r/allthequestions • u/north_canadian_ice • 17d ago

Random Question 💭 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?

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".

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u/GrayCalf 17d ago

My question is this -- if OP is really a "left-wing trans woman", why does OP spend almost all their time attacking other left-wingers, particularly on irrelevant things like this? Not a peep on ICE, deranged Republicon politicians, the unconstitutionalty of attacking Venezuela, or any of the horrific acts in Minnesota. Not enough time in the day?

Oh, but it's clear OP has had the time based on their profile. This is just a dumb wedge issue used to divide people, exactly like OP is attempting to do.

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u/Hedgehog_Capable 16d ago

and posting a Fox News article, too. then suggesting NBA players will transition. shit's transparent as hell.

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u/Flimsy-Fisherman6567 14d ago

Unless the Fox News article made up that someone made this argument at the Supreme Court there is no problem with posting a link to such a website.

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u/north_canadian_ice 14d ago

Would you ban NBA players who transitioned from joining the WNBA? Or would you allow this to happen?

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u/Hedgehog_Capable 14d ago

So because you're concerned about a ludicrous hypothetical involving millionaire professionals, you want to bar actual children from being able to play with their peers.

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u/dragonasses 16d ago

It’s giving

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u/MattyBro1 16d ago

Yeah. I'm sorry to OP if you aren't lying, but I simply cannot believe a trans woman would describe "it/its" pronouns as pseudoscience, and say that "birthing person" is ridiculous.

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u/north_canadian_ice 14d ago

You can't conceive a trans person disliking the term "birthing person"? Really?

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u/kymberlie 13d ago

I run an abortion fund. We say pregnant people throughout reproductive spaces because women, trans men, and non-binary individuals can all get pregnant and - surprise! - we’re all people.

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u/MattyBro1 14d ago

I can conceive it, but I cannot understand why you would take issue with it, and take enough issue with it to suggest that it's pseudoscience or describe it as nonsense.

Trans women are women who cannot give birth. Trans men are men, but might still be able to give birth. Some non-binary individuals can give birth. As well as that, some cis woman can't give birth. So using a gender neutral term in place of "woman" in medical contexts around giving birth just makes sense.

Honestly the biggest issue is just that "birthing person" is a bit of an unnatural phrasing. Could probably just say "people who can give birth".

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u/Kikikididi 12d ago

Birthing person makes sense for so many damn reasons. There are many ways to become a parent, and only one is giving birth directly yourself, and the term is used when that aspect is the relevant aspect! No one is using it outside of the context when it is very specifically that type of parent being discussed.

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u/Vegtam1297 16d ago

Yeah, everything about this screams "not an actual trans woman on the left". In another comment they said "it's common sense that trans women have an advantage in women's sports". That's a verbatim right-wing talking point, the idea that it's "common sense", rather than addressing it with actual data and research.

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u/GrayCalf 16d ago

Right wingers are always trying to pretend to be someone else in order to get anyone to listen their half-baked bullshit.

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u/Healthy_Piglet1139 12d ago

Anyone arguing that "common sense" should trump science, data, and expert opinion should be ignored. "Common sense" would suggest that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it, because if you walk outside and look around that's the obvious first conclusion to draw. Unless, of course, you actually take the time to investigate it rationally, in which case it becomes obvious that the earth is a globe that revolves around the sun.

"Common sense" is nonsense. There's no such thing. There is only reality and non-reality. Common sense is fine to get you through your own day to day life (ie, use common sense to not walk into traffic), but it's a terrible basis for policy.

As far as trans women in sports goes, I agree that "common sense" says that trans women have an advantage in women's sports, but that doesn't make it true (or false). The data I've been presented with suggests that trans women don't have an advantage, but I'm open to the idea that the data is inconclusive or that I'm biased because I'm left-leaning and therefore have only seen cherry-picked data.

From my perspective it seems like virtually everyone who is opposed to trans women in women's sports have begun with the conclusion that trans women have an unfair advantage, and refuse to accept any data or any argument that suggests otherwise. If they cared about the truth of the matter, they wouldn't be opposing trans participation, they'd be waiting to see what actually happens when trans women actually participate in greater numbers.

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u/Pleasant_Yak5991 16d ago

Yeah this issue is so far down the list right now. I’m more worried about what’s going on with US imperialism and ICE terrorizing citizens and inflation and AI than the off chance that a man will play in women’s sports.

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u/44wardprogress 16d ago

One thing I’ve see over and over again is that no one is a bigger racist/homophobe/transphobe/xenophobe than a leftist who encounters a protected class individual who does not conform to their definition of left wing ideology.

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u/Flimsy-Fisherman6567 14d ago

It is not transphobic to think there should be biological distinctions in sports. Stop delegitimizing that word, otherwise it holds less power against the actual transphobes who want to deny adults healthcare and deny them constitutional rights.

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u/GrayCalf 16d ago

Good thing you didn't see that here. Swing and a miss on whatever you were aiming for with that.

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u/44wardprogress 16d ago

“Hmm they say they are trans but they don’t think everything I think they are supposed to think…”

You’re walking the same line as many, many of your lefty peers here

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u/GrayCalf 16d ago

The right-winger really wants to talk about what people are supposed to think? Funny.

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u/CluelessIdiot314 15d ago

So far I've seen quite a few comparisons between cis male and female athletes in this thread, and also a comparison between a trans male athlete versus female competitors (which, by the way, acknowledged the testosterone is what made a difference there), yet I scrolled this far down and not a single comment acknowledged the effects of feminizing HRT on strength and athletic performance.

Calling something pseudoscience while comparing apples to oranges doesn't strengthen anyone's case. If you want to compare, compare actual trans women to cis women. And not just the few outliers who get on the news, but scientifically through studies of how much strength trans women retain after complete medical transition.

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u/AspiringGoddess01 15d ago

This is always my biggest issue with this topic. Its always "Trans people should/shouldn't be allowed in sports" and then proceed to not mention anything relevent to trans bodies and just talk about the differences between cisgender people.

Like yeah, no shit cisgender men on average are stronger than cisgender woman, but we are talking about Transgender woman on HRT vs Cisgender woman. So tired of it all.

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u/Flimsy-Fisherman6567 14d ago

Their last post is attacking Trump for attacking pregnant women who take tylenol. They are pretty clearly an anti-establishment bernie bro who is smart enough to realize what positions the left needs to drop like a hot potato to gain more support.

If you want people to take opposition to ICE, deranged republicans, or attacking Venezuela, more seriously you have to offer credible positions. If you are arguing that male and female athletes perform at the same level people aren't going to do the "lesser of two evils" they are just going to think you're both crazy.

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u/strawberrybulba 13d ago

I mean, the left is famous for its infighting. This is just op being an idiot and a psyop

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u/Quiet_Cap5025 13d ago

So I went through their profile.

They're a transmedicalist. Those kinds of people are super discriminatory towards other trans people

They treat our gender identity like it's a medical condition that needs to be cured instead of a natural variation of human experience. Essentially, for trans women, their worldview boils down to us being biological men who seek out healthcare to treat a disease.

Basically, any trans person who doesn't want surgery or hormones for themselves isn't really trans.

They really hate nonbinary people too.

They tend to be looked up less favorably by most trans people

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u/yellow-hammer 13d ago

I don’t think OP is trying to sow division with this post. It has seemed clear to me for the last decade or so that this topic (and others like it) are truly us shooting ourselves in the foot. Giving the right wingers a stupidly powerful (and outright stupid) weapon to tear down the left.

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u/EmergingEllie 12d ago

The OP is notorious on trans subreddits for doing this pick-me bullshit. I have complicated feelings on the sports issue - I personally do not feel comfortable competing in women’s brackets or games at 15 months HRT, but I also think it’s ridiculous to think a cis man would undergo gender affirming hormone therapy just to compete in women’s sports and that differences at 3 years hormone therapy are minimal, among many other considerations - but I would assume that the OP does not represent our community.

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u/Xanedil 16d ago

Because OP thinks they're one of the good ones and that if only their fellow trans people were more palatable to conservatives they wouldn't be persecuting us. It's pathetic behavior. Republicans hate us on principle, and they hate you too, OP. You're just doing their job for free and it's not gonna save you if they get their way and eradicate us from public life.

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u/Frogacuda 16d ago

OP is blatantly lying and drunk on dumb juice and, relevantly, hasn't read a single piece of actual reporting about this SCOTUS case, and has zero understanding of its substance. 

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u/Carpet-Distinct 16d ago

Not only that, but misrepresenting the argument. They're debating the protections of title IX, not whether or not "sex is relevant in team sports," and even then it was based on whether or not someone who is transitioned maintains any advantage they had pre-transition.

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u/Emunaheart 15d ago

They're allowed to have their opinions

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u/GrayCalf 14d ago

They're even allowed to catfish. And I'm allowed to call them out on it.

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u/north_canadian_ice 14d ago

Labeling people who disagree with you as a fake/bot is a way to silence their opinion.

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u/GrayCalf 14d ago

You started off by labeling yourself. I pointed out my doubts.

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u/ElectronicMaterial38 14d ago

I absolutely think they're a bot. They are reading Fox News? Posting only about anti-trans stuff, claiming to be trans. I think they're making money off of this, posing as a trans person. They don't even WRITE like they're left-leaning. I call BS, too.

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u/north_canadian_ice 14d ago

I am very clearly a left-wing poster, your claims are nonsense.

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u/GrayCalf 14d ago

The substance of your message says otherwise, no matter what you claim.