Let’s learn more about that University of Otago study.

New Zealand researchers say trans athletes have an “unfair” advantage over other women and sport needs to fix binary gender categories.

The advantages trans athletes have over female competitors are considerably large and sport needs to look hard at fairness, along with their inclusion policies, Otago University Associate professor of physiology Lynley Anderson says.

The issue became hot because of Laurel Hubbard.

Male to female trans athletes have been allowed to compete in women’s divisions since 2015 provided their testosterone level does not exceed 10 nanomoles per litre.

However, the average amount of testosterone for a cis female (born female) ranges from .870nmol/L. to 1.7nmol/L – nearly ten times less than that limit.

So it’s kind of like saying we’ll give this group of competitors only a five minute head start.

In a paper published in the BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, Anderson and fellow Otago University researchers, Alison Heather and Taryn Knox, found the 10nmol/L level permitted by the International Olympic Committee was “significantly higher than that of cis-gender women, whose sex and gender align as female”.

Heather, also a professor of physiology, says the rule book needs to change.

“It is ten to 20 times higher than a cis female, so this is one of my major concerns.”

“At the moment we are really targeting inclusiveness for our trans females to compete in a female division and in that aspect we are not considering a fairness issue for cis females.”

“Inclusiveness” is such a manipulative buzzword. I know I’ve said it a billion times, but “inclusion” is not the goal in every circumstance, which ought to be blindingly obvious. Filters, criteria, qualifications are not always and everywhere arbitrary and discriminatory. Separate sports for women are a necessity given the sexual dimorphism of humans.

The New Zealand Olympic Committee stands by its policy around transgender athletes, but welcomes the research.

“The issue of transgender athletes in elite sport is extremely complicated as it requires a balance to be struck between protecting an individual’s human rights and ensuring the field of play remains fair,” a spokesperson told Stuff.

No it doesn’t. There is no “human right” for a male to compete against women, no matter how he identifies.

Heather said the advantages go well beyond a testosterone level test.

A trans athlete has prior exposure to testosterone, which develops larger muscle mass, muscle distribution and even the amount of oxygen the athlete can accumulate.

“All these factors are not considered. We just say your testosterone level is under 10mnol/L. It is still much higher than a cis female and none of the rest is being considered.

“It’s not just your here and now testosterone that matters, there is also prior exposure to testosterone. Testosterone even form a fetus is defining a males brain, a male’s bone structure and lung structure.”

“They have a different bone structure so they are able to put more power in their jumping and anything that involves having to lift something, they have more power in their legs through their knees to hip ratio.”

But inclusion blah blah human right blah blah transphobia blah blah.

I don’t see any changes in the near future.

New Zealand’s own Rachel McKinnon:

History might well record that we reached peak craziness on July 20, 2019. That was when I read a story in the sports pages about a champion New Zealand mountain biker named Kate Weatherly, who was born male but “transitioned to female” from the age of 17.

Weatherly was reported as objecting to a University of Otago study which found, surely to no-one’s surprise, that transgender female athletes have an advantage over rivals who are born female.

Her own record seems to prove the point. According to the story, Weatherly went from being an “average” men’s downhill mountain biker to winning the women’s elite national championship.

Just like McKinnon, and Hubbard, and Miller and Yearwood. Duds as males, stars as females. What a coincidence; how can it possibly be explained?

Weatherly resents being described as transgender and disputes the finding that she enjoys an advantage over her rivals. “I’m not a transgender,” she insists. “I am a woman who happens to be transgender. As a result I want to be able to compete with my fellow women.”

In order to whup them all. I’m sure his fellow women are deeply touched.

It was all coolly set out by one of the authors of the Otago University study, physiology professor Alison Heather, in an in-depth interview for the Stuff website.

Weatherly, who has been having hormone treatment since she was 17, says her testosterone is tested every three months and has never been above 1.4 nanomoles per litre, which is within the average range for “cis” women – those who are born female. The implication is that she enjoys no advantage from having been born male.

But as Heather points out, many of the physical advantages men have over women in sport – such as bigger and different-shaped bones, greater muscle mass, larger hearts and superior oxygen capacity – are formed in the womb and continue to develop through puberty.

Fiddling with testosterone levels doesn’t magically undo all of that.

@UN_Women goes to bat for…men displacing women in sport, I guess.

Trans and intersex athletes often face discrimination in competitive sports, including being banned from events and stripped of their achievements. Let’s show our support and tell the world to #LetThemPlay!

Do they though? When, where?

Maybe trans men are banned from playing US football – the kind that specializes in concussions – for safety reasons? I don’t know, but if that is the case…is it discrimination or is it safety?

But what we’ve been seeing lately is the opposite: men who claim to be women being allowed, and indeed encouraged, to compete against women, using their physical advantages to win all the prizes.

Why is @UN_Women cheering that on?

ADL Pacific Northwest writes:

This weekend, synagogues in the Seward Park community in Seattle were targeted by a white supremacist group with anti-Semitic, racist fliers. This is part of a coordinated effort we are closely tracking in which a white supremacist group is placing anti-Semitic fliers at synagogues and some churches in the Puget Sound and in other communities across the country. Previous fliers have contained anti-Semitic, Holocaust denial language. ADL’s Center on Extremism is monitoring this trend and we are offering support to community leaders. Thank you to the Seattle Police Department for acting swiftly. #NoPlaceforHate

The post included an image:

Note the caption – Daily Stormer.

It’s Donald Trump’s world we have to live in now.

Don’t let anybody tell you Donald Trump has no heart.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he was delaying some tariffs on Chinese imports ahead of the Christmas season to stem their potential impact on holiday shopping.

Awwww. Thanks, Don – now we can shop til we drop to make Baby Jesus happy.

The Trump administration announced hours earlier that it would delay some of the tariffs, originally scheduled to come into effect on Sept. 1, until Dec. 15.

I guess Don suddenly saw a calendar.

That Emma Lazarus, she was all mixed up. We don’t want no stinkin’ huddled masses, we want onntrapranoors! If you can’t afford a two-bedroom condo in Manhattan then gtfo.

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has proposed a new interpretation of the famous welcome that appears on a placard at the Statue of Liberty.

The famous lines, taken from The New Colossus by the 19th-century New York poet Emma Lazarus, read: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

In a radio interview on Tuesday, Cuccinelli offered a change: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”

Then…why are they tired and poor? If they can already “stand on their own two feet,” by which of course he means they “have plenty of money,” then they’re not your tired and poor, are they, they’re your bouncy and rich. I guess the tired and poor have to just stay and rot where they are; we’ve stopped caring.

The catch is that poverty is a goal in this society. Team Cuccinelli doesn’t actually want people in general to have plenty of money, because if they do, they won’t do all the shit jobs that Team Cuccinelli wants them to do. That’s why Trump has lots of tired and poor working for him, including tired and poor with fake papers that other Trump employees told them to get.

Poor people aren’t failing or refusing to stand on their own two feet; they’re failing to make enough money to get by in a very expensive capitalist society. More reasonable capitalist societies make efforts to deal with that problem by subsidizing basic needs – public schools, public housing, health insurance, and the like. They don’t see it as poor people tottering around unable to stand, they see it as a matter of necessity for people on low wages. The Cuccinellis of the world want to go right on paying the low wages while not doing anything to make life possible on that low wage.

On NPR’s Morning Edition, Cuccinelli defended the Trump administration decision to make it harder for migrants to be awarded permanent residence, or a “green card”, if they have ever accepted benefit programs such as food stamps, housing assistance or Medicaid.

Starting in October, decisions on green card applicants will be based on a wealth test, meant to establish if they have the means to support themselves. Poor migrants will be denied if they are deemed likely to use government programs.

Hey they can always pack 20 people into a one-bedroom apartment, right? And work three jobs? That’s standing on your own two feet.

How to needle Trump: buy ad time on Fox News.

On Wednesday, a new ad from Julián Castro will air in which the Democratic 2020 contender will speak directly to Donald Trump. To ensure the president actually sees it, Castro’s campaign has purchased ad time on Fox News, including on Trump’s favorite program, Fox & Friends.

The ad buy in question is reportedly a small one of $2,775 for three spots during the day, to air specifically in Bedminster, New Jersey. The president is expected to be there at his golf club.

Alternating between watching tv and cheating at golf.

“President Trump: you referred to countries as shitholes,” he says in the ad. “You urged American congresswomen to ‘go back’ to where they came from. You called immigrants rapists.”

“As we saw in El Paso, Americans were killed because you stoked the fire of racists,” Castro goes on, referencing the striking overlap between language used by the shooter and the president, who regularly vilifies immigrants with language typically reserved for vermin.

“Innocent people were shot down because they look different from you. Because they look like me. They look like my family.”

So that will be his next tantrum.

There is no such thing as an “authentic self.” Arguably there’s not even any such thing as a “self” – there is instead an illusion of a self that keeps us somewhat organized. Louise Perry explains how the trans movement is chasing unicorns when it talks of transitioning to an Authentic Self.

The core idea of the trans narrative—that we are all possessed of a gender identity, which is more true and authentic than our physical bodies—depends on claims that do not withstand scrutiny. Not only is it unwise to write legislation based on incoherent principles, but it also does real harm to vulnerable people desperate to find themselves. We could spend the whole of our lives waiting for our true and authentic selves to come along. They never will.

The real me is fundamentally an illusion. For some people, it might provide a compelling way to understand certain thoughts and feelings and I don’t doubt that this is how Jazz Jennings sincerely conceives of her identity. It can be a comforting idea, particularly for people who live in oppressive environments that restrict their natural impulses. It is also a useful way of expressing your desires in a society that still holds strongly to the idea of inner authenticity. But it misrepresents the messy reality of our lives, and the ways in which our identities are constantly being shaped by the world around us. Although we all have some innate predispositions, the real me isn’t a fixed entity that we can discover if only we try hard enough. Searching for your true and authentic self is like chasing a shadow. You might focus all of your energies on trying to discover it, only to be ultimately disappointed. The trans narrative promises unhappy people the hope of self-actualisation: “stay true to who you are no matter what, then one day things will get better.” The trouble is, they might not.

There is unfortunately no conclusive evidence that the process of transition (either social or medical) actually alleviates distress in the long term. For some people, living as the opposite sex (or as some non-binary gender identity) can make them feel more comfortable in their own skin, and they should be free to make that choice without fear of stigma. But the increasing number of people flocking to the trans movement—many of them vulnerable young natal females—may well find that the promise of discovering the real me is an empty one. The growing community of detransitioners attest to the long-term suffering and health problems that can result from the decision to transition. Sometimes, searching for your true and authentic self can just make things worse.

What if, instead of obsessing over the search for the real me, we accepted that people are complex, imperfect and ever-changing? What if we faced up to the many and varied reasons why people might feel a desire to transition, and saw the trans movement within its historical context?

Then much foolishness would cease.

Those bastards.

The US government is making drastic changes to how the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is applied. The revisions weaken protections for threatened species, and will allow federal agencies to conduct economic analyses when deciding whether to protect a species.

The changes, finalized by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service on 12 August, are among the most sweeping alterations to the law since it was enacted in 1973.

President Donald Trump’s administration says that these updates will ease the burden of regulations and increase transparency into decisions on whether a species warrants protections. But critics say that the revisions cripple the ESA’s ability to protect species under increased threat from human development and climate change.

Of course they will “ease the burden of regulations,” and by doing so they will augment the burden of threats to endangered species. The goal isn’t and shouldn’t be always to “ease the burden of regulations”; some regulations are important enough that we just have to put up with the burden. It’s a regulation that we can’t murder people, and that regulation is bound to be a burden to people who want to commit murder, but that’s just too bad. It’s a regulation that corporations can’t dump toxins into the nearest river, but there are compelling reasons for such a regulation, burden or no burden.

“These changes tip the scales way in favour of industry,” says Brett Hartl, government-affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group in Washington DC. “They threaten to undermine the last 40 years of progress.”

The attorneys general of California and Massachusetts have already announced their intention to sue the Trump administration over the changes, which they call unlawful.

Yes but it’s burdensome of us to say that Trump can’t do whatever he feels like regardless of the law.

Chief among the changes is the removal of blanket protections for threatened animals and plants.

Until now, any species deemed threatened — a category for organisms at risk of becoming endangered — by the FWS automatically has received the same protections as endangered species. They include bans on killing threatened and endangered species. Now, those protections will be determined on a case-by-case basis, a move which will likely reduce overall protections for species that are added to the threatened list, says Hartl.

The revisions also narrow the scope of those protections. Previously, government officials considered threats that would affect a species in the “foreseeable future”, such as climate change. Now, they have leeway to determine the time period meant by the foreseeable future, and can only consider threats that are “likely” to occur in that time frame. Critics say that this weaker language could allow regulators to ignore threats from climate change, such as rising sea levels, because their effects might not be felt for decades.

And in a third change to the ESA, the Trump administration removed language explicitly prohibiting the consideration of the economic impacts of listing a species.

It’s all about the money.

Emily is 14 years old.

I started playing girl’s lacrosse in 6th grade. Two years ago, I was playing 13U girl’s lacrosse. We traveled to Boulder for two games. One team clearly had two boys on their team – they wore boy’s shorts, had hairy legs, were taller and more muscular than all of us and had much deeper voices. One boy was a defender and one was the goalie. The goalie was twice as big as any of the girls.

Guess which team won.

We were very upset that their team clearly had two boys. There was almost a fight on the sidelines between the parents of our two teams. The goalie made a save and one of our dads said, “Great save by a boy!”. The parents of the other team yelled at him, “You’re insensitive. That’s a girl and her name is Betty”. They squared off, but it did not get physical as one of our moms pulled the angry dad away from the crowd. The Boulder parents were shouting at our dad about how “rude” he was being.

Boulder is woke.

The team with boys won narrowly.

In the parking lot after the game, I was crying – we were all crying – not because we lost, but because we were mad that we had to play a team with two boys on it and that made the game unfair and that we felt powerless to do anything about it.  As a team, together and united, through angry tears, we all vowed we would not play that team again – if we had to face them in the playoffs, we would forfeit the game in a team unity of protest against the CGLA (Colorado Girls Lacrosse Association) allowing an unfair advantage of “transgender girls” to play girls lacrosse.

We didn’t face them in the playoffs, so we didn’t get a chance to protest – but this team won the championship that year – with the two boys on defense.

This is why I, my parents and my brothers, stand with #SaveWomensSports.

Too bad for the team that lost.

Also they’re ratcheting up the actions as well as the rhetoric.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat tweets:

Today’s news that Trump admin is now targeting legal immigrants who use state services warrants a reminder. Authoritarian persecution of state enemies proceeds step by step.

So I look for the news, and find it:

The Trump administration is moving forward with one of its most aggressive steps yet to restrict legal immigration, denying green cards to many migrants who use Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other forms of public assistance, officials said announced Monday.

Federal law already requires those seeking to become permanent residents and gain legal status to prove they will not be a burden to the U.S. — a “public charge,” in government speak —but the new rules detail a broader range of programs that could disqualify them.

It’s part of a dramatic overhaul of the nation’s immigration system that the administration has been trying to put into place. While much of the attention has focused on President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, the new change targets people who entered the United States legally and are seeking permanent status. Its part of an effort to move the U.S. to a system that focuses on immigrants’ skills instead of emphasizing the reunification of families.

In other words poor people need not apply.

The acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, said the rule change fits with the Republican president’s message.

“We want to see people coming to this country who are self-sufficient,” Cuccinelli said. “That’s a core principle of the American dream. It’s deeply embedded in our history, and particularly our history related to legal immigration.”

The hell it is. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Remember? That’s deeply embedded in our history too.

It’s one more step.

The NY Times researched the overlap between the race-baiting jargon of Trump and Fox News bullies, and the various racist massacres of the past few years. There’s a lot of it.

To single out one item from a long piece…

Rush Limbaugh issued a grim prognosis to his millions of radio listeners: if the immigrants from Central America weren’t stopped, the United States would lose its identity. “The objective is to dilute and eventually eliminate or erase what is known as the distinct or unique American culture,” Mr. Limbaugh said, adding: “This is why people call this an invasion.”

But that’s an illusion. The idea that there’s such a thing as “the distinct or unique American culture,” and that Rush Limbaugh knows what it is, and that it’s a permanent, static, unchanging thing is an illusion, and a damn silly one at that. What culture? Which one? The Sioux, the Cherokee, the Tlingit? The one in and around Santa Fe in the 17th century? Slave culture? Gullah culture? Mississippi Delta culture? Cajun? Lower East Side? The Heights? Chicago? Detroit?

We know what he thinks he means – white people, men mostly, plus their shadowy wives, speaking Murkan English the way he, Limbaugh, speaks it, and growing up reciting The Pledge at school every day, going to church (Protestant) every Sunday and getting misty-eyed when The National Tune is played before every football game. That culture.

But that culture isn’t universal or eternal and it sure as hell doesn’t represent all there is to this country. It’s a big place with a very messy history, and it’s not capable of having one simple monoculture. The culture has never stood still, and even Limbaugh wouldn’t want it to have. Just for a start, where would he be without the culture of shock jock radio and screaming angry white guys?

Now wait just a damn minute.

FiveThirtyEight has campaign advice, which is one of my least favorite genres of post or article or book or any other item of communication. But in addition to that…whaaaaaaaat?

Some voters are plainly worried about whether a woman can defeat President Trump in 2020. But maybe they shouldn’t be.

This might seem like a strange argument to make — after all, I recently wrote an article outlining the many challenges that women face when they run for office. But the thing is, men can also be hurt by some of those same stereotypes, and while the bar is higher for women, men also need to convince voters that they’re strong, decisive and assertive enough for the job. What’s more, gender is likely to be a defining issue in the 2020 race even if the Democrats don’t put a woman at the top of the ticket, in part because tough-guy masculinity is so central to how Trump campaigns and how he governs.

Excuse me? Bozo the Clown projects “tough-guy masculinity”? Are they serious? The ridiculous goldy hair that flaps in the breeze? The baggy suit on the puffy lazy body? The brazen, copious cheating at golf? The tiny boneless hands making their two pathetic meaningless gestures? The fake tan? The whiny tweets? The compulsive talk talk talking? The ignorance, the clumsiness, the vulgarity, the general absurdity and grotesquery of him? That projects tough-guy masculinity? I don’t think so. Bullying, yes, noise, yes, bad manners, yes, but do those really add up to tough-guy masculinity?

I say no.

Not Donald Trump

Last December I did a post about Julia Beck, a lesbian feminist who was pushed off the Baltimore LGBTQ Commission’s Law and Policy Committee at the behest of a “trans lesbian.”

Last night she and her lover were kicked out of a Baltimore bar. She tells the story in a public Facebook post:

Tonight me and my lover were kicked out of Ottobar. We were drinking beer, talking, kissing, and dancing- having a good time! Suddenly two staff members approached us on the dance floor, one woman and one man. The woman said we had to leave but did not explain why. The man took my friend’s beer can from her hands and crushed it while staring her down. We asked many times why two lesbians would be unwelcome in a so-called “safe space”. The only reason we were given was that I made people feel unsafe.

We held each other and refused to leave. Staff members pushed us off the dance floor and threatened to call the police. Another male staff member joined the fray and compared me to David Duke (KKK) because I “dehumanized trans people” on Fox News.

Women near us were severely confused, asking us and the staff members what is happening. One woman said the only people making others feel unsafe were the male staff members physically pushing us for no apparent reason. The owner of Ottobar approached us and personally asked us to leave. We explained to her that we had not engaged with anyone but each other and the bartenders. How could our joyous existence be perceived as a threat?

After ten minutes of protesting this unfair treatment, we left the bar. One woman who had seen the entire ordeal said she and 15 other women left the bar in solidarity. Another woman outside the venue said she overheard my crime was transphobia and putting up stickers. We engaged in a sensible conversation about male violence until the owner approached us again and said we could not be within 50 feet of the bar.

I am curious to know how my presence, my mere lesbian existence, could ever make anyone feel unsafe. What is wrong with two women talking, drinking beer, or grooving on the dance floor? To quote Sonia Johnson, only “men in weakness” are threatened by women standing, drinking, dancing, loving in our power. Viva las Lesbianas ⚢

Time was, presidents didn’t promote wack conspiracy theories out in the open where everyone could see. Now, however…

Trump shared a tweet and video from conservative comedian Terrence Williams that claimed without evidence that former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — Trump’s 2016 presidential election rival — were responsible for Epstein’s death. The Federal Bureau of Prisons and Attorney General Bill Barr said Epstein died in an “apparent suicide” while in federal custody.

As a result of Trump’s retweet, the video received more than 3 million views on Twitter by Sunday morning — more than triple Williams’ most recent videos. Both Trump and Bill Clinton were friendly with Epstein in previous decades, but Trump seized on the conspiracy theory Saturday in his latest dig at the Clintons.

Because something something the base something deplorables.

Trump’s tweet promoting the conspiracy theory came about an hour after Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio warned of the dangers of spreading partisan conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death.

“Scrutiny of how #Epstein was able to commit suicide is warranted,” Rubio tweeted. “But the immediate rush to spread conspiracy theories about someone on the ‘other side’ of partisan divide having him killed illustrates why our society is so vulnerable to foreign disinformation & influence efforts.”

White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox News Sunday defending the President. “I think the President just wants everything to be investigated,” Conway said when asked about Trump’s controversial retweet.

Right, uh huh, yes, that’s the way to make sure everything is investigated – retweeting a wild claim by a comedian. I’m sure the FBI is pursuing that hot lead at this very moment. Thanks, Mister President!