When you operate with the value of compassion first
Yet more terms that need to be defined. “Compassion” for instance.
If you operate with the value of compassion first, why does the compassion go to the Lia Thomases and not to the women he deprives of wins and medals? Why does he get compassion while they get told to accept it and shut up? Why does he matter while they don’t?
As for just disgusting, it’s what Rapinoe says that’s just disgusting. It doesn’t have to be every scholarship and sport and title to be unfair. There isn’t a rule that says a few people can cheat because it’s only a few. And it’s women who lose these scholarships and titles, women specifically, not men, because women have overall physical disadvantages compared to men. It’s not as if Rapinoe doesn’t know this, but she throws women overboard anyway and urges “compassion” for men who steal women’s places and medals.
Right. Also, first they make this argument, as they keep putting more and more men on women’s teams. Finally, when they start having all-male “women’s” teams, they will switch arguments to: “Doncha know, many man transwomen have been playing on women’s teams for years! It’s not just a few! It’s normal! So now that it has become 100%, chill out; this is a milestone to be celebrated, a culmination of years of progress.” Or something.
Men may not (yet) be taking “every” scholarship, dominating “every” sport, or winning “every” title, but every single spot a man takes in women’s sports deprives a woman of her opportunity to compete. Every single man in women’s sports deprives every woman athlete in the sport of a fair competition.
“Kid’s lives are at risk with the rates of suicide, the rates of depression and negative mental health and drug abuse” — So facilitating their “transitions” would help this situation? Just indulge them in any behavior they want, including hormone treatments and mutilating their bodies? Let them ruin women’s sports and make women’s spaces unsafe? This is the fecking cure they are promoting? Holy sheep dip.
Letting kids do anything they choose isn’t “compassion,” it’s call gross negligence and endangerment.
It’s not like Jesse James robbed every bank, so what’s the big deal?
If participation in sports is now to be based on “compassion,” and “inclusion,” then trans-identified prospective athletes are going to have to line up behind the millions of boys, girls, men, and women who fail to make the team of their choice. Or is their “exclusion” somehow okay? The vast majority of these “excludees” are not going to be allowed to try to game the rules by trying out teams they’re not qualified for. High-schoolers aren’t going to be permitted to sign up for primary school teams. Adults aren’t going to be allowed into children’s leagues. All for excellent reasons that everyone knows and abides by. Nobody calls that “cruel,” or “disgusting.” But somehow, girls and women are forced to give way to male players who are permitted on their teams? How many future Rapinoes are being denied spots on teams right now because of delusionally misguided notions of “inclusion?”
Many trans-supportive comments on twitter threads like this one decry the sudden “hypocritical” interest in women’s sports by those opposed to TiM “inclusion.” This is supposed to be some sort of “gotcha,” and that those supposedly being “caught” are only involved in the debate to stick it to trans identified people. Just like women who organize for the protection of their own rights and safety have no legitimate reason to do so, they are only doing so out of spiteful, malicious, genocidal, anti-trans bigotry. By this same logic, Black people organizing for their own interests don’t really have any reason to do so, they’re doing it for kicks because they just really hate White people.
Yes, that totally sounds like the right side of history to me.
I’m not into sports, but I still get to say “cheating is bad,” whether I follow sports or not. I get to say that permitting cheating, and encouraging cheating, is not good for society, even if I’m not cheated personally. Nobody gets to tell my to whom I am permitted to extend my concern. I get to feel anger and sympathy towards those who are cheated because I am human. That’s what we do. If the attention which that concern and interest shines on you does not put you in a good light, that’s on you, not me. I get to say that your hand is in the cookie jar, even if the cookies are not mine, and even if I don’t happen to like the kind of cookies you’re stealing. The important thing is the theft, not whether or not I happen to like particular sweet treats after meals. Letting you get away with it is not in my interest, or anyone else’s, because you might not limit your thieving to cookies.* Similarly, the sports cheating in question is not happening in a separate reality. The people doing the cheating and allowing it to happen live with the rest of us. How are they to be trusted outside the arena, gymnasium, or board room? Toxic dishonesty, entitlement, and impunity doesn’t wash down the drain in the locker room showers; it doesn’t get left behind under lock and key in the sporting authority’s office desk drawer. It gets carried out into the wider world. But there’s more at stake than broad, theoretical notions of ethics and morality. While the cheaters win their phony victories, women and girls suffer real harm. It is in everyone’s interest to stop that from happening, rather than celebrating and enabling it.
*Given the temperaments of many pro-TiM-inclusion commenters, it seems entirely appropriate that I pitch this argument to the level of a naughty child having to be told why stealing is bad. Mind you, they still wouldn’t get it. We’d get the usual “trans women ARE women,” which is about as cogent an argument as the schoolyard classic “I know you are, but what am I?”
Decent summation? Rapinoe didn’t even correctly state the position she opposes.
Note the present tense. Yes, there are people claiming ‘trans women will take all women’s sports titles (etc.)’ and similar, but these are all phrased as future tense. Zero people are claiming this has already taken place.
Also it doesn’t need to be everyone’s to be bad. Any is bad.
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They KNOW it’s unfair. Or else they would make trans-identified females play on men’s teams. No one is clamoring for that (as far as I know) because these individuals would undoubtedly fail (or be badly injured).
So the argument that it is unfair to trans-identified males not to let them play on women’s teams or in women’s divisions is a load of BS. And show me the evidence that “lives are at risk”. This keeps getting trotted out as the reason for “inclusivity” but, as far as I can tell, it’s utter nonsense. It’s manipulative, in fact. “Let me on the team or I’ll kill myself” is not the great argument they think it is. If these trans individuals are so fragile mentally, that tells me that maybe the affirmative model does not actually work to fix their problems.