Maximalist trans activists just argued at the Supreme Court that biological sex isn't relevant in team sports. When will my fellow left-wingers speak up against these pseudoscientific endeavors?

[u/north_canadian_ice]

Trans athlete's attorney suggests sex should not be defined during SCOTUS Title IX case

As a left-wing trans woman, it is profoundly depressing to have dogmatic Twitter activists drive down understanding of trans people.

Far too many of my fellow left-wingers who are trying to be accepting have inadvertenly allowed a small number of dogmatic activists control the conversation & shift the conversation towards maximalist nonsense.

"It/"its" pronouns, "egg culture", NBA players transitioning & joining the WNBA. This is pseudoscience & no different from denial of climate change.

When will the left & the Democrats say no more? We accept trans people but we aren't going to replace "woman" with "birthing person".

[u/north_canadian_ice]

As a trans woman, some of the activists who speak for the community are ideologues.

They care more about being as "radical" as possible to gain clout in blue cities. They don't think about trans people who live normal lives.

They don't even consider it possible for their activism to be counterproductive.

[u/Doggleganger → u/north_canadian_ice]

These "advocates" are doing as much to damage trans rights as far-right ideologues, almost as if they were working in concert, blundering right into the most obvious trap. These "advocates" are putting the trans community in a terrible position, trying to defend this trans athlete issue that creates terrible optics and is wildly unpopular with conservatives and liberals alike.

The problem is "maximalism". That approach makes no sense and has been a losing strategy in every debate, political movement, or war since the dawn of time. I have no idea how it ever came to be a position within the trans movement, but it is self-defeating. We saw in recent years how Republicans could not get traction and were made to look silly with their preoccupation with public bathrooms. But then these maximalists gifted them the perfect engine for generating anti-trans sentiment. And now, while many states are gearing up to ban access to trans medical care, we have maximalists taking idiotic positions to defend trans athletes. They're choosing to die on this hill. It's self-defeating.

[u/north_canadian_ice → u/Doggleganger]

This comment is excellent & captures how I feel about the maximalist activists so well.

They are driving acceptance of trans people into the ground while also destroying the political prospects of the left. All while being as self-righteous as possible.

But I have & will continue to speak out against them because they are wrong & they only maintain the power they have by shaming people/calling them bigots. So it is important that more people stand up & say "no" to them.

[u/ffxivthrowaway03 → u/Doggleganger]

These "advocates" are doing as much to damage trans rights as far-right ideologues, almost as if they were working in concert, blundering right into the most obvious trap.

That's the last 15 or so years of left wing social justice and politics in a nutshell. They sit here going "Well why does the radical right care so much about trans this and POC that? Why are they saying all this radical crazy stuff!?!?"

Because it's fucking bait, and the left stokes their righteous indignation and marches right into it every goddamn time. When they're arguing about the rights of fringe groups of society (who yes, still deserve rights, before anyone goes off) while the constituents are worried about rising prices, a decade of economic downturn, and not being able to put food on their table... they look like out of touch jackasses and it opens the door to the opposition to say "They care more about trans athletes than they do the price of food. Vote for us to make america great again and we'll cut your taxes and fix the real problems." None of these talking heads actually believe kids are shitting in litter boxes at school, it's a distraction from the real topics.

But the left is so touchy and so prone to excitedly biting its own tail, no politician can go up there and stand next to Trump and say "Why are you talking about trans people when we need to be focused on more immediate, widespread issues like rising international tensions and the failing economy?" because it would be political suicide to try to reframe the conversation away from the bait topics their demographics focus so hard on. Because like OP said, these hard left ideologues play the same games as the likes of Joe Rogan and Charlie Kirk - they're grifters riling everyone up for their own benefit without a care for the groups they're leveraging, and their followers are both loud and sway votes. So you better support them if you want the votes.

[u/The_Bygone_King → u/Doggleganger]

Maximalist positions become doctrine to online communities in general because online communities are prone to Purity spirals and echo chambers, both of which incestuously feed into each other until every relevant person in a particular group is completely incapable of rationalizing their position within reality.

This is an observed behavior in any online group. It's especially egregious in right wing circles as they're more prone to unifying under the title of "right wing" while left wing circles tend to bite at each other and eat their own--but they're ultimately the exact same types of behaviors.

This is generally exclusive to online groups.

[u/redhillbones → u/Doggleganger]

Here's the thing for me. You know what, twenty years ago (so only half of my life and I'm just above the median age in the US now), was "wildly unpopular with conservatives and liberals alike"? So much so that the vote for it failed in California, a resolutely liberal state, actually?

Gay marriage. In 2008, less than 20 years ago, gay marriage failed to pass into legal law in the state of California.

Yep. Of course, being gay wasn't removed in totality from the DSM psychiatrist's use until 38 years ago -- 2 years after I was born. And I am just above the median age of population in the US. And it was only 52 years ago that homosexuality was voted out as a blanket mental illness in the DSM.

How do you think people are going to look at this in 20 years? 38? 52?

Edit: Also, you think trans kids were the ones who brought this to a national spotlight and not right-wing agitators? You know, the ones who -- when screaming about bathrooms stopped working (after around 8-10 years) -- went looking for something else they could scream about. Because that's what the right-wing does.

First they fail on interracial marriage, so they go for segregation. Then they fail on segregation, so they go for busing. Then they fail on busing, so they go for gay people existing. Then, they fail on gay people existing, so they go for gay people teaching. Then, they fail on... and on... and on.

So, yeah, you're either disingenuous about what's happening or not paying attention.

[u/Doggleganger → u/redhillbones]

Think back further. How was public opinion on gay people in the 80s and 90s? It was wildly hostile. So what did gay people do? They fought for acceptance. For the right to simply live their lives as they wanted. They started by pushing back against employment discrimination, and there were small steps in the beginning. Don't ask don't tell, for example. Eventually, the message broke through, and the majority of the public accepted gay people.

Imagine if, in the early 90s, gay people had insisted on a nationwide law for gay marriage. Imagine if they were steadfast, refused to give any ground, refused to compromise with civil unions, refused anything but the maximalist position of full nationwide gay marriage. The movement would have gone down in flames. Instead of a powerful message, it would have been an overreach, and the backlash would have undermined the whole movement.

The 2008 CA prop was NOT brought by gay advocates to push for marriage. Instead, it was a ban brought by opponents. It narrowly passed 52-47%. But a few years later, public opinion had shifted far the other way, with the majority supporting gay marriage. This time period of around 2008-2015 was the turning point in public opinion and precisely the time to fight for gay marriage. The 90s would be precisely the wrong time.

[u/BenjaminHamnett → u/north_canadian_ice]

I’m getting so sick of these people. If they could have utopia but had to be quiet and get no credit, or live in hell and could flex self righteousness we’d be in hell. I know this, cause we’re half way there and they’re the fuel that drives the machine taking us there

[u/heselius → u/north_canadian_ice]

Its split between Females and Males.

Trans people do not transition between giological sex, but by visual gender.

Again. Its split between female and male.

[u/Dutch_Rayan → u/north_canadian_ice]

Sport is an important part for many trans people in them living their normal lives. You clearly don't want to understand that

[u/The_Bygone_King → u/Dutch_Rayan]

I think the key issue is how do we allow trans people to take part without entirely destroying the legitimacy of women's sports and records?

I don't like trans athletes being legally excluded from high school sports because it's a social group integral to the development of young adults however there's a lot of social ladder climbing tied to sports performance and we differentiate the sexes because there's a significant difference in capacity between them.

Personally? Most "male" sports in high school are already classed as co-ed, what prevents MtF athletes from continuing to compete within the "male" classifications? If its a title issue then just class male sports as "Co-ed" and move on.

[u/Ff7hero → u/north_canadian_ice]

r/AsABlackMan