by trans swimmer “Lia” Thomas last week. Thomas didn’t actually legitimately win that title, because it was a women’s race and he has a male body.
The Guardian does the careful wording thing throughout – generic “trans” instead of trans woman, to make the story less clear; LGBTQ+ to disguise the fact that it’s purely T. It’s sneaky, and it kind of reveals that they know they’re not being honest.
Thomas made history last Thursday as the first known transgender athlete to win a US college swimming championship when she took the title in Atlanta.
Like there. The issue isn’t transgender athlete, it’s intrusion of a man into a women’s competition.
However, her victory caused a backlash among right-wing politicians as well as groups that oppose transgender athletes taking part in women’s competition.
Not “transgender athletes”; specifically male transgender athletes. We object to it because of the obvious grotesque unfairness, which you’d think the Guardian could mention right up front.
DeSantis’s proclamation has no power to change last week’s result and is a continuation of policies in Florida that target the LGBTQ+ community.
That’s probably true, but the fact remains that Thomas should not have been in that race, for the obvious reasons that the Guardian has still not bothered to mention.
In June, he signed into law the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which bans anyone assigned as male at birth from competing in girls and women’s sports.
Yes, and why is that? Believe it or not the Guardian still doesn’t say.
Thomas has received both support and criticism. On Monday, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said transgender athletes pose a risk to the integrity of women’s sport.
Why? How? Guardian still doesn’t say.
“Gender cannot trump biology. As a federation president, I do not have that luxury. It is a luxury that other organizations not at the practical end of having to deal with these issues have,” Coe told the Daily Telegraph. “But as far as I am concerned, the scientific evidence, the peer-reviewed work we have done, those regulations are the right approach.”
Why? How? Guardian still doesn’t say.
We get four more paragraphs, and still it doesn’t say.
It’s quite extraordinary – a whole long piece on the subject and the Guardian never says why anyone thinks it’s unfair for men to compete on women’s teams.
And why were they “assigned” male at birth? Hmmm. Maybe because they are male? No, couldn’t be.
Some sensible commentary from Matt Yglesias here on how liberals may be misplaying the politics of LGBTQ issues by staking out extreme and unpopular positions on the trans women in sports issue.
Oooh, that’s a nice attempt at not outright lying, while still evading a very key point–namely, that in addition to right-wing politicians, the other groups opposed to this nonsense are progressive feminists. (Let alone getting into the reasons why this isn’t an ‘alliance’ of those two categories–the motives for the opposition are, in fact, themselves opposed. Right-wingers think Gender follows from Sex. TRAs think Sex follows from Gender. GCFs think Sex is Sex and Gender is Steaming Piles of Socially Constructed Bullshit.)
I am so using this! From now on, TiMs are trans steaming piles of socially constructed bullshit. Think that will sound so appealing to them?
As for assigned male at birth, that is so ambiguous, too. People who don’t follow this debate won’t know that is code for “male”. They might know enough about DSDs that they assume someone is referring to one of those cases, where the sex is ambiguous and the doctor arbitrarily chose “male”.
With the whole alphabet soup being simply just another way to say Trans, with organisations originally founded to advance the cause of gays and lesbians becoming cheerleaders exclusively for Trans, has anyone of them considered the Lesbians that William Thomas has cheated out of a position on a team, in a race, of a medal?
Only the ones who engage in wrongthink.
First comes the style guide, then comes the ideology.
It must take a lot of work to be that dishonest and evasive. I wonder, are editors and fellow staff telling them “You can’t say THAT!”, or are they self-censoring at this point, knowing the difference between the Required and the Forbidden, and writing accordingly without correction (or re-education)?
By this point, there’s probably software that edits the text for them. Which would explain a lot.
If Grxmmxrly does not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.
Hahahaha good one.